Remarks of HRC President on side event entitled “Post-2015 and Human Rights: The Challenges and Opportunities of Implementation”

Wednesday 16 September 2015 - 1pm to 3 pm
Palais des Nations, Room XXIV

Excellencies,
Distinguished Colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to warmly thank the EU Delegation, as well as the Permanent Mission of Luxembourg and the OHCHR for organizing this timely event. I am very pleased and honored to participate in this important panel discussion, along with such distinguished panelists and friends.

We stand this year at an important crossroad for our planet and for the human rights of all individuals. We have seen the crafting of a new agenda for sustainable development, which will determine the course we take vis-à-vis our economic, social and ecological future.

A few days from now, States will gather at the UN Summit in New York to adopt the new transformative agenda “for people, planet, prosperity, peace partnership”.

Extreme poverty and hunger, climate and sustainable production and consumption are central aspects of the envisaged transformation and these will guide our thinking and our collective efforts towards achieving our common goals for the next 15 years.

Needless to say, we are at a turning point. The new development agenda will be firmly anchored in human rights; a major step forward from its predecessor, the Millennium Development Goals.  And the Human Rights Council has played an important role in this regard by consistently illuminating the links between human rights and development agendas throughout its discussions, in particular in relation to vulnerable groups.

But now the time has come to focus on implementation and follow-up for the ambitious goals we set for ourselves. And here again the Human Rights Council at its 10 years has a lot to contribute.

First and foremost, all countries and all stakeholders will need to act in collaborative partnership in order to implement this transformative agenda. For the Human Rights Council, the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement lies at the core of its working methods. The participation of civil society in the work of the Council is enshrined in our founding documents and their engagement keeps us in touch with the reality on the ground. Their voices keep us accountable in regard to our commitments and remind us what is at stake.

NHRIs and regional organizations are also important contributors to our work and are essential for ensuring effective implementation on the ground and follow-up to commitments by States. Furthermore, other stakeholders, more and more the private sector, play an important role in our discussions. For instance, when we discuss the access to medicine in the Social Forum, businesses ought to be present. The same holds true when we discuss privacy and data security in the Forum of Business and Human Rights.

Secondly, the Universal Periodic Review mechanism, which I like to call the crown jewel of our Council, has a lot to contribute towards the inclusive and credible implementation of the 2030 Agenda and can provide valuable input to follow-up and review efforts. As a model for peer-to-peer evaluation -meaning that every State is both reviewing and reviewed- the UPR showcases the importance and value of ownership and participation of mutual accountability and commitment. Also, through our success in retaining 100% State participation in the UPR, we have learned the importance of ensuring universality and equality in any review process. Every Member State of the United Nations passes under review and they all do so under equal terms.

Moreover, by having an open discourse on the human rights record of all States, by identifying common human rights challenges and by sharing information States help each other pave the way ahead. Similarly, implementing the 2030 Agenda is a very challenging task, but one that is common for all of us States. We should thus focus on solution-sharing and on exchanging information, knowledge and best practices.

Thirdly, the persistence of human rights violations and abuses in many States around the world has showed us the imperative of focusing on implementation of existing UPR recommendations. In this light, as we move towards the end of the second cycle, the discussion is shifting from amassing more and more recommendations to enabling an inclusive follow-up and implementation process. We are slowly starting to consider how the mechanism can be further improved to facilitate the latter. This can be a useful lesson for any envisaged follow-up mechanism to the 2030 Agenda. Critically reflecting on other systems, offering feedback and exhibiting self-correction and improvement from one cycle to the next is essential to remain effective and achieve our goals.

Yet, providing sample tools for implementation and offering a model review mechanism are not the only things our Human Rights Council can contribute. It notably also produces a vast amount of information, which could be relevant to shaping, implementing and reviewing progress towards achieving the SDGs. This information comes primarily from the expert reports of our Special Rapporteurs and Working Groups, as well as from studies carried out by the Advisory Committee and other bodies. In addition, many of our resolutions on civil and political rights and on economic and social rights, such as on the right to safe drinking water and sanitation, or on human rights and extreme poverty, contain components relevant to the SDGs.

These links could be usefully highlighted in our future resolutions.

Our resolutions also reflect the need to include vulnerable, marginalized groups, such as indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, minorities and migrants, when implementing the 2030 Agenda.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Finding a way to harness all of this information for the effective implementation and monitoring of the post-2015 development framework is crucial if we want to deliver on our promise to devise a more integrated, holistic and systemic approach to development. This has been from the beginning one of the greatest strengths of the SDG process. One step in that direction has been, for instance, the Geneva Pledge for Human Rights in Climate Action, which was formulated this year here in Geneva by the ADP (Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action). It reiterates the commitment of States to strengthen the links between human rights-experts and climate change-experts and aim for a more holistic understanding and solution to this multidimensional issue.

With this in mind, in this important crossroad it is our obligation, as the Human Rights Council, to continue highlighting the human rights aspects of development, peace and prosperity, and to ensure that human rights concerns are and remain at the heart of future steps towards implementation of the 2030 transformative Agenda. Because, in the words of High Commissioner Zeid, and I quote “When the fundamental principles of human rights are not protected, the center of our institution no longer holds. It is they that promote development that is sustainable; peace that is secure; and lives of dignity”.

We need to see that we are all in this together. And only with this mindset can we achieve the successful implementation of the SDGs at all levels and make global sustainable development a reality for all.

Thank you