Human Rights Council
MORNING 28 February 2012

The Human Rights Council this morning held a panel discussion on human rights mainstreaming and international cooperation.

In a video message, United Nations Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon said that the respect for human rights was a responsibility for all Member States and the United Nations system. Progress on rights built societies. The Secretary-General called on all to respond to the demands of people to enjoy their rights and live in dignity.

Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in an opening statement, said an increasing number of United Nations agencies were not only integrating human rights into their internal policies, but had actively advocated for human rights through their mandated work. For United Nations country teams, human rights were no longer ‘add-ons’ to their long list of other priorities, but a foundation for more coherent and effective programming.

Jordan Ryan, Assistant Secretary-General and Assistant Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and Director of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, speaking as a panellist, said the United Nations Development Programme did not have a normative or monitoring mandate for human rights, but human rights had been an integral part of human development for nearly 20 years. Integrating human rights into development activities built more inclusive and just societies.

Flavia Bustreo, Assistant Director-General for Family, Women’s and Children’s Health, World Health Organization, speaking as a panellist, said the right to health was at the heart of fundamental freedoms. The World Health Organization supported Governments to use a human rights-based approach to improve people’s health by employing national health sector strategies as roadmaps for realizing the right to health.

Marie-Pierre Poirier, Regional Director for Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, United Nations Children’s Fund, speaking as a panellist, said that as far back as the 1990s, the United Nations Children’s Fund had adopted a human rights based approach to its development cooperation in around 150 countries. Rights-based approaches were not one-size fits all. Good practices were home grown and rooted in national ownership.

Constance Thomas, Director, International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, International Labour Organization, speaking as a panellist, said that far too often, economic and social rights, in particular labour rights, were not taken on board as human rights. The right to work and to just and favourable conditions of work had strong international normative foundations.

Siobhan McInerney-Lankford, Senior Policy Officer at the World Bank, speaking as a panellist, said creating the conditions for the attainment of human rights was a central and irreducible goal of development. The Bank was inclined to adopt a more instrumental focus and tended to embrace evidence-based methodologies and empirical premises. Human rights principles were understood to be part of good development practice and this was reflected in many of the Bank’s policies.

Barbara Ekwall, Senior Officer, Right to Food Coordinator, Food and Agriculture Organization, speaking as a panellist, said when discussing mainstreaming in the Food and Agriculture Organization, three lenses were employed: achieving human rights as explicit overall objectives, initiating a process that respected human rights, and ultimately promoting rights, obligations, responsibilities and accountability mechanisms through these activities. The Food and Agriculture Organization focused on the right to food, but its work also touched on gender, indigenous people, decent work and other areas.

In the discussion, speakers said there was a greater understanding of inclusion of human rights in development; the critical need now was more coordination between bodies mainstreaming human rights within and outside of the system. Another speaker said that human rights were never meant to be a separate sector of activities, but rather the permeated throughout the work of the United Nations and were represented at the table in New York. Speakers asked what were the possibilities of using human rights for development, and fostering and ensuring the effective rule of law, especially in post-conflict situations?

Senegal on behalf of the African Group, Mexico, Egypt on behalf of Non-Aligned Movement, European Union, Turkey, Cuba, Austria, Algeria, Morocco, Uruguay, Brazil, Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Conference, Mauritania on behalf of the Arab Group, China, Indonesia, Iran, Uzbekistan, New Zealand on behalf of Canada and Australia, Ireland and Maldives took the floor in the panel discussion. The International Coordinating Committee of National Human Rights Institutions took the floor, as did Farida Shaheed, Chairperson of the Coordinating Committee of Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, also took the floor during the discussion.

At the end of the panel discussion, Kyung-wha Kang, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, said today in room XIX there would be a signing ceremony for the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the communication procedure.

The panel discussion concluded at 11:45 a.m., after which, the Human Rights Council immediately commenced the urgent debate on the human rights and humanitarian situation in Syria.

Opening Statements

BAN KI-MOON, United Nations Secretary-General, in a video message to the Human Rights Council, said that the respect for human rights was a responsibility for all Member States and the United Nations system. Progress on rights built societies. That was why a human rights-based approach was a stand-out feature of everything that the United Nations did. Much progress had been achieved and much more remained to be done. Human rights should never be pushed to the sidelines; they belonged to the centre. Secretary-General Ban called on all to respond to demands of people for enjoyment of their rights and lives in dignity.

