Director’s Notebook #39
Righting Wrongs and Wronging Rights
By Peter J. Hoffman, Director of GPIA
The development of human rights represents one of the all-time great political-legal accomplishments, recognizing protections for all and holding violators to account. There have been historic moments of reaching agreements on rights, but also times of travesty, when the notion has been dismissed outright, or the concept is manipulated to serve other interests. This weekend was the 75th anniversary of two milestones in the struggle for human rights: On December 9, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and on December 10, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. I find that particular sequence of agreements signed in the 1948 window of human rights very telling: As the Cold War world unfolded and East-West diplomacy became ossified, and what was then known as the Third World (now usually referenced as the Global South) was building toward decolonial fervor, the world was not just debating human rights but seemingly coming to a consensus, and the right that they first started with was the most basic, the most obvious in the wake of the Holocaust and World War II horrors, not to be subjected to genocide. Before we had a multitude of human rights covering everything from political participation to socio-economic well-being, the world first agreed to a promise of “never again” to genocide.
The 75th anniversaries feel hollow. Human rights abuses persist and, far too frequently, are not only unrecognized but unpunished. It is easy to be frustrated, why have this architecture if no one abides it? However, the historical record for human rights may surprise and inspire you. While it’s certainly true that we are in a dark period for human rights, the trajectory can change. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Personally, I am not as convinced of the inevitability “towards justice” part, but I do believe that the moral universe “bends.” Indeed, it can and has been bent toward injustice for much of history as seen in a variety of rights tropes that informed racism, sexism, colonialism, and imperialism. The point is, what can those who are committed to human rights do to bend the moral universe back toward justice amid the current global situation?
The key is to get rights right. By that, I mean having candid conversations about what human rights means and the implications of that meaning. It is a fundamental guarantee to acknowledge more than just basic needs. Still, it includes social and political essentials such as dignity, and that each is entitled to these protections simply by being human. Human rights are a standard, but using them as an expedient discourse to praise your allies or castigate your enemies is wrong. It is also wrong to ignore inequalities in levels of access to human rights for various peoples—that the scale and nature of human rights violations vary must be acknowledged. And, if the order of the signing of the Genocide Convention and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights says something, it is that agreement that protection from genocide and mass atrocity crimes was an important precursor to all human rights. Moreover, also contributing to the wronging of rights is preaching them while turning a blind eye to how human rights violations are usually connected to global structural factors, and there are chains of abetting and complicity. If we are going to bend the arc of the moral universe, here is a pressure point: to make human rights meaningful, there is an important role to be played in applying those universal standards in documenting violations and mapping out those chains. Global citizens must focus on human rights violations and how they are made possible.
In this particular moment, as we move from 2023 to 2024, consider the magnitude of human rights challenges at hand. Aside from the most pronounced such as those seen in mass atrocities in Israel-Palestine, Sudan, and Ukraine, there is a tragic abundance of forgotten crises that cry out for recognition and activism to address. There are also a host of new human rights frontiers to confront, from climate change to artificial intelligence.
The Graduate Programs in International Affairs is a space to support you. We are here to galvanize and realize your interest in human rights, to help you learn how in practice to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice, and to find a career path that enables you to do so. GPIA trains human rights champions.
Please join me in celebrating 6 more who are heading out to take up the mission of building a more just world. Congratulations to the GPIA class of December 2023:
- Zack Chaqor
- Jeff Cifre
- Lucas Gioiosa
- Kyuma Gumaa
- Jherna Kaul
- Justis Peppers
The Spring 2024 semester starts in about a month. Please note some important calendar dates:
- Monday, January 22: Start of Spring 2024 classes
- Wednesday, January 24, 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm: International Field Program + United Nations Summer Study 2024 Information Session
- Monday, February 19: President’s Day (The New School is closed)
- Monday, March 11-Sunday, March 17: Spring Break
- Tuesday, May 14: GPIA Capstone presentations
- Thursday, May 16: Schools of Public Engagement recognition ceremony
- Friday, May 17: New School Commencement
I wish you a tranquil break and New Year, and I look forward to seeing you next month.
PETER J. HOFFMAN
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR