Cut arms budgets and the arms trade. We cannot stop world conflict in this way. But we can work to reduce levels of violence and the power of repressive states, as well as the threats which provide increasingly thin justifications for continued military excess in our home countries. The arms trade is a visible cancer, a major source of corruption, and it is linked to the wage competition faced by Northern workers. The cynical and self-serving view that nothing can or should be done about this is an economic fallacy, as well as a human outrage.
Human rights has multiple dimensions.
It surely includes the personal political freedoms. It should also include recognition of union rights, and also a free and flexible job market and a social safety net. The capacity to organize one's own farm or enterprise, and to finance it, alongside the right to quit and not starve, are important social safeguards and upward forces on real wages. At the same time, human rights campaigns need to be subjected to a reality-check. Tactics that make sense in Haiti or Guatemala or South Africa may be unworkable when applied to China.