NAVI PILLAY, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that this year had provided an important opportunity to advance policy coherence and ensure a more effective framework of support to Member States through the Rio+20 Conference, the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review of United Nations operational activities under the General Assembly, and planning for the post 2015 development agenda. Mainstreaming all human rights, including the right to development, was a critical aspect of the mandate of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and a common endeavour for all United Nations agencies and staff. An increasing number of United Nations agencies were not only integrating human rights into their internal policies, but actively advocated for human rights through their mandated work on the rights of people affected by HIV, on the rights to food, education, health and shelter, and on the fundamental rights of workers. For United Nations country teams on the ground, human rights were no longer ‘add-ons’ to their long list of other priorities, but a foundation for more coherent and effective programming.

At the 2005 World Summit, the Heads of State had explicitly supported the further integration of human rights into the work of the United Nations system while at the same time expressing resolve to integrate human rights into their own national policies. The outcomes of the Millennium Development Goals Review Summit in 2010 and the Least Developed Countries Conference in 2011 contained a rich catalogue of references to human rights and commitments to rights-based actions to accelerate the Millennium Development Goals achievement and to meet the special needs of the least developed countries, based on the human rights principles of equity, non-discrimination, participation and accountability.

The United Nations system had been challenged in the face of global food and financial crises, people’s uprisings as seen in the Arab spring and elsewhere, and natural and man-made disasters. All of these challenges had given renewed attention to human rights as a common pursuit of the entire United Nations system. The Universal Periodic Review had been instrumental in opening new opportunities and offering a comprehensive framework for the United Nations system to engage with Member States and assist, at their request, in strengthening national capacity and facilitating national dialogues for reporting and implementation. In the area of development, the United Nations Development Group, a dedicated coordination and support mechanism on human rights mainstreaming, was established in 2009 to provide more effective and coordinated support to Resident Coordinators and United Nations country teams so that they could better assist Member States in building strong national capacity upon request. Human rights were an integral component of all United Nations peacekeeping and political missions. There were several important policy developments over the last year to further strengthen the coherence and integration, including a human rights and due diligence policy, which would ensure that United Nations support in a complex and challenging environment was firmly grounded in core United Nations principles and international standards.

Statements by Panellists

JORDAN RYAN, Assistant Secretary-General and Assistant Administrator of United Nations Development Programme and Director of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, said that the discussion today was both timely and necessary, particularly in the light of the upcoming Rio +20 Summit which would focus the attention of the world on sustainable development. The United Nations Development Programme did not have a normative nor monitoring mandate on human rights, but human rights had been an integral part of human development for nearly 20 years now. From its work at the country level, the United Nations Development Programme learned that integrating human rights in development activities built more inclusive and just societies. The efforts to mainstream human rights meant engaging Governments and people to better understand human rights and to build national capacity to ensure adherence to applicable standards. Challenges remained despite the positive examples. The lack of political will to go beyond the usual legal and formalistic approach of human rights was one of them.

FLAVIA BUSTREO, Assistant Director-General for Family, Women’s and Children’s Health, World Health Organization, said that the right to health was at the heart of fundamental freedoms. The World Health Organization supported Governments to practically use a human rights-based approach to improve people’s health by using national health sector strategies as roadmaps for realizing the right to health. The imprint of human rights was visible in two hard-core legal instruments of the World Health Organization: the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the International Health Regulations, which recognized the fundamental responsibility of Governments to protect the right to health and to provide responses to disease outbreaks and public health events with respect for human rights. In conclusion, Ms. Bustreo outlined some of the remaining challenges for the World Health Organization, which included the need for better understanding of value added of using human rights in a public health context, and said that the World Health Organization was prepared and committed to do the health part of the overall United Nations human rights mainstreaming agenda.

MARIE-PIERRE POIRIER, Regional Director for Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, United Nations Children’s Fund, said that as far back as the 1990s, the United Nations Children’s Fund had adopted a human rights based approach to its development cooperation in around 150 countries. Human rights based cooperation required substantive reliable data and evidence on the scale and causes of inequalities, exclusion and marginalization. Ratification of international human rights instruments was only the first step and should be followed by operational guidelines, institution building, monitoring and recourse mechanisms, as well as capacity development or strengthening, including for families. Rights based approaches were not a one-size fits all and efforts must be made to address the particular contexts of different countries. Good practices were home grown and rooted in national ownership.

