HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS HIGHLIGHTS LINKS BETWEEN HUMAN RIGHTS AND EQUITABLE AND SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC ORDER

1 July 1999


United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson will highlight the links between the implementation of human rights and the development of an equitable and sustainable economic order as she delivers today the Seventeenth Presidential Lecture in a series organised by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

In an address titled, "Constructing an International Financial, Trade and Development Architecture: the Human Rights Dimension", the High Commissioner notes that over the past 50 years many developing countries have not benefited from the international financial architecture established after the Second World War. As she recalls, the numbers speak for themselves:

The gap between the richest 20 per cent of humanity and the poorest 20 per cent doubled between 1940 and 1990. In 1976, Switzerland was 52 times richer than Mozambique, while in 1997 it was 508 times richer;


Three billion people exist on less than $2 a day;


1.3 billion people do not have clean water and 40,000 children die every day because of hunger-related diseases.

The High Commissioner argues that the historic approach of addressing separately - in a segmented way - economic, social, financial and human rights issues is at the heart of the problem. She calls on the international community to devise strategies to help secure economic, social and cultural rights for all and to honour the often repeated pledges to support the right to development.

Mrs. Robinson calls on developed states to halt the downward slide in their Official Development Assistance and to make genuine moves to allow free access to their markets. The developing countries, for their part, should make sure that policies are adopted which foster participation and transparency and that funds transferred are not squandered on unproductive or wasteful projects.

The High Commissioner urges the international financial, economic and trade institutions to take greater account of the human dimension of their activities; notes that properly structured debt-relief initiatives could bring tremendous benefits to countries gripped by poverty but committed to economic and political reform, and calls on the international business community to adopt socially responsible practices and use its increasing influence for the benefit of all people. She also challenges the scientific community to ensure that the benefits of the technology revolution are accessible to everyone to prevent people in some parts of the world being left out of this rapid transformation.

The text of the address will appear in the Website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (www.unhchr.ch).
For more information, contact Scott Jerbi on tel. (41 22) 917 9132, e-mail sjerbi.hchr@unog.ch; or Jose L Diaz, tel. (41 22) 917 92 42, e-mail jdiaz.hchr@unog.ch.