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Info Service on UN Sustainable Development (Sept23/05) Penang, 12 Sep (Kanaga Raja) — The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr Volker Turk, has stressed on the need to focus on development and human rights in order to address ongoing multiple crises, saying in his work with the United Nations over the years, “it has become clear to me that development issues underlie almost every challenge we face.” In a statement at the opening of the 54th regular session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on 11 September, Mr Turk said that people everywhere want – and have a right to – a decent standard of living, food on the table, access to affordable medical care when they need it, education, and equal opportunities for themselves and their children. He said they also want good economic prospects, with a fair share of resources, a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, the freedom to make their own choices, objective information, not propaganda, and justice and police systems that uphold their rights. “And to ensure all of this, they want active and meaningful participation in decisions, and governments that serve their needs – not elites whose needs they have to serve,” said Mr Turk. “But time and again, I see people deprived of these rights, and crushed by development that is neither respectful nor fair. Injustice, poverty, exploitation and repression are the cause of grievances that drive tensions, conflicts, displacement and further misery – on and on.” Instead of unity of purpose, and decisive, cooperative leadership, we’re seeing the politics of division and distraction – for instance, through the fabrication of artificial disputes over gender, migration or imagining a “clash” of civilisations,” said the High Commissioner. “We’re seeing the politics of deception, of throwing sand in people’s eyes. Helped by new technologies, lies and disinformation are mass-produced to sow chaos, to confuse, and ultimately to deny reality and ensure no action will be taken that could endanger entrenched elites. The most apparent case of this is climate change. And we’re seeing the old, blunt, brutal politics of repression.” “We so badly need a flowering of critical, innovative and constructive views to build better policies and systems, but what we increasingly get are military coups, authoritarianism and the crushing of dissent – in short, the fist,” Mr Turk emphasized. He said antidotes exist to each of these. “We need to insist on evidence and truth. We need to be mindful of our interconnectedness and shared values. We need to cultivate humanity’s natural reflexes of empathy, justice and compassion. We need to nourish the critical thinking and creativity that can only stem from broad, free participation and open debates. And we need to stand firm on the promise of human rights, which is a promise of solutions.” Just as injustices crash into each other and generate multiple, towering crises, so joined-up steps towards more justice, respect and inclusion will anchor resilience, and liberate the power of contributions from every member of society, the High Commissioner stressed. A “DYSTOPIAN FUTURE” Mr Turk highlighted the issue of climate change as a “human rights emergency” for many countries , saying last month, in Iraq, the cradle of so many civilisations, he witnessed “a small piece of the environmental horror that is our global planetary crisis.” “In Basra – where 30 years ago, I was told, date palms lined lush canals – drought, searing heat, extreme pollution and fast-depleting supplies of fresh water are creating barren landscapes of rubble and dust.” Mr Turk said this “spiralling damage is a human rights emergency for Iraq – and many other countries.” He said climate change is pushing millions of people into famine. It is destroying hopes, opportunities, homes and lives. In recent months, urgent warnings have become lethal realities again and again all around the world. “We do not need more warnings. The dystopian future is already here. We need urgent action, now. And we know what to do. The real question is: what stops us.” The High Commissioner said that Sustainable Development Goal 16 – on Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions – encapsulates “our way out and forward from the turbulence that we are experiencing.” Its emphasis on this interlocking relationship between good governance and development represents the linchpin that holds the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development together, he added. Every development goal is grounded in equality and human dignity. They all require accountable institutions, an impartial, independent rule of law, and vibrant civil society. SDG 16 makes clear that to advance development, States have the responsibility to guarantee and protect civic space and fundamental rights, said the rights chief. “Leaving no-one behind” is not an empty slogan. It is a human rights action plan that reaches across the whole spectrum of human rights. Freedom is both the goal of development, and its source, said Mr Turk. “Civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, the right to development and the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment all build on each other. This is the meaning of the indivisibility and interdependence of human rights. Moving forward together, they can contribute to real solutions to our most pressing challenges.” The separation between two distinct sets of rights – civil and political, on the one hand, and economic, social and cultural, on the other – is an artefact of ideologies, not borne out by reality, Mr Turk underlined. “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes no such separation or hierarchy – and 75 years after its adoption, we badly need to return to that core.” In light of the upcoming SDG Summit next week, the High Commissioner said that “the world is betraying our promise to end hunger by 2030.” Mr Turk said that despite financial resources, technological innovation and land sufficient to provide adequate food for all, “we have returned to hunger levels not seen since 2005 – and to their toll of stunted children and painfully abbreviated lives.” The FAO’s 2023 global report projects that almost 600 million people will be chronically undernourished at the end of this decade. Causal factors include climate change, the consequences of the pandemic, and Russia’s war on Ukraine, he said. A year and a half of horrific warfare has ravaged Ukraine, with heart-wrenching toll on its people, and damage to vast areas of agricultural land, Mr Turk noted. He said the Russian Federation’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July, and attacks on grain facilities in Odesa and elsewhere, have again forced prices sky-high in many developing countries – taking the right to food far out of reach for many people. In Somalia, years of drought, extremist violence and failed governance led to an estimated 43,000 excess deaths last year – roughly half of them children under five years old. “Some 1.8 million children are likely to be acutely malnourished through 2023, a tragedy of inhuman proportions in a country that has so deeply been affected by conflict.” Mr Turk said that Somalia’s long dependence on wheat imports from Ukraine and the Russian Federation means that the breakdown of the Black Sea Grain Initiative was particularly damaging. Hunger and food insecurity are also deeply concerning in the Caribbean, the UN rights chief said, noting that the May 2023 World Food Programme-Caribbean Community (CARICOM) survey found that 3.7 million people – or 52% of the population of CARICOM countries – were food insecure. Mr Turk said that across 111 countries, 1.2 billion people, nearly half