"Everything is fair in love and war."

It was only when the validity of this phrase coined in John Lyly's "Eupheus: The Anatomy of Wits" was questioned, the idea of unalienable and universal human rights as we know it today was founded in its primitive form. From the Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights, from the Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen to the Geneva Convention, the idea of human rights has evolved a long way into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, is our understanding of these freedoms still complete? Are the checks put in place to protect these rights durable, even in times of tribulation?

Human rights form important pillars, if not the very cornerstones, of our democratic system. If one of them falls, a democracy plainly ceases to exist. In the new world order established after 2020, with the near conclusion of the pandemic and rapid shift in the dynamics of international relations, we witness new ideas, new alliances, and new threats.

Least Economically Developed Countries have almost always been associated with a terrible human rights record, and this holds true for many if not all of the countries in this category. Apart from internal abuses by the local government, private sector corporations and developed nations have walked over the rights of the populations here.

We have also watched our institutions, which not only promise but were established to protect our rights, crack down on them during the pandemic. While the world was brought closer during these troubling times, was a crisis really all that was needed to make the system collapse and flatten our freedoms? The pandemic also brought about the debate over what constitutes a violation and what constitutes a necessary evil. Labour rights were also run over by the truck of economic survival. COVID-19 is just an example. In the case of the Invasion of Ukraine, was a practically unenforceable arrest warrant all our system could do to prevent a despot from conducting genocide?

The recent crises have raised many questions about how effective Human Rights Law in its current form really is. There exists a need to bring about herculean change in global conventions by addressing systemic failures, including the redefinition of certain policies to make them relevant to our era, particularly in the case of LDCs. The Human Rights Council thereby aims to discuss the state of human rights in economically and politically vulnerable states, while focusing on the role played by developed countries and the private sector, in a post-2020 world order. The council provides a platform for all stakeholders, including corporations and states with limited recognition to express their thoughts, promote reconciliation and unite to form policies worthy of this new world order.

Lowell Monis

Nayana Renjith