Bangladesh, Aug. 20 -- For much of my adult life, human rights have not been a subject I merely studied. It has been a matter that hit my heart and occupied my mind. I could never treat a violation as an abstraction, because behind every human rights violation lies a human being - the pain, the agony, the fear of millions upon millions of people on every continent. Democracies, authoritarian regimes, and every governing authority in between commit or tolerate some form of abuse: crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing, the persecution of minorities, online violence, sex trafficking and child abuse in conflict zones, and the mounting suffering inflicted by climate change on people who did nothing to cause it.

I spe...