The Future of Human Rights in a Changing World Order

Dear friends,

It’s a pleasure and an honor to be here at the University of Pretoria and the Human Rights Centre, which has been such a valuable partner for us at the Open Society Foundations, and a center for excellence when it comes to researching the theory and practice of human rights.

We meet in a moment when many are raising questions about the future of human rights. Against a backdrop of escalating violations, and widening impunity, many are forced to ask if the approaches to human rights we have worked with are still adequate, still effective.

Focusing on the future: What is the role of human rights in a shifting global order? What must we defend, what must we reimagine, and how do we ensure human rights remain an effective tool for justice?

These are the questions I am here today to address; to share thoughts for us to take forward, to think about and debate, and to propose new ideas and solutions.

The universality of human rights

When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was being drafted, eight decades ago, there was a disagreement over the very first sentence.

Eleanor Roosevelt, who was leading the process, proposed that Article 1 should say: “All men are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

In principle, it was meant as a statement of equality but excluded more people than it included.

It was language that echoed a narrow history—rooted in the French “Declaration of the Rights of Man,” a document that privileged men, and particularly property-owning men.

It ignored the rights of women, people under French colonialism, and the marginalized.

It was not a declaration of rights, but a set of entitlements, placing some people over others.

This week, as we mark International Women’s Day, it’s fitting to recall Hansa Mehta—the Indian freedom fighter, feminist, and education leader—who challenged Roosevelt’s text, and insisted on a radical revision:

“All human beings,” she insisted, “are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

This simple, yet profound change affirmed the universality of human rights—transcending gender, race, class, and other distinctions. It stands the test of time, inclusive of all people of all identities.

And it affirms the essential idea of universal human rights: whoever we are, wherever we are, we are the same people—and we have the same rights.

Mehta’s vision reminds us that human rights are not western construct, or a mark of superiority, nor some foreign creed imposed by the powerful.

Mehta was a key part of the struggles of her moment. She founded and led the National Women-Workers Group, which organized non-violent, all-women protests against colonial rule. For her campaigning, she was arrested and imprisoned three times.

As the president of the All-India Women’s Conference, Mehta drafted the “Indian Woman’s Charter of Rights and Duties”—affirming human equality, rejecting discrimination, and giving civil and political rights on the one hand, and economic and social rights on the other the same importance.

Civic rights, the rights to education and health, and the right divorce, were all interlinked and interdependent.

Following the Universal Declaration, she worked on the Indian Constitution, enshrining the same rights and freedoms, but also going beyond them.

Mehta wasn’t alone. The Universal Declaration was shaped by voices across the Global South. Shaista Ikramullah, the Pakistani novelist and diplomat, insisted on the prohibition against child and forced marriages. The drafting committee was led by the Lebanese philosopher and diplomat Charles Malik.

When the Declaration was ratified, 34 of the 48 signatory nations were from the Global South. The number could not be larger because so many other nations were yet to win their freedom.

The struggles for human rights

Here in South Africa, at the same time, Ida Mntwana was heading the African National Congress Women’s League. She organized women, leading demonstrations, strikes, and other acts of civil disobedience.

“We know that as women we have many problems which hold us back from taking part fully in the struggle, and it is precisely for that purpose that we have come to break down these problems,” Mntwana said. “Let us come out as a united force, let us take our place in the freedom struggle.”

The apartheid authorities targeted her work. At the Germiston march, which was part of the Defiance Campaign in 1952, the police detained her and 29 other South African women. She was sentenced to 14 days in Boksburg prison.

Like Mehta, Mntwana was one of the drafters of a landmark human rights document: The Freedom Charter.

The process that led to drafting of the Freedom Charter is a vivid demonstration of how human rights are not an gift bestowed from above, but are always born out of struggles from below, from acts of defiance—and from an unyielding belief in our shared humanity.

Mntwana and other activists in the ANC sent out 50,000 volunteers into the townships and the countryside to collect “freedom demands” from the people of South Africa.

When they were laid out together, in a tapestry of hope, they were a set of rights that are essential for people to realize their freedom and dignity everywhere:

• Where the people govern themselves
• Where all national groups have equal rights
• Where the people share in the country’s wealth
• Where all are equal under the law, and all have human rights
• And where there is work, security, learning, culture, housing, peace, and friendship

These aspirations are universal. We find them across time and place, assuming different forms, and emerging out of different struggles.

Whether it was the overthrow of slavery, after long and determined resistance—in Haiti, in Jamaica, in Brazil—including revolts, escapes, and every day acts of defiance.

Or the fights for women’s rights, from Seneca Falls, to the British suffragettes, to Mehta in India, and Mntwana in South Africa.

The movements for national liberation and independence, the movements for LGBTQI+ rights, labor movements, disability rights movements, Indigenous rights movements, the anti-apartheid movement.

