World Report 2024 – Events of 2023 – World

This 34th annual World Report summarizes the human rights situation in more than 100 countries and territories around the world in 2023.

This reflects extensive investigative work conducted by Human Rights Watch staff during the year, often in close collaboration with domestic human rights defenders.

Human rights systems under threat: A call to action

Tirana Hassan
Managing director
Download an easy-to-read version of the keynote essay

One need only look at the 2023 human rights agenda to see what we need to change in 2024. It was a frightening year not only for human rights repression and wartime atrocities, but also for selective government outrage and transactional diplomacy that had serious consequences. Costs associated with the rights of persons not participating in the contract. But amidst the darkness, there are signs of hope that point to the possibility of another path.

Renewed hostilities between Israel and Hamas and in Sudan have caused great suffering, as have ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Myanmar, Ethiopia and the Sahel region. Governments struggled to cope with the hottest year on record and an onslaught of wildfires, droughts and storms that devastated millions of people in Bangladesh, Libya and Canada. Economic inequality has widened around the world, and anger has grown over policy decisions that have left many people struggling to survive. The rights of women, girls, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people faced severe backlash in many places, as exemplified by the Taliban’s gender persecution in Afghanistan.

The causes and consequences of these human rights crises often transcend national borders and cannot be resolved by governments acting alone. Understanding and responding to these threats must be rooted in the universal principles of international human rights and the rule of law. These ideas are based on our common human history, when countries from all regions agreed 75 years ago in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the basis of all modern human rights treaties and treaties.

This foundation is needed now more than ever. But the very system we rely on to protect the human rights of people around the world is under threat. Every time a government ignores or rejects these universal, globally accepted principles, someone pays the price with freedom, liberty, health, livelihood, and sometimes life.

Governments that have the potential to play a role in supporting human rights improvements frequently employ double standards when applying human rights frameworks, which undermines confidence in the institutions responsible for enforcing and protecting rights. is damaged. While loudly condemning the Israeli government’s war crimes against civilians in the Gaza Strip, it remains silent on the Chinese government’s crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and downplays accountability for past U.S. abuses in Afghanistan. , a government that calls for international prosecution of Russian war crimes in Ukraine weakens its belief in justice. The universality of human rights and the legitimacy of laws enacted to protect them.

In transactional diplomacy, governments ignore the interests of long-term relationships built on human rights principles in order to achieve immediate, short-term trade or security gains. Which obligations governments choose to enforce perpetuate injustice now and in the future against those whose rights have been sacrificed, and extend the reach of repression to governments that violate human rights. There is a possibility. The moral foundations of international human rights require consistency and solidity.

Governments find it easier to ignore human rights issues on the international stage, in part because the international community does not challenge human rights violations within their own countries. With the same end goal in mind: the exercise of unfettered power, dictators everywhere have worked to erode the independence of key institutions essential to protecting human rights and reduce the scope for dissent.

But just as these threats are interconnected, so too is the power of the human rights framework to deliver on its promise to protect people’s freedom and dignity, regardless of who they are or where they live. is. The protection of human rights is making progress on many fronts.

After three years of diplomatic negotiations and a decade of campaigning by civil society organizations, 83 countries have adopted a political declaration to better protect civilians from the use of explosives in populated areas during armed conflicts. This international commitment is based on the long-standing practice by warring parties of using airstrikes, artillery, rockets, and missiles against villages, towns, and cities, which is the leading cause of civilian casualties in armed conflicts around the world. This is the first time that we have formally tackled this issue.

The Convention not only promotes compliance with the laws of war, but also obliges signatories to adopt policies and practices that prevent and respond to harm. Six of the world’s top eight arms exporters (the United States, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and South Korea) and 25 of the 31 NATO members adopted the declaration.

Many countries addressed the rights of long-marginalized communities. After years of civil society pressure, Japan’s parliament has passed the first law protecting LGBT people from “unfair discrimination.” Nepal’s Supreme Court has directed authorities to recognize same-sex marriages while hearing a case seeking full marriage equality rights. In Mexico, civil society coalitions persuaded Congress to establish full legal capacity and the right to supported decision-making for everyone over the age of 18, and to protect millions of people living with disabilities and Although it passed a law benefiting the elderly, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that Congress must: Eliminating federal criminal penalties for abortion would mean that all federal medical facilities would provide abortion care.

Human rights and humanitarian crises have brought about, among other things, the selective anger of governments, transactional diplomacy for short-term gains, increasing transnational repression, and the willingness of autocratic leaders to sacrifice rights to consolidate their power. .

However, this is no basis for abandoning the human rights framework. The human rights framework remains a roadmap for building prosperous and inclusive societies. Governments must respect, protect and defend human rights with the urgency, vigor and tenacity necessary to confront and address the global and existential challenges that threaten our common humanity.