Default title
10 February 1998
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND HUMAN RIGHTS
REPORT ON THE OSLO SYMPOSIUM,
2-3 OCTOBER 1998
Statement by Mary Robinson
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen,
This Symposium has a particular significance for my Office. It marks an important step in the evolution of the efforts of the international system in the implementation of international human rights standards.
It has been made possible because of the commitment of the Government of Norway – true to the Nansen tradition of this country. The contribution of the United Nations Association of Norway in the organisation of this event should set an example to others to fulfil their role in the collective effort of bringing human rights closer to their realisation. Moreover I would like to acknowledge the crucial role of Gus Speth in bringing to UNDP the vital element of human rights in development.
This takes one step further the realisation of the purposes of the United Nations Charter. Above all, it strengthens the process of bringing human rights home to the individual, where they belong.
"All human rights for all" – the motto of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – perfectly translates the spirit of the Declaration, which recognised in its Preamble the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. It also reaffirmed the commitment undertaken in the Charter of the United Nations to promote social progress and better standards of living in larger freedom. Fifty years later, as we commemorate the Anniversary of the Declaration, we need to take time to assess the international community’s achievements and failures in working for the realisation of the pledge of the Declaration, and to reflect on what requires to be accomplished in the future.
As we do so, we have to acknowledge that the gap between rhetoric and reality, between what has been stated and what has been achieved in reality, is still wide. Human rights violations, be they of civil, economic, political or social rights of individuals, are still widespread in all parts of the world. While the Universal Declaration was adopted as a response of an international community still under the shock of the "barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind" of the second world war, the international community has not been able to prevent or stop the genocides in Cambodia or Rwanda, the "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia, the tragic situation in Kosovo or the conflicts spreading in the Great Lakes region, to mention only some of the most recent failures to implement the spirit of the Universal Declaration.
However, the balance is not all negative. During these fifty years, the international community has developed a comprehensive legal framework for the protection and promotion of human rights. The two International Covenants on Human Rights, which together with the Universal Declaration form the International Bill of Human Rights, protect the whole range of human rights: civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. Alongside these Covenants, are the conventions to protect the rights of certain vulnerable groups, such as women, children and migrant workers, and to protect certain specific rights, such as the elimination of racial discrimination or the prohibition of torture. Not only have normative standards been adopted, they have also been equipped with monitoring bodies, which have the mandate to assess the implementation of human rights in states parties.
At the same time, the international community focussed its attention on the realisation of the right to development. As early as 1977, the Commission on Human Rights, understanding the interdependence between the realisation of human rights and economic and social development, requested the Secretary-General to undertake a study on the international dimensions of the right to development. This process led to the adoption by the General Assembly in 1986 of a Declaration on the Right to Development, which recognises that:
"the right to development is an inalienable human right, by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realised" (article 1).
We have to acknowledge that this recognition of the right to development as a human right was not without controversy. It was later re-emphasised in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, in which the 171 states gathered in Vienna for the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights reaffirmed "the right to development, as established in the Declaration on the Right to Development, as a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of fundamental human rights," and emphasised that "the efforts of the United Nations system towards the universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, contribute to the stability and wellbeing necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations, and to improved conditions for peace and security as well as social and economic development, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations."
Stemming from the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action and its clear commitment to the protection and promotion of the right to development as a human right, the General Assembly gave the High Commissioner for Human Rights the mandate to, inter alia, "recognise the importance of promoting a balanced and sustainable development for all peoples and of ensuring realisation of the right to development" and to "promote and protect the realisation of the right to development and to enhance support from relevant bodies of the United Nations system for this purpose." This is a responsibility that I have taken very seriously in the year since taking up that office.
More recently, the Commission on Human Rights appointed an independent expert on the right to development, who shall work in close collaboration with the newly established open-ended Working Group on the Right to Development. This Working Group's mandate is to "monitor and review progress made in the promotion and implementation of the right to development, as elaborated in the Declaration on the Right to Development, at the national and international levels, providing recommendations thereon, and further analysing obstacles to its full enjoyment."
The United Nations system as a whole is now "rallying" to the United Nations human rights programme stricto sensu in the battle for the recognition and realisation of sustainable human development as a human right. The Secretary-General’s report, Renewing the United Nations: a Programme for Reform, stated that "a major task for the future will be to enhance the human rights programme and integrate it into the broad range of the Organization’s activities, including in the development and humanitarian areas."
Under the leadership of the Secretary-General, Executive Committees were created and designed as instruments of policy development, decision-making and management of the United Nations funds, programmes and agencies in the areas of humanitarian affairs, economic and social affairs, peace and security and development. Human rights were designated as a crosscutting value reflected in the participation of my Office in all four Executive Committees.
