10th session of the Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development: Opening Statement by the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights

Dear Vice-President,

Dear Chair, members of the Expert Mechanism,

Distinguished delegates,

It is my pleasure together with Ambassador Arias Moncada, to welcome you to the tenth session of the Expert Mechanism on the Right Development.

The Expert Mechanism has achieved important work on a range of key policy and structural issues reflected in its annual report, including on climate justice and climate financing, access to technology, women’s participation in development. We thank the Mechanism for their reflection on how global negotiations can be strengthened with the principles of the right to development. 

We also commend the recent thematic study on the individual and collective dimensions of the right to development, shedding light on the relationship between the two, it is clearly the duty of States to advance both dimensions.

We look forward to the draft study that will be presented at this session on international development cooperation, which is particularly topical in the current context of increased global tensions that are making it more challenging to implement international agendas, including the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.

Distinguished delegates,

The Pact for the Future includes a gloomy prognosis of our progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

UNCTAD and the OECD estimate that developing countries are facing a 4 trillion-dollar annual SDG financing gap; with more than half of it relating to the energy transition alone.

Along with remittances and foreign direct investment, Official Development Assistance (ODA) represents a major source of external financing. While ODA is the smallest of these three sources in developing countries overall, for vulnerable countries, it often represents the main source of external financing. Despite the commitment to advance with urgency towards an SDG Stimulus, ODA is under pressure as the multiple international crises are leaving an increasingly visible mark on both the composition and levels of international support.

This is coupled with a worrying trend of rising military expenditure. According to reliable estimates, worldwide military expenditure amounted to 2.4 trillion in 2023. Having risen for nine consecutive years, and for the first time since 2009, went up in all five geographical regions.

Ladies and gentlemen,

These expenditure patterns and others that we see today, run counter to the spirit of Article 7 of the Declaration on the Right to Development, that calls on all States to “promote the establishment, maintenance and strengthening of international peace and security and, to that end, to do their utmost to achieve general and complete disarmament under effective international control, as well as to ensure that the resources released by effective disarmament measures are used for comprehensive development, in particular that of the developing countries.”

The increase in military expenditure and the trends in ODA that I have highlighted are also contrary to the obligation provided for in the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) to mobilise the Maximum Available Resources (MAR), both nationally and internationally, for the realisation of human rights.

Faced by slow economic growth, spiralising costs of living and other macroeconomic challenges together with a global public debt that is expected to exceed 100 trillion by the end of this year, developing countries are in need of international support, and urgently so - to meet both their human rights obligations and to reverse the trend of SDG backsliding.

Dear delegates, dear experts,

As the High Commissioner remarked to the General Assembly Third Committee in New York earlier this month: the world needs a “multilateralism that is more effective, networked and inclusive – a multilateralism that is better placed to tackle the threats of today and tomorrow.” And we must choose “justice, sustainability, and peace”. We need to build on the momentum of the Pact for the Future, and prioritize investment in human rights.

The right to development offers a pathway to build societies that are not only resilient but also equitable. It calls upon us to transform how we think about development, not as a privilege but a human right for all –one that needs to be up held and protected, especially in this difficult times.

I wish you fruitful discussions. Thank you.