18 June 2015

Excellencies,
Distinguished Colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to warmly thank the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the OHCHR as well as the Geneva Academy for hosting this important event. I am very pleased and honored to participate in this high-level roundtable discussion, along with such distinguished panelists and friends, on such a crucial issue of our time.

Today, we find ourselves in a decisive moment in the formation of a new agenda for sustainable development. This agenda should provide us with universal goals to guide our collective efforts towards achieving sustainability in all its three dimensions: economic, social and ecological. Needless to say, this process is going to determine our thinking on sustainable development for the next 15 years. But to be truly sustainable, the entire new development agenda must be anchored in human rights. Development vs. Human Rights is often a mantra used and misused. As the High Commissioner eloquently stated on Monday at the opening of the 29th session, and I quote: “The integration of the human rights in the SDG agenda can become a turning point […] The empirical evidence for human rights-based development is growing”.

So we know where we are and we know what is at stake.

To help the Post-2015 Development Agenda to fulfill its powerful guiding idea of “leaving no one behind”, we must ensure that human rights are and remain at the center of implementation and accountability discussions for the post-2015 agenda.

Already much thought has been given to what kind of mechanism should be put in place for monitoring and reviewing progress on the SDGs on a global level. And when I look at our Human Rights Council and its many mechanisms, I realize that we have a lot to contribute to this thinking exercise. The experience of the HRC and especially its crown jewel, the Universal Periodic Review mechanism, has taught us many lessons, which we can harness to inform the design of a strong, transparent, inclusive and credible follow-up and review mechanism for the SDGs.

Through our success in retaining 100% State participation in the UPR, we have learned the importance of ensuring universality and equality in the review process. Every Member State of the United Nations passes under review and they all do so under equal terms. We have also learned the value of peer-to-peer evaluation. While a peer-to-peer mechanism has some given weaknesses (unlike the UPR, Treaty Bodies examine specific legal obligations of States), it also offers particular advantages:

1. Every State is both reviewing and reviewed. A State-centered review is one of ownership and participation, of mutual accountability and commitment.
2. Furthermore, we receive a wealth of information on States and on human rights, which both help the discourse, the identification of further challenges and can help to pave the way ahead.
3. We have also learned that any mechanism must critically reflect on other systems, offer feedback and exhibit self-correction and improvement from one cycle to the next. On the eve of our second cycle, we are slowly starting to discuss how to further improve the mechanism, including through increased participation of other relevant stakeholders to enable an inclusive national follow-up process.

Looking beyond the UPR, the Council’s working methods in general have taught us the importance of civil society participation. Civil society has often showed us where to look, has alerted us to crises and has called our attention to evils often hidden from plain sight. Their engagement keeps us in touch with the reality on the ground. Their voices keep us accountable. They challenge our assertions and question our intentions; they force us to be frank and remind us what is at stake.

NHRIs and regional organizations have also contributed systematically to the work of the Council. 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.

However, also our shortcomings -in particular during the time of the Commission on Human Rights- have taught us important lessons. The persistence of acute crises has showed us the imperative of implementation and of preventative action. Because of the frequent impasse of negotiations and the stalemate of resolutions, we are trying to move away from ‘lowest-common-denominator’ thinking and set higher goals through open dialogue and genuine cooperation.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A strong post-2015 accountability mechanism will reflect these lessons and draw on best practices. We do not have to start from the beginning.

But human rights mechanisms, such as our Council, can not only serve as models for accountability mechanisms. They also represent vast wells of information relevant to shaping, implementing and reviewing progress towards achieving the SDGs. Looking at the OWG report on SDGs, almost all SDGs have a human rights component: social and economic goals mirror many HRC resolutions on economic and social rights, goal No. 16 draws parallels to civil and political rights, while equality and women’s rights have even been raised to stand-alone goals No. 5 and No. 10. And these parallels have been made clear through the Council’s work, including, for instance, through concrete inputs and recommendations of the Special Rapporteurs on extreme poverty and on the right to safe drinking water and sanitation. Our resolutions also reflect the need to include vulnerable, marginalized groups in the SDGs. The rights of indigenous peoples, the rights of persons with disabilities and the human rights of minorities and migrants have all been -more than once- at the center of recommendations for inclusion in the post-2015 development agenda.

Other themes include the rights of the child, education and women’s rights.

Last but not least, the Council’s Special Procedures mandate-holders, as well as the Treaty bodies have over the past years repeatedly and jointly offered concrete recommendations for integration of human rights obligations within the SDGs. The result of these contributions is indeed reflected in the OWG’s proposed SDGs and their targets, revealing that human rights and a human-rights based approach must lie at the core of our thinking about development.

Human Rights are indications of progress and, at the same time, serve as early warning systems against retrogressions.

Finding a way to harness all of this information and potential for the effective implementation and monitoring of the SDGs 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.

Negotiations in New York are now entering a critical phase and it will be decisive that human rights and their protection will be anchored as a central element of the Post-2015 development Agenda. This will require that they are not only appropriately reflected in the design of the goals and targets, but also central to the implementation of the agenda and appropriately followed up through the envisaged review and accountability mechanisms.

As President of the Human Rights Council, I believe that human rights are at the core of sustainable development and the fact that you are all here today sends a strong message.

Thank you