International human rights law comes with a lot of jargon attached to it. There’s the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social, and Cultural rights. And then there are countless more protocols, conventions, and councils.
Although these conventions and documents are all a testament to the sheer power of words, they aren’t what make people passionate about human rights. Well, perhaps that’s a blanket statement: that’s not what makes me tick. True, I am taken with law because it imbues language with an almost mysterious authority. It gives words the capacity to be universally applicable and respected – gives them the ability to save lives. That is truly powerful.
But beyond this, what makes me tick, what makes me addicted...is something deeper. It’s not just human rights, but human nature. When you begin to learn about human rights issues, you begin getting at the very core of what makes us all “human”….but also, you start encountering things that you can’t even believe exist in human nature. You begin to slowly strip away what makes up the reality you believed in; the reality that makes up our privileged lives right now. And you start realizing that human nature is far more frightening than what you previously believed. Or at least, I felt this way.
What simultaneously fascinates and angers me is the fundamental question: how can people do such unimaginably horrible things to fellow human beings? A year ago, I began reading about the Rwandan genocide, and the question still haunts me. Forget lack of education, forget mass hysteria, forget following orders from above – bottom line, how can genocide even happen? How can a person kill without thinking twice? And how can it happen over and over again, without anyone stopping it – even when the signs are clearly beneath our noses? How can leaders so easily commit war crimes and leave destruction in their wake? But these things happen in everyday life too. How can police forces lock up a poor bicycle thief and then torture him to force an interrogation? Forget training of the police forces – how can anyone purposely cause suffering like that? Isn’t there some shred of basic humanity that prevents this?
The truth is, it’s downright scary and shocking to read and think about these issues. That’s why eventually you can become passive when talking about genocide and war crimes. After a while you have to go numb to it, otherwise there’s no way you can ponder these issues on a daily basis. Otherwise you simply lose faith in humanity.
But at the end of all this questioning, I don’t want to lose my faith. Despite reading about the world’s worst atrocities, I want to believe in the inherent good in people. That’s what addicts me to this field, and even though I haven’t gone far yet, I hope to assist in finding solutions. I want to help figure out how we can stop basic violations of human rights, and I want to believe that human nature really isn’t that bad. That we are all just products of our environment, and that if we can establish solid rule of law and robust institutions, we can change this. Deep down I already know this is true. I just have to confirm it to myself through this work.
I want to work towards this just so I can have more hope. You might think that I’m idealistic because I want to contribute to these causes. But the truth is, I started out cynical, wondering how the world could be this way. But I have no illusions about my own capabilities — I know I’m not going to change things overnight. In fact, I know that despite immense hard work, it’s possible I still may not be able to do much. The world is a hard place…and it’s hard to improve. Still, I think I do retain a deep sense of hope — hope that I can contribute in some way, however small. And hope that I’ll figure things out as I go along. Hope that I’ll confirm that humanity may very well be inherently good…but that we ourselves, through our everyday actions, have brought about the world we live in. And for that reason, hope that it is possible to change the reality of our world.
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