Human Rights: Progress, Opportunities, and Challenges

A century ago, as the world sought to recover from the destruction of the First World War, leaders began to deliberate how the global community would address myriad complex issues, including human rights. There was a recognition of the scourge of human rights abuses but only a nascent understanding of what protection might mean. Rightfully, many asked what human rights are, who defines them, and who protects them.

Now, in 2019, the definition has long been codified—albeit still regularly debated. The last century has seen tremendous progress in four areas: establishing norms, creating mechanisms, increasing the type and quantity of actors in this arena, and shaping the global order. Yet significant challenges remain. Mass atrocities continue worldwide, in places like South Sudan, Syria, and Myanmar. Women face abuse of the most fundamental rights on a daily basis. People are bought and sold into slavery in every corner of the world. And the debate about how—or even whether—to address abuses of human rights remains.

A reflection on how and where progress was made sheds some light on new opportunities to consolidate and build on these gains.

In 1918 the world stood aghast at the bloodshed and loss of life following what was then called "the Great War." The signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919 would not only officially end the war, but begin the codification of global norms around key human rights. With the creation of the League of Nations one year later, global leaders sought support for a body that would build global order and peace, promote "fair and humane conditions of (labor) for men, women and children," and empower the League and subsequent organizations to take action in a number of areas, including labor rights and human trafficking.¹

Despite these efforts, these organizations failed to prevent the massive and unfathomable human rights violations and atrocities committed before and during the Second World War. This war forced further reckoning with fundamental human rights and restraint of the state. President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill's 1941 Atlantic Charter articulated not only the two countries' shared war aims, but also, importantly, the countries' clear support for the inherent rights that were being deprived to people globally.² It was an articulation of British and American commitment not only to the values at home, but also to a desire for these rights to be extended globally.

As the war concluded and the world began to comprehend the immensity of the mass atrocities and genocide that had unfolded, global leaders gathered in New York to begin a conversation that was deeply infused with the recognition of the importance of human rights. The founding Charter³ of the newly created United Nations opened with a clarion call for global human rights.⁴

With the UN Charter and—subsequently and notably—the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), a global standard for how to define human rights was set. It was not crafted by all nations, or captured in a binding document, but nonetheless the monumental step toward crafting a global standard was taken. And at the same time, the tension between human rights protection as a global mandate and the respect of national sovereignty as a nation-based right was also deepened.

The creation of the Universal Declaration paved the way for several significant developments that would characterize the next seven decades of human rights efforts.

Norm-Setting and the International Human Rights Infrastructure

The Universal Declaration was just the beginning of what would be a proliferation of human rights–related international documents and provided a comprehensive blueprint for which rights should be recognized and protected. Equally important, it linked inherent dignity and inalienable rights of all people to "the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world" and pledged that the General Assembly shall "strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories...