[Expert Lectures]Dr. David E. Guinn “The arc of moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”

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David E. Guinn
Public Service Professor
State University of New York at Albany

Professor David Guinn emphasized that guaranteeing human rights is a form of a "process," throughout his lecture. He explained that the recognition and understanding of universal rights and the adoption of the Human Rights Declaration are of great significance in the process itself.
He explained that perspectives on human rights have gradually developed through the U.S. Declaration of Independence in the 1700s, the French Declaration of Man and Citizen, the Labor Movement in the 1800s and 1900s, people's voices for socio-economic rights, political rights, and cultural rights.
Until then, the concept of human rights was district and state-centered. However, tragedies such as the World Wars and the Holocaust changed all of them. It brought the world together and helped them recognize human rights.
This was followed by the foundation of the UN, the ratification of the UN Charter, and the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

He explained the four significances and developments of the Declaration of Human Rights as follows: It globalized the concept of human rights, made a concrete definition of the human rights that should be guaranteed, unified different rights, and stated that we all have equal rights.
Another significance of the Declaration of Human Rights is that it remains "incomplete." As we develop more and more, we come to better understand about the meaning of human rights, and have a clear definition of it. The Universal Declaration was not promulgated as law, but it has helped promulgate treaties and conventions that would articulate and translate into concrete international law. They also worked to translate into domestic law. The Universal Declaration itself is a long term process to implement justice which is the goal of human rights.
He explained that human rights do not just mean specific rights articulated in the universal declaration, but that we have to keep in mind that our goal is justice, not the simple implementation of any particular rights. Each article reflects our understanding of what it means to achieve justice, and justice is not the simple implementation of those articles.

Mentioning that in day to day work of advocacy, what you often find is that you are making two steps forward and one back or three forward and two steps back, he said that it is not an easy process; change happens slowly and it takes time for work. He also gave the history of women's rights movement and its main process as examples. He said that the women's right movement which started in the 1800s, focusing on getting women basic rights—the right to vote, the right to own property that you were simply treated as people—has gradually developed into a demand for the same rights like men, and into a movement that cries out for the systemic change depending on different needs and different responsibilities.

Professor Guinn said that human right is a project of us, the people working together to improve what needs to be addressed in the future, and added that we need someone who shows leadership to steer people towards the right direction. At the same time, he expressed his expectations for the role of university students in developing human rights.

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