Celebrations and Hopes
Human Rights Day is celebrated around the world each year on December 10, the day the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.
This year, we asked Duke students, staff, and faculty what they are celebrating and hoping for on this year's Human Rights Day. Here's what they shared:
"Peace, unity and good conversations — human rights are important across all political ideologies, and they can be the glue that holds our society together."
Undergraduate student, Duke Human Rights Center Student Advisory Board member
"I am celebrating a NYC mayor that cares about human rights, both in the city and the world!"
Undergraduate student, Duke Human Rights Center Student Advisory Board member
"On this year’s Human Rights Day, I’m celebrating the movements, communities, and people who continue to fight injustices and mobilize for change every day."
Aseel Ibrahim, Student Intern Program Assistant with Duke Human Rights Center
"I'm celebrating the young people who have risen up in protests around the world this year, demanding more democracy, opportunity, and equality. I’m celebrating the school kids who have shown courage just by getting through the day while masked immigration enforcement agents patrolled their neighborhoods, terrified their communities, and separated them from their family members. I’m celebrating the students around the world—in my classrooms and so many others—who ask hard questions and use the tools their education provides them to craft visions of a better world. Right now, the gap between those visions and the world we are offering to younger generations could not feel larger. My hope for next year is to see it get at least a bit narrower."
Professor Adam Rosenblatt, Director of the Duke Human Rights Center, Professor of the Practice of the International Comparative Studies Program
"I'm celebrating how Chicago, my hometown, has organized to protect its immigrant neighbors and give us all a master class in a simple, clear fact: human rights, in the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, start 'in small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.'"
Professor Robin Kirk, Certificate Director for Duke Human Rights Certificate
"The Lancet asked me to write an essay for Human Rights Day, which I'm doing, and it is focused on the concept of legitimate expectation and the violations of that principle in the US government's massive cuts in overseas development assistance in 2025. These people need to be held accountable for what they have done."
Dr. Chris Beyrer, Duke Human Rights Center Advisory Board member, Director of Duke Global Health Institute, Gary Hock Distinguished Professor in Global Health, Professor of Medicine
"As we celebrate Human Rights Day this year, may we be reminded that the dignity and fundamental rights of every person are not optional ideals, but sacred responsibilities entrusted to us all. I hope that humanity recognizes the urgent call to stand up for the inherent worth of each individual. In choosing nonviolent paths, let us affirm that peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of justice. Together, we can cultivate ways of coexistence that honor diversity, nurture solidarity, and resist systems of exclusion, working together for the flourishing of our Common Home."
Dr. Nina Balmaceda, Duke Human Rights Center Advisory Board member, Consulting Professor and Associate Director for the Center for Reconciliation
"I celebrate the way communities like ours in Durham have come together to defend neighbors against discriminatory detention and deportation, but many people here and around the country have been detained and deported. I hope we, this diverse American people, will recognize these ICE and border patrol raids as cruel and as contrary to a law-governed society, and will restore human rights for immigrants."
Professor Stefani Englestein, Duke Human Rights Center Advisory Board member, Professor of German Studies
"My hope is that we use our political will to ensure Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the right of everyone to just renumeration for an existence worthy of human dignity."
Duke Human Rights Center Advisory Board member