Each of these movements were animated by a refusal to accept injustice, sweeping aside the barriers that were designed to hold them back. They imagined a future that recognizes their full humanity—as people equal in rights and dignity.

Threats to human rights.

It is this idea that is under threat in this moment. The universality of human rights are under attack from forces who want to fragment rights, divide rights, and create exclusions to them.

Instead of a world where all people enjoy all rights, all of the time, they are seeking to create a world of some rights, for some people, only some of the time.

Europe was where refugee rights first emerged in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust. The Refugee Convention of 1951 was the response to the cruelty of governments that turned survivors away from their borders. The Convention promised sanctuary to people fleeing persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, or their political views.

The right to asylum is now being eviscerated on the same continent where it was codified. Asylum seekers and refugees in Europe only represent a small fraction of people who flee persecution, war, and other tragedies.

The overwhelming majority of refugees are being hosted by neighboring countries. But one after another, as politics lurches further and further to the right, European governments have demonized people seeking sanctuary as “criminals” and “invaders.”

They have closed their doors, paid off countries to act as border guards in their regions, or a destination for deportations. And they have divided human beings escaping desperate situations, pitting refugees against each other, saying they will welcome them from some countries, but not others.

We are also seeing rights being pitted against each other.

We have seen how far-right movements, conservative religious groups, and populist leaders have repackaged the human rights discourse to justify exclusionary policies.

Women’s rights and the rights of LGBTQI+ people are coming under assault from people who say they are inconsistent with the rights to religious freedom.

The right to free speech is being suppressed on the pretext of the right to security.

And we are seeing people excluded from rights altogether.

In Afghanistan, the cruel misogyny of the Taliban regime has sought to render Afghan women and girls invisible, snatching away from them their rights to work, education, speech, and freedom of movement.

In situations of conflict—in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Gaza, in Sudan, in Ukraine, and elsewhere—we see a deadly disregard for human life.

As if mass killings are just an inevitability; that only some lives are worthy of being grieved; and that civilian protections only apply in some situations.

Human rights in a changing world

The Universal Declaration was placed at the heart of the liberal international order that took shape after the Second World War. The powerful states that presided over the creation of the United Nations and other institutions were entrusted with the promotion and the protection of human rights.

What we see today, however, is those same states dismantling the liberal international order—trampling over its norms, discarding its rules, assaulting the institutions that were created to hold abusive governments accountable, and creating a climate of impunity.

On the UN Security Council, the permanent members are now only divided between states that once championed human rights, but have seen their moral authority depleted over recent years and states that never claimed to champion them in the first place.

At the same time, we are seeing more states—and most of them from the Global South—reaffirming their respect for international law and human rights. Take the votes in the UN General Assembly, where clear majorities have condemned violations of human rights and international law being committed in Sudan, in Ukraine, and in the Middle East.

At the International Court of Justice, to cite one example, more than 100 states are currently involved in human rights-related cases, including South Africa’s notable intervention on Israel and Palestine. They are shifting the human rights and international law framework, forcing it to grapple with new challenges.

A record 97 states—half of the world—are taking part in the advisory proceedings on the international legal and human rights obligations that states have toward the climate—and toward those states that are being devastated by climate change.

These efforts, by a wider range of states—working across continents, creating new forms of solidarity—will be crucial for the protection of human rights and the preservation of international law.

We need new human rights champions, and a new moral imagination. The world that we have known is vanishing, and a new one is yet to appear. In this moment, we have an opportunity to shape what comes, ensuring that human rights are at the heart of this new world.

Revitalizing the human rights movement

To be able to do this—to place human rights at the heart of what comes next—means reckoning with how human rights work is done today and the framework that’s used.

From its beginnings, in the 1960s, the human rights movement has made tremendous strides. It has documented and exposed violations, introduced new norms and laws, and held governments accountable.

It transformed the relationship between the state and the individual.

Under colonial and other forms of authoritarian rule, it was only the state that had rights, and people had duties toward the state.

The powerful breakthrough that the human rights movement made was to invert that relationship: the state has obligations, and the people have rights.

The attacks we see on human rights today seek to reverse this dynamic—with states discarding their obligations, and snatching away rights.

The fight back against these anti-rights forces needs to be smart, robust, and targeted. We need a human rights movement and a framework that’s up to the challenges of this moment.

In many places, and we have to acknowledge this, civil society has drifted away from the communities it seeks to represent and serve.

The demand for rights has not gone away. To the contrary, we see more determined efforts to assert rights.

There is an upsurge in rights violations, for example, on the African continent—attacks on the rights of women and girls, femicide, detention without trial, abductions by state and parastate groups, reported cases of torture, harassment of journalists, judges, lawyers, and human rights defenders.

But there is also an upsurge in the assertiveness of young people and women to affirm and fight for their rights—resisting repressive governments, organizing in new ways, and imagining new rights.