CONSTANCE THOMAS, Director, International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, International Labour Organization, said that far too often, economic and social rights, in particular labour rights, were not taken on board as human rights. The right to work and to just and favourable conditions of work had a strong international normative foundation. International Labour Conventions and supervisory bodies should be recognized as part of the human rights framework of the United Nations and any work done under the human rights mechanism should incorporate all relevant International Labour Organization standards. The best example of a successful rights based programme was the International Programme to Eliminate Child Labour, which had been in existence for 20 years with operational projects in 90 counties and the provision of technical advisory services in many more. Over a million children had been withdrawn from labour as a result of this programme with the greatest decline among young girl child labours, a 30 per cent decline over five years, which showed the beneficial impact of united action between the United Nations and donor community that focused on the girl child in education, equal treatment, nutrition, and labour.

SIOBHAN MCINERNEY-LANKFORD, Senior Policy Officer at the World Bank, said the World Bank recognized the links between development and human rights. Creating the conditions for the attainment of human rights was a central and irreducible goal of development. However, the Bank was inclined to adopt a more instrumental focus and tended to embrace evidence-based methodologies and empirical premises. Human rights principles were understood to be part of good development practice and this was reflected in many of the Bank’s policies. The Nordic Trust Fund was established in 2009 as a knowledge and learning initiative to help the Bank develop an informed view on human rights and build an understanding of how human rights related to its analytical activities and operations. This fund supported the International Finance Corporation to undertake analytical work on human rights and develop an update of the Guide to Human Rights Impact Assessment and Management as well as an Implementation Guidance Tool for the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. There had been an increased awareness of human rights among Bank staff, among other results.

BARBARA EKWALL, Senior Officer, Right to Food Coordinator, Food and Agriculture Organization, said the number of people suffering from hunger and malnutrition remained stubbornly high, close to one billion. When discussing mainstreaming in the Food and Agriculture Organization, three lenses were employed: achieving human rights as explicit overall objectives, initiating a process that respected human rights, and ultimately promoting rights, obligations, responsibilities and accountability mechanisms through these activities. The Food and Agriculture Organization focused on the right to food, but its work also touched on gender, indigenous people, decent work and other areas. The Food and Agriculture Organization used the Right to Food Guidelines of 2004 to guide its work. Related to gender, the State of Food and Agriculture in the World showed that by closing the gender gap in agriculture about 100 to 150 million people would be lifted out of food insecurity. The Food and Agriculture Organization worked closely with the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights as well as with the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter.

Discussion

In the ensuing discussion, Austria said that effective human rights mainstreaming took place at all levels and must show results on the ground: perpetrators needed to be held accountable for their violations, women’s and children’s rights must be equally guaranteed and judicial systems must meet rule of law standards. What were the possibilities of using human rights for development, and fostering and ensuring the effective rule of law, especially in post-conflict situations? Uruguay said there was a greater understanding of inclusion of human rights in development; the critical need now was more coordination between bodies mainstreaming human rights within and outside of the system. Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation said that the term human rights mainstreaming still lacked conceptual clarity. There was a need to overcome disagreements to optimize the outcomes of the process and avoid setting a hierarchy of rights. All human rights including economic, social and cultural rights should be mainstreamed in all activities.

The European Union said that human rights were never meant to be a separate sector of activities, but rather permeated throughout the work of the United Nations and were represented at the table in New York. Was there a way for the United Nations agencies and organizations to benefit from more input from the Geneva based human rights institutions, including from the Human Rights Council? Senegal suggested that priority be given to building capacity for state agents involved in human rights issues and to drawing up national development strategies and defining clear human rights mandates of the United Nations special agencies. Indonesia asked how the efforts on human rights mainstreaming in the United Nations would ensure the balance between economic, social and cultural rights and the right to development. New Zealand on behalf of Canada and Australia asked the panellists to clarify how the newly established Human Rights Mainstreaming Mechanism had been operating to date and how it could be best utilized to assist Member States to implement their Universal Periodic Review recommendations.

Mexico and Brazil highlighted the fundamental role of the specialized United Nations agencies in the realization of human rights in their respective areas and competencies. The Maldives underscored the essential role played by country teams to integrate human rights in all United Nations activities. Iran and China said they were carrying out important efforts to integrate human rights in all areas and that they would continue such efforts. Egypt in the name of the Non-Aligned Movement noted that the panellists had not taken up the question of the respect of the realization of the right to development, which should be integrated in all actions of the United Nations. Cuba said that it was convinced that the international institutions needed to be democratized.

Mauritania in the name of the Arab Group and Algeria said that this high-level panel discussion confirmed the role and mandate of the Human Rights Council concerning the integration of human rights in the United Nations system. The International Coordinating Committee of National Human Rights Institutions said that the coordination of national human rights institutions with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Development Programme should be heard by the other United Nations agencies. Morocco and Turkey said they supported the integration of human rights in all activities of the United Nations, as human rights were one of the fundamental pillars of the Organization. Ireland said that it was on the ground that human rights had to be ensured, especially in post conflict and transition situations. Uzbekistan mapped out measures taken at the national level to support the integration of human rights in all development activities.