The United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), the creation of which was also called for in the Secretary-General’s reform report, has been designed "in order to achieve goal-oriented collaboration, programmatic coherence and mutual reinforcement" for the United Nations programmes of assistance. The recent incorporation of human rights in the UNDAF Provisional Guidelines, which shall be finalised very soon, will permit a close involvement of my Office in the preparation of United Nations development activities and programmes at the field level.
As a consequence of all these developments, and in fulfilment of my mandate, the promotion and protection of the right to development is one of the priorities of the work of my Office. We are now in the process of linking our efforts and resources with other funds, programmes and agencies of the United Nations system, concluding a Memorandum of Understanding with the UNDP, whose policy document on Integrating Human Rights with Sustainable Development makes provision for close collaboration for the promotion of international standards established to protect the human rights of every individual. A similar Memorandum of Understanding is currently being prepared with UNCTAD.
Nor is the United Nations system alone in trying to make the rights-based approach to development a reality. One year ago, the Norwegian Government decided to bring together under the same Ministry, international development and human rights. As you said it, Madam Minister, in your statement on 22 January 1998, "the struggle for human rights is basically about human dignity – about individual human beings, about protecting the individual against oppression and exploitation, poverty and injustice, marginalisation and degradation. Thus development and human rights are closely linked up with one another."
Similarly, development agencies from other countries, such as the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, which adopted Guidelines on Promoting Human Rights in Development Cooperation, and the Department for International Development of the Government of the United Kingdom, which commissioned a discussion paper by Julia Häusermann, President of the Rights and Humanity International Movement, on A HumanRights Approach to Development in preparation of the Government’s White Paper on International Development, have also taken steps towards the integration of human rights in their development assistance programmes.
Many non-governmental organizations and academic institutions are also studying and making proposals for new approaches to development, such as the work being done by the Human Rights Council of Australia, in its Rights Way to Development and its Manual for a Human Rights Approach to Development Assistance.
More and more the focus is being put on the identification of new approaches to development, not so much based on the notion of needs, but on the concept of rights. The time has come to gather all together – governments and development agencies; funds, programmes and agencies of the United Nations system; non-governmental and civil society organizations and academics – to reflect on how to realise sustainable human development based on the right of all individuals, all peoples and all states to development.
The agenda of this Symposium, and the list of participants, reflect the fundamental theme. There are many issues to discuss, from the integrated approach to all human rights to the role of the state in fulfilling social and economic rights and the role of civil society in achieving sustainable human development. There are many actors involved, and therefore coordination and cooperation are necessary to achieve the challenges facing all of us.
REPORT ON THE OSLO SYMPOSIUM,
2-3 OCTOBER 1998
Statement by Mary Robinson
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen,
This Symposium has a particular significance for my Office. It marks an important step in the evolution of the efforts of the international system in the implementation of international human rights standards.
It has been made possible because of the commitment of the Government of Norway – true to the Nansen tradition of this country. The contribution of the United Nations Association of Norway in the organisation of this event should set an example to others to fulfil their role in the collective effort of bringing human rights closer to their realisation. Moreover I would like to acknowledge the crucial role of Gus Speth in bringing to UNDP the vital element of human rights in development.
This takes one step further the realisation of the purposes of the United Nations Charter. Above all, it strengthens the process of bringing human rights home to the individual, where they belong.
"All human rights for all" – the motto of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – perfectly translates the spirit of the Declaration, which recognised in its Preamble the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. It also reaffirmed the commitment undertaken in the Charter of the United Nations to promote social progress and better standards of living in larger freedom. Fifty years later, as we commemorate the Anniversary of the Declaration, we need to take time to assess the international community’s achievements and failures in working for the realisation of the pledge of the Declaration, and to reflect on what requires to be accomplished in the future.
As we do so, we have to acknowledge that the gap between rhetoric and reality, between what has been stated and what has been achieved in reality, is still wide. Human rights violations, be they of civil, economic, political or social rights of individuals, are still widespread in all parts of the world. While the Universal Declaration was adopted as a response of an international community still under the shock of the "barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind" of the second world war, the international community has not been able to prevent or stop the genocides in Cambodia or Rwanda, the "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia, the tragic situation in Kosovo or the conflicts spreading in the Great Lakes region, to mention only some of the most recent failures to implement the spirit of the Universal Declaration.
However, the balance is not all negative. During these fifty years, the international community has developed a comprehensive legal framework for the protection and promotion of human rights. The two International Covenants on Human Rights, which together with the Universal Declaration form the International Bill of Human Rights, protect the whole range of human rights: civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. Alongside these Covenants, are the conventions to protect the rights of certain vulnerable groups, such as women, children and migrant workers, and to protect certain specific rights, such as the elimination of racial discrimination or the prohibition of torture. Not only have normative standards been adopted, they have also been equipped with monitoring bodies, which have the mandate to assess the implementation of human rights in states parties.
