IOP Marks Rights Milestone

Last night, 30 people crowded the stage of the Institute of Politics forum—including a lost boy of the Sudan, a Massachusetts sixth grader, and numerous renowned activists and professionals—to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a dramatic reading of the document.

The event “Sixty Years of Human Rights” looked at the United Nations document’s future and its applicability today.

Nobel Prize-winning economist and University Professor Amartya Sen talked with Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Paul Farmer in a conversation moderated by University President Drew G. Faust.

“The challenges to human rights still persist,” said Sen, citing AIDS and statelessness as modern challenges to protecting human rights.

Sen said that although the major accomplishment of the document was that it forwarded political, social, and economic rights, he stressed that its egalitarian goals have not yet been achieved.

“That mission remains hugely important in the contemporary world. Its work is not yet done,” Sen said.

Farmer brought a medical perspective to their conversation. He said that modern challenges impede equality, including the rising unemployment rate, food scarcity, and agricultural competition.

“I can say as a doctor, it is not possible to hope for the dignity of people that I see in clinics without some decent job,” Farmer said.

Co-president of the Harvard College Human Rights Advocates Quinnie Lin ’09 said in an e-mail after the event that the conversation was particularly relevant to students.

“The points that Sen and Farmer made during the panel are very pertinent to the way in which student activists approach the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as guidelines for the ideals we hope to achieve.”

Faust joined in the discussion by commenting on Harvard’s role in helping provide education, which is named as a fundamental human right by the document.

“We are working very hard to make sure what we do is available in a variety of ways,” Faust said.

She mentioned digitizing Harvard’s library and increasing student travel opportunities as ways to spread the University’s educational resources.

The night was finished with a performance by Oumou Sangare, a Malian singer noted for incorporating messages of women’s empowerment into her work, sung in her native language.

The event was sponsored by the University Committee on Human Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, and the American Repertory Theatre. It is the capstone event of Human Rights Week on campus.