of them children, now live in acute, multi-dimensional poverty. They represent almost 20% of those countries’ populations, and according to the World Bank, many millions more will be pushed into extreme poverty as a result of climate change. “This is a terrible collective human rights failure,” said the High Commissioner. Across the Sahel, most people struggle for daily survival, with Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Niger, among the eight least developed countries in the world, he added. “These countries are severely affected by environmental degradation and climate change – a crisis to which they have contributed almost nothing. Resources required for survival, such as fertile land and water, are diminishing, resulting in conflict between communities.” The adaptation measures that they so urgently need are far too costly, and the financial support that is regularly promised at international conferences trickles in too slowly, said Mr Turk. He noted that 2022 was the deadliest year since the beginning of the Sahel crisis a decade ago, and the constant threat of violence by armed groups is now expanding towards coastal States. “None of the challenges faced by these countries can be addressed in isolation: they are inter-linked,” said the High Commissioner. He said climate change, including related droughts and extreme weather events; failure to invest adequately in education, healthcare, sanitation, social protections, impartial justice and other human rights; decades of weak governance; and a lack of transparent and accountable decision-making are the sources that violent extremism draws from. REFORM OF FINANCIAL ARCHITECTURE “Ours is an age of massive concentration of wealth, and unprecedented inequalities. Global wealth has never been greater,” said the High Commissioner. “But in 2021, the richest 10% owned 76% of total wealth; the poorest half owned just 2%. And nearly half the world’s people live in countries where governments must spend more on debt repayment than they are able to do on education or health.” The abyss between rich and poor harms everyone. Nationally and internationally, it destroys trust and weakens efforts to find solutions, said the rights chief. It is in the interest of every State to ensure that all international institutions and multilateral discussions reflect the needs of every participant, and that they work to close the widening inequalities between countries, Mr Turk underlined. In this context, the High Commissioner said one important step must be the reform of the international financial architecture, including fairer deals on debt relief and development finance. “Often, unwarranted conditionalities in investment and loan agreements have obstructed States’ fulfilment of their human rights obligations – as if the latter obligations didn’t exist.” Mr Turk said that human rights are central to development impact and a just transition, and must be integrated, clearly and comprehensively, in the policies and operations of international financial institutions. He also strongly encouraged States to endorse the UN’s appeal for an SDG Stimulus, and welcomed the current international discussions on reinforcing international tax cooperation. When multinational businesses and wealthy individuals shift their profits and financial reporting to low- or no- tax jurisdictions, this undercuts the ability of countries to mobilize revenues to fulfil human rights, Mr Turk said. The 2023 State of Tax Justice report estimates that countries will lose nearly US$5 trillion over the next ten years to tax havens. The High Commissioner highlighted the need to combat tax avoidance, tax evasion and illicit financial flows. “I commend the leadership of the African Group for bringing this topic to the fore at the General Assembly, and I welcome the initiative led by Colombia, Chile and Brazil to promote progressive taxation and greater cooperation across Latin America and the Caribbean.” He stressed that taking decisive steps to end corruption and illicit financial flows is a powerful tool for raising revenue, as studies have found. Both phenomena also undermine the rule of law, taking away resources needed for public investments and the common good, and destroying public confidence, he added. He noted that studies indicate that up to 25% of spending on public contracts is stolen by corruption, globally. Mr Turk said this deeply corrosive impact on sustainable development is why SDG 16.5 makes a strong promise to “substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms.” He said with the planetary crisis gaining pace, there is also a vital need for a shift to human rights economies that promote green solutions. “I cannot emphasise too strongly the need for a rapid, equitable phase-out of fossil fuels, and effectively financed human rights-based climate action, notably for adaptation, and to address loss and damage.” Mr Turk said that he is also attentive to the need to counter the impunity of people and businesses who severely plunder the environment. He pointed out that an international crime of ecocide has been proposed for inclusion in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court by a number of States and civil society groups. Mr Turk welcomed consideration of this and other measures to expand accountability for environmental damage, both at the national and international level. He further said that the rights to affordable and quality food, water and sanitation, housing, education, healthcare and social security impose obligations on all States. Like all other human rights, they need to be embedded in law and upheld, everywhere. “But in many countries, housing, for example, is treated as a commodity for speculative investment: a plaything of financial markets, rather than a fundamental right.” “A crisis of affordable housing squeezes family incomes; deepens inequalities; harms the health of children; impoverishes young people; and drives a growing crisis of homelessness,” said Mr Turk. “This has become especially evident across much of the industrialized world, and I am highlighting this issue because I am convinced that it goes to the heart of the social contract,” he added. In many European countries, housing costs have risen far faster than incomes – putting stable, secure housing out of reach for large numbers of young people, and others with low or erratic incomes. Across the European Union, a 2023 report based on official data indicates that nearly one million people are homeless – almost 30% higher than the already high level in 2021 – and it finds that young people are among the most impacted, said the High Commissioner. He said that in the United States of America, more than half a million people were experiencing homelessness in January 2022, according to official figures, and over 40% of them were people of African descent, who make up 12% of the population. Ending homelessness and ensuring affordable housing are firmly embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals, said Mr Turk. “They are also a human rights imperative. States need to recognize homelessness as a violation of human rights that strips people of protections essential to dignity.” He encouraged all countries – particularly the most developed countries – to deploy maximum available resources to fulfil these rights, as required by international law. In conclusion, the High Commissioner stressed that “the human rights cause in all its facets has the potential to unify us, at a time when we urgently need to come together to confront the existential challenges that face humanity. This is ultimately about building trust and restoring hope, including through the work of this Council. All of us need to play our part.” +
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