Enduring Issues Essay Setup

Suggested issue: Human rights violations

Sample document set: (1) account of the Armenian Genocide, (2) Wannsee Conference or Holocaust documents, (3) Universal Declaration of Human Rights, (4) account of the Rwandan Genocide, (5) account of contemporary case (Rohingya or Uyghur)

Thesis template: "Human rights violations is an enduring issue because throughout history governments and movements have committed atrocities against people for their identity, ideology, or perceived threat. The twentieth century saw atrocities at unprecedented scale, including the Armenian Genocide during WWI, the Holocaust during WWII, and the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. Each forced the international community to develop new institutions and norms (the UN, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Genocide Convention, the International Criminal Court) intended to prevent recurrence. Yet contemporary cases including the Uyghurs in China and the Rohingya in Myanmar show that the framework remains tested and incomplete."

Extemp parallel: Maria should approach this as a three-minute extemp on "How has the world tried to prevent genocide, and how well has it worked?" Body points on the Holocaust producing the postwar framework, the Rwandan failure exposing its limits, and contemporary cases testing the framework's adequacy. Close with continuity about whether future genocides can be prevented.

Second essay setup, alternative issue: Desire for human rights. Document set could trace the development of the human rights framework: Lemkin's work, the Universal Declaration, the Nuremberg Trials, later international criminal tribunals, the ICC, and contemporary human rights movements. The thesis would argue that the desire for human rights has been an enduring issue because people have continuously demanded recognition of universal human dignity and have built increasingly sophisticated international institutions to give that demand legal force.