Ukraine Shows What Unity on Human Rights Can Achieve

From Ukraine to China to Afghanistan, 2022 proved that unchecked authoritarian power leaves behind a sea of human suffering. But 2022 also revealed a fundamental power shift that opened the way for all concerned governments to protect and strengthen the global human rights system—especially when the actions of the major powers fall short or are problematic.

The last year was replete with examples of world leaders cynically trading away human rights obligations and accountability for abusers in exchange for short-term political wins. Take, for example, then-U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden’s principled pledge to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state—which was followed, once he was in office, by his bro-like fist bump with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in an effort to reduce soaring gas prices. Or French President Emmanuel Macron’s trip to Doha during the World Cup, where he praised Qatar’s organization of the tournament while failing to speak out against the widespread abuses against migrant workers and LGBT people in the country.

Left unchecked, the egregious actions of abusive governments will only increase—and ignoring human rights violations exacts a heavy toll. It is time to reimagine how power in the world is exercised, and recognize that all governments not only have the opportunity but the responsibility to take action to protect human rights within and beyond their borders.

And while the U.S. Supreme Court struck down 50 years of federal protection for reproductive rights, the “green wave” of abortion-rights expansions since 2020 in traditionally religiously conservative Latin America—notably Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico—offers a compelling counternarrative.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, along with his crackdown on human rights and anti-war activists, brought Russia to the top of the world’s human rights agenda in 2022. The United Nations Human Rights Council opened an investigation and created a special rapporteur to monitor the human rights situation inside Russia. The U.N. General Assembly repeatedly condemned both Russia’s invasion and its human rights violations and suspended Russia from the Human Rights Council.

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague opened a Ukraine investigation following a referral by an unprecedented number of the court’s member countries. Governments have also mobilized to weaken Putin’s global influence and military power, with the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and others imposing targeted international sanctions.

Governments should reflect on where the situation would be if the international community had made a concerted effort to hold Putin to account much earlier—for Russian war crimes committed in eastern Ukraine since 2014, or for the escalating human rights crackdown within Russia over the last decade.

The challenge for governments is to bring a consolidated response to other crises, such as in Ethiopia, where a brutal armed conflict between the government and forces in the Tigray region has received only a tiny fraction of the global attention focused on Ukraine. An African Union-led peace process culminated in November in a fragile truce, which offers an opportunity for outside states to play a leadership role in supporting solutions that can break deadly cycles of violence and impunity and that could have ripple effects across the region.

The same spirit of steadfast solidarity is critical to stand up to Beijing for its detention of more than a million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims—who are subject to torture, political indoctrination, and forced labor.

A rigorous report from the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights sparked notable diplomatic mobilization. A resolution to open a debate about the report in the Human Rights Council fell short by two votes. But the “yes” votes of Somalia, Honduras, and Paraguay, and co-sponsorship by Turkey and Albania, together with 24 mostly Western countries, show the potential for cross-regional alliances and fresh coalitions to challenge the Chinese government’s expectation of impunity.

Cracks have also emerged in the Chinese Communist Party’s grip on the country. In November, mounting frustration over Beijing’s strict lockdown measures as part of its zero-COVID strategy spilled over into the streets, with protesters in cities across the country denouncing the Communist Party’s draconian measures and, in some cases, President Xi Jinping’s rule.

Meanwhile, as discomfort around the Chinese government’s repressive ambitions has grown, countries including Australia, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, European Union, and the United States have looked to cultivate trade and security alliances with India. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has arrested and launched dozens of politically motivated cases against human rights defenders, journalists, students, and members of religious minorities and wielded its influence with social media companies to censor content and share user information to support these prosecutions. The Indian government has also sought to legitimize discrimination against religious minorities and enable violent Hindu nationalism.

Silence on the Modi government’s poor rights record squanders valuable leverage to protect the precious but increasingly endangered civic space on which India’s democracy relies.

In Iran, the demand for equality triggered by women and schoolgirls has morphed into a nationwide movement by the Iranian people against a government that has systematically denied them their rights, and whose mismanagement of the economy has driven people into poverty.

Take the example of Sudan: The people’s revolution of 2018-19 challenged the abusive power structure that repressed the country for decades. A military coup in late 2021 sabotaged the two-year joint civilian-military transition that led the country. But Sudanese grassroots resistance committees—pro-democracy civilian groups created out of the revolution—persist, despite deadly crackdowns.

If Sudan is to move toward a more rights-respecting future, the demands of these groups should be a priority of the United Nations, United States, European Union, and regional partners in engaging with Sudan’s military leadership.

Similarly, centering the demands of the millions of people pressing for human rights and democratic civilian rule in Myanmar remains critical to addressing the ongoing crisis following the February 2021 military coup. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) produced a “Five-Point Consensus,” negotiated with Myanmar’s junta, to address the crisis. But it has failed, with several ASEAN countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore acknowledging the junta’s refusal to comply.

ASEAN should expand its circle of engagement to include meeting openly with representatives of Myanmar’s opposition National Unity Government, formed by elected lawmakers, ethnic minority representatives, and civil society activists. This would be consistent with last month’s U.N. Security Council resolution—the first since the coup—calling for “constructive dialogue and reconciliation in accordance with the will and interests of the people of Myanmar.” Anything less risks emboldening the junta, which persists with its bloody repression.

After years of piecemeal and often half-hearted efforts on behalf of civilians under threat in places including Yemen, Afghanistan, and South Sudan, the world’s mobilization around Ukraine is a reminder of the extraordinary potential when governments realize their human rights responsibilities on a global scale. All governments should bring that same commitment to the multitude of human rights crises around the globe, and not just when it suits their interests.