In leading up to Human Rights Day on December
10th, recent news seems to mask any progress: UN-authorized French
troops intervene in CAR in response to the latter’s spiraling bloodshed; the
revelation that the NSA collects 5 billions phone records daily from Americans
and non-Americans alike; and the Libyan parliament passed legislation
recognizing Islamic law as the centerpiece of its country’s laws and
institutions. Not exactly leaps forward in protecting the rights to life, privacy
and personal liberty, respectively.
Because we don’t regularly hear about human
rights triumphs or human rights defenders of celebrity-like status, most of us
miss a crucial progression: human rights situations across the globe have
improved—in some cases dramatically so—over the past several decades, and those
suffering human rights abuses, and their advocates, have never been louder or
better organized.
