As this book is being written, new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (ai) are challenging governance systems world-wide,1 and most countries are in difficulties from economic stresses compounded by climate change. Financing for development and financing to turn around global warming are in short supply.2
The number of democratic countries is declining and populist governments are in place in important countries such as Hungary, India, Poland and, previously under Trump, in the USA. The international political arena is in turmoil.
Artificial Intelligence may be able to help with schooling and health, but may take away jobs, and may pose other problems to the functioning of democracy and the rule of law.3
Numerous people, world-wide, are experiencing poverty and extreme poverty. The debate over implementation of the right to development, until now, has been on international transfer of resources, rather than on national implementation of the right. Consequently, there is no evidence that the right to development has so far helped to reduce poverty, meet basic needs, or alleviate the plight of the poorest.
The National Institutions on human rights that exist are operating in many instances under duress. They can help national governments think through strategies for dealing with the contemporary dynamics but there is little evidence that they are doing so or are being encouraged, or allowed to do so.
Like the UN human rights treaty bodies, the Universal Periodic Review (upr) process should be promoting the emplacement of adequate and effective national human rights protection systems in every UN Member State.
As Mexico did in 2004, every country could, in cooperation with the UN, helpfully do a national diagnosis of historical factors that have affected the national enjoyment of human rights with a view to developing strategies for the future.5 There is little evidence of this happening. Every country could also usefully have in place a national prevention system, as recommended by sg Kofi Annan, but there are few of these.
So, the question may reasonably be posed: are we operating in outdated mode? And, does UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ Common Agenda, his Call to Action on human rights, or his New Agenda for peace show the way forward? We shall be mindful of this question during the course of this book.
Let us recall that the idea of human rights has evolved along with human history and crystallized around the time of the establishment of the United Nations in 1945. Since then, great strides have been made in codifying and progressively developing it, in striving to implement it world-wide, and in using it to inspire change for good in the lives of humanity.
The journey of striving has not been without problems, and indeed, even in our time, the idea of universal human rights is challenged still by powerful governments. And now, the human rights cause is called upon to navigate epochal changes such as climate change, environmental devastation, dramatic scientific and technological developments, and mass movements of people across borders in search of safety, security, and life chances. Humans are even contemplating the need to expand their habitat to outer space.
Without a doubt, contemporary civilization is called upon to contemplate and address new dimensions of human rights challenges. The changes before us are quite different from those that the learned Zbigniew Brzezinski addressed in his 1996 article for Ethics and International Affairs on New Dimensions of Human Rights.
We are now called upon to understand and to ground ourselves in the historical and philosophical processes that led to the development of the idea of human rights. This is important because identification of the law-creating processes and law-determining agencies that gave us international human rights norms can now help us determine how the international human rights regime of the future might be able to address the changes that are upon us.
Back here on Earth, we will still have to deal with the Chinese claim that its civilization is unique and does not embrace the idea of universal rights. Or the Russian claim that it is a unique ‘civilizational country’ not under the regime of universal human rights. And India’s assertion that it is a civilizational country of Hindus.
How are we to make sense of all of this? That is the idea behind this book: to help understand the new dimensions of human rights challenges.
See on this, Camilla Cavendish, “Humanity is sleepwalking into a neurotech disaster”. The Financial Times, 4–5 March 2023, p. 9. Cavendish writes: “[A] new challenge is coming: how to protect our brain data. Investment is pouring into ‘neurotechnology’, which can record and analyse electrical impulses from the nervous system. Brain-computer interfaces offer tremendous benefits, such as aiding the recovery of stroke patients and reducing episodes of epilepsy … The neuroscientist Nina Farahany, in her new book, The Battle for Your Brain: defending the right to think freely in the age of neurotechnology, … predicts a world in which ai and neuroscience combine to invade our mental privacy. … Farahany believes that neurotech is set to become a ‘universal controller’ of all our interactions with technology.”
See on this, Financial Times, London, The ft View: “Helping poorer countries fund the climate transition”, 27 June 2023, p. 16.
Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, Power and Progress. Our Thousand Year Struggle over Technology and Prosperity. London, Basic Books, 2023.
See on this, Bertrand Ramcharan, Gianni Magazzeni, Mona M’Bikay and Ines French (Eds.), A Global Handbook on National Human Rights Protection Systems. Leiden, Brill/Nijhoff, 2023.
El Diagnostico, of Mexico, ohchr, 2004.