A driving force in all my work has been to make rights real, close to home – recognizing that to do so often requires shifting action by decision-makers far away.
As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights turns 75, there is renewed reflection on the role that rights play in the world. I keep coming back to similar elements: the need for rights approaches to connect with the language and framing used in specific contexts, the need to recognize the interdependency of the rights of humans with the thriving (or at least surviving) of the planet, the need for rights to engage smartly and strategically with where power lies and how power flows, and the need for abundant creativity.
Power of rights
In a deeply interconnected world, the global framework of rights is a powerful one, asserting in clear terms what human dignity means – in the home, the workplace, the street – and providing the potential for legal pathways at the local, national, regional or international levels to secure that dignity.
And the frame provides opportunities for solidarity through and across constituencies, whether indigenous people’s rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, migrant rights.
Limitations of rights
The limitations lie in the fact that the enforcement and realization of rights rest with those to whom rights claims are made. It’s easy to look at widespread corruption and examples of continued flagrant harm by government or private sector actors – many of which have committed to human rights - to see those commitments as little more than empty promises. The response, perhaps, requires widening the arenas for action: if current systems aren’t working, what are the new systems and strategies that can be built, and how can what is working be expanded?
Potential of rights
To imagine the potential of human rights we can first look back to struggles of the past – from movement-wide action, to actions of individuals within them – to think about how the ongoing project of realizing rights can continue to evolve and advance into the future: a project that can be both political and practical, and that has to be sustained by new forms of solidarity and connection.
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More food for thought, from me and others:
- Earlier It’s Material newsletters: “Human rights are dead – long live human rights” and “Making rights real, close to home”
- Growing momentum towards a “human rights economy”, framed clearly by Center for Economic and Social Rights, and now also by the United Nations
- Open Society Foundation’s “Barometer in Context: Strengthening the Human Rights System”, drawing insights from a poll of over 36,000 people in multiple countries
- And “Dignity by Design: Human rights and the built environment lifecycle” – an example of the practical way in which new lenses on rights, in this case on the roles and responsibilities of decision-makers shaping buildings and infrastructure, can open up pathways to action; and a related session with the UN Rapporteur mandates on the right to housing, health, privacy, and people with disabilities, illustrating the interconnected rights at stake in the built environment