10 for the 10th

The 10th of December is Human Rights Day. It marks the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by the United Nations General Assembly on 10th December 1948. Eleanor Roosevelt – whose statue stands in front of the Bonavero Institute – was the chair of the drafting committee, and she dedicated her life to promoting the Declaration. The many rights and freedoms it sets out have been incorporated into many national constitutions and domestic legal frameworks and it guides human rights standards and norms still today.

In honour of the 10th of December, we asked 10 of our researchers, fellows and graduate students at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights to share a piece of writing, music, artwork or a podcast that particularly resonates with them this Human Rights Day. You can read their suggestions below.

• Advait Tambe, DPhil in Law Student and research assistant at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights: I recommend the edited collection The Transformation of Human Rights Fact Finding, edited by Philip Alston and Sarah Knuckey, Oxford University Press.
• Başak Çalı, Professor of International Law, and Head of Research at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights: I recommend the poem "What Is Home?" by the Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha. This poem powerfully evokes the broad range of human rights lost and violated when we are deprived of our home.  
• Diane Maria Amann, Michaelmas Term visiting fellow at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and Regents' Professor of International Law at the University of Georgia, USA: I suggest the poems of Kinsale Drake, a Diné (Navajo) poet, which were published in the July/August issue of Poetry magazine.
• Ekaterina Aristova, Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights: I recommend the podcast: "Mothers of Invention". In this episode, Mary Robinson, the former UN Hight Commissioner for Human Rights, and comedian Maeve Higgins discuss feminist climate solutions and their human rights dimensions.
• Eva Maria Belser, Research Visitor at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights - Michaelmas Term 2024 and Chair in Constitutional and Administrative Law at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland: I recommend the images of The King’s Nightmares in the Chronicle of John of Worcester, completed by 1140, owned by the Corpus Christi College in Oxford, and kept at the Bodleian library, is one of the most important sources for earlier English history. The Chronicle contains four annotated pictures of King Henry I and the nightmares he had in the year 1130. In fear of death, the King finally follows his doctor’s advice, vows to undertake a pilgrimage to Bury St Edmund’s, to suspend the land tax known as Danegeld, and to reinstate good government throughout the realm.
• Konrad Ksiazek, DPhil in Law Student and research assistant at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights: I would recommend the film The Green Border by Agnieszka Holland. It is a film which dramatizes the stories of asylum seekers trying to cross the Polish-Belarussian border and experiencing the risk of refoulement and pushbacks. It presents the issue in a rather understated, but genuinely moving way.
• Luz Helena Orozco y Villa, DPhil in Law Student, research assistant at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and member of St. Peter’s College: I put forward ‘Human Rights, Robot Wrongs. Being Human in the Age of AI’ by Susie Alegre. Written from the perspective of a human rights barrister, the book challenges the AI hype, focusing on the human rights risks involved in embracing this technology without sufficient regulation. Alegre includes compelling case studies and ethical reflections over what makes us human. I believe this read is a great way to balance out the often overly optimistic narratives we hear about AI.
• Richard Mackenzie-Gray Scott, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights: I recommend the song "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five.
• Saarrah Ray, DPhil Law Candidate, Graduate Research Resident at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights: I recommend my book chapter 'The British Campaign to Ban Virginity Testing and Hymenoplasty' published in December 2023 in this collection: The Routledge International Handbook of Harmful Cultural Practices.
• Zaki Rehman, DPhil Student in History and research assistant at the Bonavero Institute: I recommend the article by Emma Stone MacKinnon 'Declaration as Disavowal: The Politics of Race and Empire in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights', Political Theory, 47, 1 (2019), 57-81.

Finally, the Institute’s Director gives us one more to take it to 11.

Kate O'Regan, Professor of Human Rights Law, and Director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights: Given that the holidays lie ahead, I am recommending the novella “Small things like these” by Claire Keegan. It’s a beautifully written novella which explores questions of complicity and courage in the face of human rights abuses.

We hope you enjoy these suggestions for Human Rights Day.