The UN and the Human Rights-Based Approach to Development

”As the Secretary-General of the United Nations I have made human rights a priority in every programme the United Nations launches and in every mission we embark on. I have done so because the promotion and defence of human rights is at the heart of every aspect of our work and every article of our Charter” (Kofi Annan, 1999)

Introduction

Encouraging respect for human rights is enshrined in the UN Charter as a fundamental purpose of the United Nations.  All agencies and organizations under the UN system, while each having its own unique mandate and focus, are governed and guided by the UN Charter and thus share a commitment to common values including human rights and gender equality as enshrined in the Charter and international conventions.  These universal values and principles have been codified in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the nine core international human rights treaties as well as other international instruments over the last sixty years.

The Vienna Declaration on Human Rights and Programme of Action, adopted at the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993, placed the promotion and protection of human rights as a priority objective of the United Nations, and in particular, as a purpose of international cooperation. 

The mainstreaming of human rights within the UN system has thus been central to the series of UN reform efforts since 1997, when the former Secretary-General designated human rights as a cross-cutting to the work of the Organization.  The subsequent UN reform initiative in 2002 went further still, placing human rights as a “a bedrock requirement for the realization of the Charter’s vision of a just and peaceful world” and directing the UN system’s attention to country-level actions to build national systems for the promotion and protection of human rights.  Significantly, at the request of the Secretary-General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Principals of UNDG and ECHA agencies developed and adopted an interagency plan of action (‘Action 2 Plan’) on strengthening human rights related UN action at country level to better support strengthening of national protection system at the request of countries concerned.

Further political impetus was provided by the 2005 World Summit, in which world leaders reaffirmed that human rights, development and peace & security as three interlinked pillars of our Organization, and gave explicit support for the further integration of human rights within the UN system as well as a resolve to integrate human rights into national policies.  These interlinkages among human rights, development and peace & security were reaffirmed in the 2007 General Assembly resolution on Triennial Comprehensive Policy Review.

Progress

Over the last decade, important progress has been made in many agencies and areas of work across the U.N. system, from integration of human rights into policies and guidelines to strengthening the capacity of UN country teams.  Some of the noteworthy milestones in human rights mainstreaming efforts at global level include:

Challenges

Notwithstanding the progress made in recent years – particularly the achievements in developing the normative framework -human rights mainstreaming in the UN system remains a work in progress and the gap between rhetoric and implementation remains wide.  Various recent stocktaking efforts at agency and interagency levels, as well as the Secretary-General’s Policy Committee discussion on human rights and development held on 20 May 2008, have highlighted several challenges related to human rights mainstreaming including political challenge; leadership challenge; institutional challenge; capacity challenge and accountability challenge.  See the Background Paper, Human Rights Mainstreaming within the United Nations for the Third Interagency Workshop on Implementing a Human Rights-Based Approach for additional details.

Achieving effective mainstreaming of human rights would ultimately mean that all activities of the United Nations would work towards protecting the rights-holders and enhancing the capacity and accountability of duty-bearers.  The conclusion of the ‘Action 2′ programme in November 2008, and the follow-up of the recent decision of the Secretary-General’s Policy Committee, provide an opportunity and an imperative for the UN system to further strengthen system-wide coherence, collaboration and support for Resident Coordinators and UN country teams in mainstreaming human rights.

The Practitioners Portal on HRBA

The practitioners portal on HRBA resources seeks to provide development practitioners with access to useful and relevant resources that will assist them in understanding and implementing a human rights-based approach in development programming and practice.  The development of the portal has been funded by the Action 2 Global Programme.