High Commissioner addresses ECLAC Forum on Sustainable Development Goals

Video message by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk

Warm greetings to you all. Thank you to Argentina and to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean for the opportunity to address this meeting.

Human history is marked by millions of pivotal moments. One of those moments occurred 75 years ago, when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted, giving recognition to the inherent dignity and worth of every human being on our planet.

It laid out a guiding vision where human rights would form the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace.

And it provided a beacon of hope to a world recovering from the profound devastation, despair, and heartache of two global wars.

In the words of Hernan Santa Cruz, Chilean lawyer and one of the drafters of the Declaration –human rights derive from ‘the fact of existing’ – they are not granted by any State.

This region has championed human rights for decades.

The Latin American and Caribbean contingent present at the UN founding conference in 1945 urged a human rights agenda. After that, your region played a key role in ensuring that economic, social, and cultural rights were included in the Universal Declaration, making indivisibility and universality guiding principles of the human rights framework.

All rights for everyone, no matter where.

Colleagues,

The 2030 Agenda – the focus of your discussion – is grounded in the Universal Declaration.

Without human rights, there can be no sustainable development. Three weeks ago, this was recognised by the Human Rights Council with the landmark resolution emphasising the urgency of integrating human rights into countries’ plans for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. This resolution was co-led by Chile and Luxembourg and co-sponsored by other Latin American and Caribbean countries.

At a time of multiple and profound global crisis, this resolution is crucial.

We are now past the halfway mark to 2030, but we are lagging drastically behind. Human rights reversals are accelerating in many countries, particularly as the consequences and aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be felt.

The Latin America and Caribbean region has long experienced some of the highest rates of socioeconomic inequality in the world.

COVID-19 deepened these divides, with both the health and economic consequences of the pandemic disproportionately affecting women, indigenous peoples, people of African descent, older people, people in detention, LGBTIQ+ people, as well as refugees and migrants.

Millions of people plunged further into extreme poverty, compounded, to varying degrees, by weak social security and health systems, fragile institutions, limited diversification of economies, and a high number of informal workers.

Recovering from the pandemic requires more than economic stabilization and growth. It requires that economic efforts to build back better be infused with human rights. It means countering inequalities and fully realising economic, social and cultural rights. It means budgets and policies centred on the most marginalised. And it means prioritising universal health care and social protection, access to education, and the sustainability of our planet.

We also need to go beyond national averages by disaggregating data. Better data means better policies to stamp out inequalities.

And we need to empower people, including those who have been marginalised, to engage actively in political processes.

National efforts must be accompanied by global solidarity, in the spirit of the right to development. A global financial architecture that is fit for purpose - enabling States to expand fiscal space for human rights and sustainable development – is crucial. The Bridgetown initiative, led by the Prime Minister of Barbados, is a positive example that does exactly this.

Colleagues,

The 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an opportunity to reignite the promise of human rights for everyone. My Office’s Human Rights 75 initiative aims to create a renewed - and worldwide – consensus on the global human rights agenda.

I look forward to working with you all – and I count on your support – to achieve this critical vision.

As you know, the outcomes of this regional forum will feed into upcoming global discussions on the SDGs. As leaders in the Latin American and Caribbean region present here today, your voices are vital to remind the world that human rights are the most powerful tools we have at our disposal to emerge from crisis, and to forge a new beginning.

I wish you productive and fulfilling discussions.