At the same time, the international community focussed its attention on the realisation of the right to development. As early as 1977, the Commission on Human Rights, understanding the interdependence between the realisation of human rights and economic and social development, requested the Secretary-General to undertake a study on the international dimensions of the right to development. This process led to the adoption by the General Assembly in 1986 of a Declaration on the Right to Development, which recognises that:
"the right to development is an inalienable human right, by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realised" (article 1).
We have to acknowledge that this recognition of the right to development as a human right was not without controversy. It was later re-emphasised in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, in which the 171 states gathered in Vienna for the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights reaffirmed "the right to development, as established in the Declaration on the Right to Development, as a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of fundamental human rights," and emphasised that "the efforts of the United Nations system towards the universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, contribute to the stability and wellbeing necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations, and to improved conditions for peace and security as well as social and economic development, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations."
Stemming from the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action and its clear commitment to the protection and promotion of the right to development as a human right, the General Assembly gave the High Commissioner for Human Rights the mandate to, inter alia, "recognise the importance of promoting a balanced and sustainable development for all peoples and of ensuring realisation of the right to development" and to "promote and protect the realisation of the right to development and to enhance support from relevant bodies of the United Nations system for this purpose." This is a responsibility that I have taken very seriously in the year since taking up that office.
More recently, the Commission on Human Rights appointed an independent expert on the right to development, who shall work in close collaboration with the newly established open-ended Working Group on the Right to Development. This Working Group's mandate is to "monitor and review progress made in the promotion and implementation of the right to development, as elaborated in the Declaration on the Right to Development, at the national and international levels, providing recommendations thereon, and further analysing obstacles to its full enjoyment."
The United Nations system as a whole is now "rallying" to the United Nations human rights programme stricto sensu in the battle for the recognition and realisation of sustainable human development as a human right. The Secretary-General’s report, Renewing the United Nations: a Programme for Reform, stated that "a major task for the future will be to enhance the human rights programme and integrate it into the broad range of the Organization’s activities, including in the development and humanitarian areas."
Under the leadership of the Secretary-General, Executive Committees were created and designed as instruments of policy development, decision-making and management of the United Nations funds, programmes and agencies in the areas of humanitarian affairs, economic and social affairs, peace and security and development. Human rights were designated as a crosscutting value reflected in the participation of my Office in all four Executive Committees.
The United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), the creation of which was also called for in the Secretary-General’s reform report, has been designed "in order to achieve goal-oriented collaboration, programmatic coherence and mutual reinforcement" for the United Nations programmes of assistance. The recent incorporation of human rights in the UNDAF Provisional Guidelines, which shall be finalised very soon, will permit a close involvement of my Office in the preparation of United Nations development activities and programmes at the field level.
As a consequence of all these developments, and in fulfilment of my mandate, the promotion and protection of the right to development is one of the priorities of the work of my Office. We are now in the process of linking our efforts and resources with other funds, programmes and agencies of the United Nations system, concluding a Memorandum of Understanding with the UNDP, whose policy document on Integrating Human Rights with Sustainable Development makes provision for close collaboration for the promotion of international standards established to protect the human rights of every individual. A similar Memorandum of Understanding is currently being prepared with UNCTAD.
Nor is the United Nations system alone in trying to make the rights-based approach to development a reality. One year ago, the Norwegian Government decided to bring together under the same Ministry, international development and human rights. As you said it, Madam Minister, in your statement on 22 January 1998, "the struggle for human rights is basically about human dignity – about individual human beings, about protecting the individual against oppression and exploitation, poverty and injustice, marginalisation and degradation. Thus development and human rights are closely linked up with one another."
Similarly, development agencies from other countries, such as the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, which adopted Guidelines on Promoting Human Rights in Development Cooperation, and the Department for International Development of the Government of the United Kingdom, which commissioned a discussion paper by Julia Häusermann, President of the Rights and Humanity International Movement, on A HumanRights Approach to Development in preparation of the Government’s White Paper on International Development, have also taken steps towards the integration of human rights in their development assistance programmes.
Many non-governmental organizations and academic institutions are also studying and making proposals for new approaches to development, such as the work being done by the Human Rights Council of Australia, in its Rights Way to Development and its Manual for a Human Rights Approach to Development Assistance.
More and more the focus is being put on the identification of new approaches to development, not so much based on the notion of needs, but on the concept of rights. The time has come to gather all together – governments and development agencies; funds, programmes and agencies of the United Nations system; non-governmental and civil society organizations and academics – to reflect on how to realise sustainable human development based on the right of all individuals, all peoples and all states to development.
The agenda of this Symposium, and the list of participants, reflect the fundamental theme. There are many issues to discuss, from the integrated approach to all human rights to the role of the state in fulfilling social and economic rights and the role of civil society in achieving sustainable human development. There are many actors involved, and therefore coordination and cooperation are necessary to achieve the challenges facing all of us.