Jumbo on Earth

tuftshemispheres

What Do Tufts Students Know about Human Rights around the World?

By Alison Cedarbaum

Follow along with this quiz to see how your knowledge of human rights and current events stacks up against your fellow Jumbos! Our sample responses are quoted from Tufts students with majors ranging from Engineering to Philosophy to Biology to Studio Art. Correct answers are on the following page.

  1. What nation was expelled from the UN Human Rights Council in 2022 as a result of its invasion of a neighboring country? 
    1. All respondents: Russia
  2. In August of 2021, the United States withdrew its troops from a nation in Central Asia, which was swiftly taken over by a terrorist group called the Taliban. Do you know what country this was? What do you know about the history of the Taliban, its role in this country, and its human rights record? 
    1. Afghanistan. I don’t know the history of how the Taliban first entered the country, but I know that they’re fundamentalist Muslims and that they’ve severely restricted the rights of their citizens, especially women.
    2. I do not know what country this was, but I know this was a terrorist organization. I think the US may have killed their leader under President Obama.
  3. What is a protracted refugee situation (PRS) or in more common terms, a refugee crisis? What are some contemporary or historical examples of protracted refugee situations that you know of?
    1. [A refugee crisis is] when people are forced to leave a country either by the government or other circumstances and nowhere is taking them in or they have nowhere to go. An example is from this week: a lot of Palestinians are fleeing to Egypt because it’s not safe in Palestine, and Egypt isn’t taking them in.
    2. There’s, like, a lot of countries… I think Syria has a refugee crisis? 
  4. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights was divided into two major International Covenants to be ratified by members of the United Nations: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ratified by 173 countries) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ratified by 171 countries). Has the United States ratified either or both of these treaties?
    1. I have no idea… I guess only the first one? The US is very democratic and they seem to be more involved when there are political things at stake and not cultural things at stake.
    2. I think at least the civil and political one. The US is kind of leading the world in that regard.
  5. In the Myanmar Rakhine state, a human rights disaster has been unfolding for decades as Buddhist nationalism drives the country’s Muslim minority group, the Rohingya, into peril and out of the country. What natural disaster has recently aggravated the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar?
    1. No clue.
    2. Tornado? Do they have that there? I don’t know where Myanmar is geographically – maybe a hurricane.

Correct Answers

  1. What nation was expelled from the UN Human Rights Council in 2022 as a result of its invasion of a neighboring country? 

Russia was voted out of the UNHRC in April of 2022 because of its February invasion of Ukraine.

  1. In August of 2021, the United States withdrew its troops from a nation in Central Asia, which was swiftly taken over by a terrorist group called the Taliban. Do you know what country this was? What do you know about the history of the Taliban, its role in this country, and its human rights record? 

The country in question is Afghanistan. The Taliban is an extremist group that emerged in the midst of the Afghan Civil War (1992-1996). The Taliban took over the country in the late 1990s, imposing a strict interpretation of sharia law. The United States ousted the Taliban in 2001, and they only re-seized power after the United States’ sudden departure under the Biden administration in 2021. The assassination referenced by respondent B was that of Osama bin-Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, a different terrorist group in the region. The Taliban has had an overwhelmingly negative human rights record, conducting extrajudicial killings, preventing women from accessing education, and abusing members of the LGBTQ community. Meanwhile, their rule has also caused an extreme economic downturn and widespread poverty as the country has become isolated from the world.

  1. What is a protracted refugee situation (PRS) or in more common terms, a refugee crisis? What are some contemporary or historical examples of protracted refugee situations that you know of?

According to the UN High Commissioner on Refugees, “protracted refugee situations are those in which at least 25,000 refugees from the same country have been living in exile for more than five consecutive years.” As of 2019, 16 million people were in a PRS, including in Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Kenya, Sudan, Myanmar/Bangladesh.

  1. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights was divided into two major International Covenants to be ratified by members of the United Nations: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ratified by 173 countries) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ratified by 171 countries). Has the United States ratified either or both of these treaties?

The United States has only ratified one of these treaties: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The United States is one of four countries that has not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.

  1. In the Myanmar Rakhine state, a human rights disaster has been unfolding for decades as Buddhist nationalism drives the country’s Muslim minority group, the Rohingya, into peril and out of the country. What natural disaster has recently aggravated the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar?

Cyclone Mocha hit Myanmar in May, 2023. It has caused an exacerbated human rights, health, and human security crisis that Myanmar’s ruling military junta (a group that has taken political power by force) has blocked from international aid and assistance.

Alice Cedarbaum is a junior at Tufts University studying International Relations.

Image: Jumbo the elephant

Image courtesy: Eden, Janine and Jim on Flickr

This piece is a reproduction from its original issue in Hemispheres vol. 47, no. 1.

Published by tuftshemispheres