FARIDA SHAHEED, Chairperson of the Coordinating Committee of Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, also took the floor and said that since the recognition of human rights as one of the three pillars of the United Nations in 2005, all United Nations bodies and representatives should work together toward full implementation of human rights. Human rights were sometimes perceived as sensitive and at first glance it could seem easier to ignore some human rights concerns and focus on issues that might seem more acceptable, such as development. But human rights and development were two sides of the same coin and interlinked. Special Procedures had significantly continued to mainstream human rights into United Nations and national policies, while country visits were excellent tools for engaging in constructive dialogues. The upcoming Conference on Sustainable Development Rio +20 would be an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the commitment towards human rights mainstreaming. The outcome document of this Conference should clearly integrate all human rights.

Concluding Remarks

JORDAN RYAN, Assistant Secretary-General and Assistant Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and Director of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery United Nations Development Programme, in concluding remarks said that in response to the question of Egypt, development programmes were fundamentally linked to human rights in an operational way. On the Universal Periodic Review, there should be a closer working relationship with the resident coordinators. Concerning the question raised by Austria on countries in transition, Mr. Ryan agreed that there was a real opportunity to work on human rights issues in these countries.

FLAVIA BUSTREO, Director of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, World Health Organization, in concluding remarks said she assured the delegates that using human rights could transform the paradigm of the right to development done in consultation and cooperation with other United Nation bodies. For example, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund had provided support and analysis to the Committee on the Rights of the Child and then brought the recommendations of this Committee into its country work. There was an opportunity for a greater exchange among United Nations bodies, for example exchanging of staff in order to increase the capacity of individuals on the ground to increase effectiveness.

MARIE-PIERRE POIRIER, Regional Director for Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, United Nations Children’s Fund, in concluding remarks, said one thing that could be highlighted was that aligning cooperation with human rights approaches evolved United Nations work away from single projects and towards helping States deliver on human rights obligations and build the ability of populations to demand rights. With respect to the rule of law, United Nations country teams worked to strengthen normative frameworks in countries. Some of the recommendations from Universal Periodic Reviews were able to promote discussions and establish priorities for the development programmes in countries concerned.

CONSTANCE THOMAS, Director, International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, International Labour Organization, in concluding remarks, pointed out the linkage to Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labour, which manifested the marriage of human rights and the right to development. The elimination of the worst forms of child labour, labour that damaged the health and morals of children, was given priority in the International Labour Organization’s activities. Regarding governance, the integration of human rights brought up policy, upstream and downstream, laws as well as the enforcement in all the different areas of rights being addressed. Facilitating a flow of communication that was easily usable by the Resident Coordinator and the United Nation country team would be beneficial to ensure there were no parallel systems but rather integration at the international level.

SIOBHAN MCINERNEY-LANKFORD, Senior Policy Officer at the World Bank, in concluding remarks, said that the work on human rights indicators was the most useful for the World Bank so far as it gave the base to make the case for the integration of human rights. The Nordic Fund was built around specific competencies of the World Bank, in order to avoid duplications. While the right to development was not a binding human right, the World Bank looked at it as a useful framework and frame of reference.

BARBARA EKWALL, Senior Officer, Right to Food Coordinator, Food and Agriculture Organization, in concluding observations, said that the best way for the Human Rights Council to contribute to the mainstreaming of the human rights process in United Nations agencies and bodies was by encouraging and by assisting them in developing a strategy with clear goals. The Food and Agricultural Organization staff in the field needed to have human rights in their DNA and be endowed with skills to advocate for human rights.

Signing Ceremony for the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child

KYUNG-WHA KANG, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, said today in room XIX there would be a signing ceremony for the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the communication procedure. The Optional Protocol had been adopted last December and Member States would come together today to celebrate, it demonstrating that children should be offered a level of protection equal to that in other human rights treaties. Ms. Kang said that litigation and examination of communications of individuals at local levels could lead to real changes for those concerned and could provide a strong incentive for strengthening national mechanisms. The purpose of the Optional Protocol was not only to provide access for victims but also to promote remedies at the national level. The critical process of reflection on how to strengthen the treaty bodies was drawing to a close and Ms. Kang stressed that Member States should bear the primary responsibility for implementing their obligations to treaties. Today, Ms. Kang said that the international community would reaffirm its commitment to the rights of the child and the treaty body system through the new Optional Protocol.

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