Across the world, social movements, activists, and ordinary citizens—young and old—continue to push back against authoritarian overreach and mobilize for justice. From the streets of Nairobi and Seoul, to the streets of Dakar and Dhaka, the fight for human rights is alive and determined.

As the history of this country, of the anti-apartheid struggle, has shown, wherever there is repression—there is also resistance.

These new movements are where we need to be, the people we must seek out, stand with— and imagine the future together.

A new framework—and imagining new rights

The human rights framework, as it exists, is an impressive collection of rules, norms, and standards.

It took basic human aspirations for justice and dignity and made them universally recognized as rights. The violations of these rights went from being domestic issues that governments could ignore, to matters of international concern—within a binding legal framework.

We see the persistent power of human rights litigation—whether it’s the South African government going to the International Court of Justice, or U.S. lawyers challenging the new administration’s executive orders.

In Kenya, the Law Society and other human rights actors are engaged in demanding justice for those abducted during and after last year’s Gen-Z protests. In Uganda, South Korea, and Senegal, superior and constitutional courts have successfully blocked executive overreach.

But it also has its challenges and weaknesses. It has lacked enforcement mechanisms, with states able to successfully resist pressure.

It had an ambivalence about some rights—seeing civil and political rights as “absolute” in character, but only limiting economic rights to those of basic rights to education, housing, food, and subsistence.

It didn’t tackle inequality—one of the big issues of our moment—only seeking to put a floor under how low the poor can sink, but never a ceiling on how high the rich can rise.

It has long depended on the power and influence of western states, counting on them as global promoters of human rights—a proposition that has become untenable now, with the moral authority of these states waning and the redistribution of power in the world diminishing their influence.

It also hasn’t imagined the rights of the future—a world of complexity and uncertainty, where human rights will be challenged by the intersecting, systemic crises of our time.

Critical shifts

There are six critical shifts that we must make to ensure that human rights are at the heart of our new, emerging world—a force for radical transformation, and not left behind as a hollowed-out ideal of the past.

First, we must ensure that our approach to one that is guided by the demands of communities. This is how, after all, universal human rights emerged—as the work of Hansa Mehta and Ida Mntwana shows us.

Too often, the human rights movement has been criticized for being elitist, for being disconnected from the realities of those it seeks to serve.

We must invest in grassroots movements, in communities and individuals at the coal face of the fights for human rights—amplifying the voices that exist at the margins of traditional civil society and ensure that our strategies are rooted in the lived experiences of those at the frontlines.

Second, we need to modernize our methods and make them more relevant—move beyond legal and technical ways of seeing human rights, distant from rightsholders, or standardized reports, conferences, and performative tweets. We need to move driving real, tangible change. Is the human rights movement in its current form truly capable of disrupting and shifting power, or has it become part of the machinery that sustains the status quo?

Third, we need to embed an intersectional analysis—one that connects race, gender, indigeneity, and class struggles. People do not see these struggles as separate and distinct in the way that the human rights movement often has, nor do they see human rights as limited to those of the individual. This is a moment when we need to make rights relevant to the complexities of people’s struggles for justice and dignity.

Fourth, the future of human rights depends on advocating not only for those living today, but also for generations to come. Our human rights discourse must extend beyond the immediate and confront the existential threats shaping the world we will leave behind. The degradation of the environment, the accelerating impacts of climate change, the risks of nuclear conflict, and the unchecked rise of artificial intelligence (AI) all demand a more forceful and forward-looking response.

Fifth, linked to this, we must acknowledge that the future will largely be in a digitized realm, almost unrecognizable from the world that existed at the time of the Universal Declaration. Just as we have escalated global efforts around climate change and environmental justice, we must now do the same for digital rights and protections.

Technology has and is rapidly reshaping societies, yet our human rights frameworks are struggling to keep pace. Mass surveillance, algorithmic bias, digital censorship, and the monopolization of online spaces by powerful entities are threatening freedoms, deepening inequalities and silencing dissent.

Digital justice must be a core pillar of human rights advocacy. Stronger privacy protections, equitable internet access and transparent AI governance are essential to securing human rights in the digital age—including for children who will be entering this world of digital vulnerability.

Lastly, we must invest in movement building and transnational solidarity as a way to resist anti-rights agendas. No country, activist or organization can fight these battles alone. We need Global South alliances that are relevant to the new world we are entering—to develop new institutions and bold strategies to meet our demands and the challenges of our time and beyond.

There is no straight line to human rights work. There are no clear, smooth, or predictable paths of progress. Instead, there are often obstacles, setbacks, distractions, and defeats.

The work of human rights is never complete. Even when success is achieved, and feels secure, it can quickly be reversed.

But this isn’t a moment to backdown, or retreat, or fall into despair. It is a time to renew our commitments to human rights and make them relevant to the moment we are in.

As Ida Mntwana urged us, “Let us unite, let us go forward with courage and determination.”

Thank you.