Seventy years ago today, the world united to sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt, who spearheaded much of the efforts to draft the declaration, referred to it as a “Magna Carta for all mankind.” As she wished, it has become a valuable document that has withstood the test of time, in great part because of the universal values that it enshrines. Today’s anniversary gives us a time for reflection globally. From our perspective at Microsoft, some of that reflection should involve the role of technology, both in its contribution to human rights in the past and increasingly for its contribution to the future.
The governments that gathered to endorse the declaration in December 1948 had been convened in part by the effect of technology. It had been a tragic experience. As one of the earliest to see, Albert Einstein, in the 1930s, the “accomplishments of the machine age” had brought new risks to humanity, particularly since human institutions lagged behind technology itself. By 1948, Einstein’s remark was no longer a warning in advance about something yet to be. They had entered the record of history of a world war in which sophisticated weapons had cost over 60 million lives.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: An important anniversary for people and for technology
That experience united the leaders of the world in an abiding commitment not only to maintain peace, but to guard basic rights. As they announced, the “disregard and contempt for human rights” had resulted in “barbarous acts” which had shocked the conscience of all mankind. This had produced a new determination, enshrined in the Universal Declaration, to seek a future where individuals might “enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want,” declaring these “as the highest aspiration of the common people.”
Like all international norms and legislation, the declaration was not a cure-all for the ills of the world. The years that followed its adoption were not always benign. The world continued to see repressive and even genocidal forces plaguing the generations of today. But partly due to the Universal Declaration and the often-daring efforts of successive United Nations High Commissioners for Human Rights, the last seventy years have been an improvement on what they replaced.
Subsequent decades have also seen an information technology explosion that has deeply influenced human rights worldwide for better and worse. The communications technologies from the fax machine to word processing programs to the internet have made it possible for individuals to reach out to one another, find out about the world’s advancements and communicate differently. One of the world’s ubiquitous tools is our own Microsoft Word. Numerous days Word is employed by committed writers to further the world’s loftiest ideals. But certainly there are darker days when less lofty agents employ it to write things a great deal lower. As Einstein had effectively cautioned the world, in the hands of the wrong people every tool can be turned into a weapon. And just as it was in the 1930s, that is a sobering reminder for today’s information technology of tomorrow, which is helping people with much more than their writing.
We should take today’s anniversary as an opportunity to consider the role technology can and should play in promoting human rights in the future. This requires us to consider three things.
First, it’s more important than ever to confront squarely and unblinking the challenges that technology presents for human rights. Digital technology has emerged as a foundation of nearly all aspects of our societies’ and individuals’ lives. This makes it critical, for example, to come together to address spreading cyberthreats, whether in the form of indiscriminate cyberstrikes like those witnessed last year, or nation-state disinformation campaigns against electoral processes that are a cornerstone of the Universal Declaration’s protections. It’s also why we must continue to be alert in safeguarding individuals’ private information and aggressive in meeting the threats that can arise from even useful new technologies like facial recognition and other artificial intelligence, or AI. History has taught us that threats to human rights increase not just when negative actors employ technology for nefarious activities, but when positive individuals do not anticipate or mobilize to act collectively. Seventy years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration, the protection of human rights demands that those who are near technology practice vigilant thinking and even bravery.
