2024 and All That, Daily Brief January 8, 2024

The end of one year and the beginning of another inevitably leads to thoughts of “the big picture.” What was the global trend of last year? And what’s in store for the next twelve months?

The calendar is completely arbitrary, of course. You could ask the same question at any moment of the year. Still, the annual reflections and resolutions are a tradition, and the media feeds it with reviews of the year past and prognostications for the one ahead.

Human Rights Watch also takes part. Our annual World Report will be published on Thursday.  

Following months of writing, editing, and translating by hundreds of people across the organization, the World Report will be an overview of 2023 through the lens of human rights in about 100 countries. To bring it all together, our executive director, Tirana Hassan, will summarize the year globally in an essay.

I don’t think I’m giving anything away here by telling you the World Report makes for some grim reading. The year 2023 brought horrors and abuses to many parts of the world, and since it’s our job to bring these to light, that’s what we do. Still, there were some positive stories in the last 12 months, and we highlight those, as well. The “big picture” – as always – is a mixed bag.

Or maybe the “big picture” is that there really is no “big picture”? This is my tenth World Report at Human Rights Watch and looking back on a decade of these annual reviews, I’m leaning toward that way of thinking.

Of course, as humans, we naturally crave narratives. We want to see things moving in a direction. Pessimism pushes us one way, optimism another, but we’re all desperate for a trend. Things are getting worse. Things are getting better. We all want a simple story that’s easy to remember, easy to repeat.

But I also know global reality is not a single trend, nor some kind of balance between positives and negatives. The truth is eight billion stories, and each one of us our own multitudes.

The year 2024 will be an unprecedented year of elections around the world, “the biggest election year in history.”

If you’re fortunate enough to live where your rights are respected – where you can speak openly, organize freely, and elect your leaders fairly, get engaged in the public debate and challenge politicians to uphold human rights.

Most of all, make your vote count. Examine the candidates and their records and choose the ones you think will best guarantee human rights where you live – and around the world.

Twelve months from now, it will be 2025, and everyone will be reflecting on 2024. Resolve to be able to look back and be proud of what you worked to achieve for the defense of fundamental freedoms.

Whatever you think of 2023, it is up to each one of us to make 2024 better.