Applying the Principles of Systems Thinking Framework to Human Rights
By Max Sorenson
In an increasingly interconnected world, the challenges to human rights are rarely confined to single causes or isolated incidents. From systemic racism and mass displacement to entrenched economic inequality, these issues are shaped by complex networks of social, political, and institutional forces. Systems thinking offers a critical framework for understanding and addressing such challenges, emphasizing the importance of analyzing structures, patterns, and relationships rather than focusing solely on individual actions. By revealing how persistent injustices are generated and reinforced by broader systemic dynamics, systems thinking provides essential tools for designing more effective, equitable, and sustainable responses to human rights violations.
In the context of human rights and their abuses, the systems thinking framework is a powerful lens for uncovering the underlying structures and relationships that give rise to injustice. Rather than focusing solely on isolated incidents or individual actors, systems thinking emphasizes the importance of understanding how events are embedded within broader, interconnected systems. This approach recognizes that every occurrence, whether a policy decision, social movement, or human rights violation, is the result of systemic interactions shaped by patterns, structures, and feedback mechanisms. Central to this framework are several guiding principles including: (1) interconnectedness of systems; (2) an understanding that all events, including objects, structures, and social happenings, are the product of systems; (3) the outcomes of systems cannot occur without work; (4) energy that enables systems to function originates from sources external to the system; (5) meaningful change happens through feedback loops to maintain a dynamic equilibrium; (6) and change is inevitable. These principles provide a foundation for analyzing how human rights abuses are not random or anomalous phenomena, but rather the consequence of deep, systematic forces at play within societies.
The first principle of systems thinking framework recognizes the role of interconnectedness and interdependence of systems in producing specific events. Human rights abuses from this framing are not perceived as isolated incidents but as outcomes of larger, dynamic systems where policies, social structures, and individual actions influence one another. By analyzing these interactions, systems thinking helps identify the contributory systems of human rights violations, including feedback loops that either perpetuate or challenge injustices. For example, systemic racism within law enforcement institutions creates a feedback loop where biased policies and practices perpetuate unequal treatment of marginalized communities, reinforcing cycles of discrimination. Addressing these violations requires a holistic approach, understanding how these complex, interconnected systems shape and sustain outcomes that shape human rights events.
The second principle discerns that all outcomes, happenings, events, structures, and processes are the product of systems. In the context of human rights and their abuses, such as those stemming from systemic racism in policing, are not isolated incidents or the result of individual bias alone, but the outcome of deeply embedded institutional systems. Patterns of racialized policing practices, disproportionate use of force, and unequal treatment of communities of color are products of historical, legal, economic, and cultural systems that have interacted to produce and maintain racial hierarchies. STF helps us see that these outcomes are not accidental or anomalous but systemic outputs, generated and reinforced by policies, training protocols, judicial practices, media narratives, and political structures that collectively shape how policing operates. By focusing on the outcomes as products of systems rather than individual acts, STF compels us to confront the broader mechanisms that give rise to persistent human rights violations and to design interventions that address these systems at their root.
Moving toward the shifting mechanisms of change throughout systems networks is the focus on how events come to be. The third principle recognizes that for events that occur, work is necessary, emphasizing the critical importance of activism, labor, and collective action. For instance, events like the passage of police reform legislation or the mass mobilization of social movements after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 did not emerge in isolation. They were the culmination of decades of work by civil rights activists, community organizers, legal advocates, and victims’ families who consistently challenged institutional injustice. These efforts included public protests, legal battles, data collection on police violence, and public education campaigns, all of which served as energy inputs into the social system. Systems thinking shows us that without this continuous, often invisible labor, such events would not occur. Change requires a buildup of pressure and engagement across multiple levels of the system, reinforcing the idea that activism is the engine that drives human rights progress.
The fourth principle of systems thinking framework builds on the prior notion that work is necessary to drive events by adding that energy, unlike work, is exogenous to the system, originating from outside the group or structure in question. In human rights, this principle helps explain why even sustained internal efforts may fail to produce change unless supported by external forces. For example, systemic policing practices, rooted in historical, legal, and cultural systems, have long been challenged by internal actors such as civil rights organizations, affected communities, and progressives. However, these internal efforts often require an infusion of external energy to shift entrenched dynamics. The global response to the murder of George Floyd in 2020 illustrates this well. While years of grassroots activism laid the groundwork, it was the international outrage, transnational protests, media amplification, and global political pressure that injected the exogenous energy needed to propel systemic policing reforms into mainstream discourse. This principle reminds us that human rights change often relies not only on local work but also on the ability to harness energy from outside the immediate system, whether from global human rights bodies, international movements, or broad public solidarity.
Systems are interwoven with one another, and everything is the outcome of systems driven by work and energy, but this is not a static exchange. This leads to the fifth principle of dynamic equilibrium, where a system’s outcome or event is not a linear process but rather a shifting and non-linear balance of feedback mechanisms. In a community experiencing systemic social inequality, such as the continuing example of disproportionate policing of racial minorities, the community may adapt by implementing programs, such as restorative justice initiatives or advocacy for policy reform. As these programs begin to reduce inequality and improve community relations, the focus and resources allocated to these initiatives may diminish, reflecting the feedback loop of dynamic equilibrium. As the community stabilizes, the momentum of change slows, but the system continues to adapt and shift toward greater equality.
The demand for change in this example, which is an outcome of the inequality this specific community faces, is catalyzed by human involvement and organizing. In line with the fifth principle of dynamic equilibrium, the sixth principle highlights change as an inevitable process, where nature will eventually take its course to balance out the system over time. Moreover, change is a positive state of existence because it does not lock social groups into one state of existence; the absence of change suggests social groups are stuck in their positions, with no mobility, regardless of how much work is put into enacting a form of change. Work, effort, and energy from people, groups, communities, and organizations significantly accelerate the rate of change. Dynamic equilibrium and change work hand-in-hand, with feedback loops signaling a need for change, whether negative (reducing harmful practices) or positive (amplifying solutions). In societal systems, such as institutions, organizations, and communities, human capital, or the knowledge, skills, and experiences of individuals, moderates the pace of this change.
A systems thinking framework illuminates the structural forces, feedback mechanisms, and external influences that sustain injustice, offering a more comprehensive approach to understanding and transforming the conditions in which these violations occur. Yet, while this approach provides valuable insights, its principles require further refinement and adaptation to meet the complexities of real-world human rights contexts. There is a pressing need for continued interdisciplinary work to expand the applicability of systems thinking in policy, advocacy, social work, and community practice. Creating lasting reform demands a collective commitment to structural change that recognizes the work of those already engaged in this effort and calls for broader participation in dismantling the systems that perpetuate human rights abuses.