"Integrating Human Rights in the Post-2015 Development Agenda”: Statement at a High-level Panel Discussion on Human Rights Mainstreaming at the UN Human Rights Council, by Ms. Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

1 March 2013

Excellencies,
Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I welcome your presence here today, for it signifies that human rights are not only the mandate of my Office, but a core objective that is shared by the entire constellation of United Nations bodies and agencies.

As all of you know, throughout the post-2015 consultation process we have heard very clear calls for human rights — for civil and political rights, as well as for economic, social and cultural rights, and the right to development. As we push further with the development of our Post-2015 agenda, we in this room must listen to those voices.

The Millennium Development Goals were an important commitment for lifting many people out of poverty. But civil society, and the rights-holders themselves, were not sufficiently consulted in the process of shaping those goals, and their scope was largely limited to the socio-economic. They did not address “freedom from fear” — civil and political rights. Moreover, they focused on progress towards “average” or aggregate targets, and this often masked very uneven advancement that ignored entrenched inequalities and discrimination. The MDGs were also weak on accountability, at national and global levels.

So, perhaps it should come as no surprise that a number of initial MDG “success stories” could not be sustained, and some of those societies are now embroiled in violence.

The Secretary General's Task Team on the Post-2015 Development Agenda has recommended that our work should be grounded in the interlinked principles of human rights, equality, and sustainability.

I welcome this, for I believe that the normative pillars of international human rights — treaties that, I remind you, have been signed by all UN member States — will focus and reinforce our joint work to enhance development after 2015.

Firstly, because human rights frame a vision that is based on substantive equality and equal rights for all, a new self-standing global goal on “achieving equality” must be the powerful central message of our new, post-2015 agenda. I was pleased to see a strong recommendation along these lines emerge from the Leadership Meeting of the UN Development Group's consultation on inequalities, which was hosted on February 19 by the government of Denmark in partnership with the government of Ghana.

Secondly, human rights clarify our post-2015 objectives. These must be universal rights, which include not only an essential minimum standard of services and access for all, in other words, “freedom from want”, but also freedom from fear: guarantees for personal security, political participation, and access to justice.

A human rights approach will also require that we identify and dismantle discrimination — ensuring that development is fully inclusive, and that all outcomes in the development process enhance the position of the most disadvantaged.

A human rights approach emphasizes accountability mechanisms — changing what commitments our post-2015 process should agree to monitor i.e. based on human rights standards, and how we should agree to monitor them i.e. in a participatory fashion.

Central to the human rights approach is the universal right to education. Education is a fundamental right in itself, and an important enabling right to claim and realize other human rights. Education is also essential to the achievement of the right to development – enabling all people, without discrimination of any kind, to take an active part in the process.

In short, without respect for human rights, development is not equitable. And unless it is equitable, development can never be sustainable.

Under the United Nations Development Group, comprised of 32 funds, programmes, agencies and other offices, we are working to strengthen our support to national partners, through a more coherent system-wide response. Integrating human rights in development programmes improves our impacts on the ground, spurring more equitable and durable progress towards the MDGs and universal human rights goals to which member States have committed themselves, and which the UN system must itself respect and uphold.

I urge you, therefore, to help build our post-2015 agenda on our solemn, shared international human rights standards and obligations, in order to unlock new ways to increase the impact and benefit of our work on behalf of rights-holders everywhere.