Human Rights Day: States and international community have a duty to fight poverty by United Nations News 1:07pm 9th Dec, 2006   Following is the text of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s message on International Human Rights Day, to be observed on 10 December:    The campaign to make poverty history poses a central moral challenge of our time. Enforcing universal human rights can blaze a path towards that goal.    Basic human rights –- the right to a decent standard of living, to food and essential health care, to opportunities for education or decent work, or to freedom from discrimination –- are precisely what the world’s poorest need most. Yet, by virtue of their enfeebled status, they are the ones least able to achieve or defend such “universal” rights. As a result, human rights are jeopardized wherever and whenever a man, woman or child subsists in extreme poverty.    If we are to be serious about human rights, we must demonstrate that we are serious about deprivation. As suggested by this year’s International Human Rights Day observance, we must answer the call to fight poverty as “a matter of obligation, not charity”.    Each of us should understand that the rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are of little value to the millions of people in this world who are haunted by disease and starvation, so long as they have no effective remedies. We must all recognize that wherever entire families eke out an existence on less than a dollar a day, or children die for lack of basic yet lifesaving care, the Declaration has, at best, a hollow ring.    Viewing poverty through a human rights lens heightens our moral imperative to act. But it brings other benefits as well. Since human rights norms emphasize individual empowerment, a rights-based approach can help empower and enable the poor. It can help citizens at all levels to win the knowledge and status they need to play a real part in decisions that affect their lives. It can focus attention on sound and sustainable processes that offer hope for long-term progress. And it can encourage us to measure our success not only by income levels, but by the freedom people have to lead fulfilling and enjoyable lives.    Today, development, security and human rights go hand in hand; no one of them can advance very far without the other two. Indeed, anyone who speaks forcefully for human rights but does nothing about human security and human development –- or vice versa –- undermines both his credibility and his cause. So let us speak with one voice on all three issues, and let us work to ensure that freedom from want, freedom from fear and freedom to live in dignity carry real meaning for those most in need.    Message of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour:    States and international community have a duty to fight poverty.    The awareness of the stranglehold of poverty on billions of men, women and children around the world, and of how this state of deprivation and misery compromises our common future, has never been higher. Yet, despite an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the complex makeup of poverty, ranging from exclusion and discrimination to a skewed international trade system, approaches to poverty reduction are still often tinged with appeals to charity or altruism.    On this Human Rights Day, we reaffirm that freedom from want is a right, not merely a matter of compassion. Fighting poverty is a duty that binds those who govern as surely as their obligation to ensure that all people are able to speak freely, choose their leaders and worship as their conscience guides them.    All countries, independent of national wealth, can take immediate measures to fight poverty based on human rights. Ending discrimination, for example, will in many cases remove barriers to decent work and give women and minorities access to essential services. Better distribution of collective resources and good governance, exemplified by tackling corruption and ensuring the rule of law, are within the reach of every state.    But as much as States bear the primary responsibility for their own development, the international community must also meet the commitments it has made to support the efforts of developing countries. Many rich countries have yet to meet development assistance targets they have accepted, yet they continue to spend ten times more on military budgets. They also spend nearly four times their development assistance budget – an amount almost equal to the total gross national product of African countries –to subsidize their own domestic agricultural producers. Indifference and a narrow calculus of national interests by wealthy countries hamper human rights and development just as damagingly as discrimination at the local level.    At the 2005 World Summit, global leaders recognized that development, peace and security and human rights are mutually reinforcing. In a world where one in every seven people continues to live in chronic hunger, and where inequalities between and within countries are growing, our ability to reach the goals the Summit reaffirmed in order to "make poverty history" will remain in serious doubt if we do not tackle poverty as a matter of justice and human rights.    Message of the UNDP Administrator, Mr. Kemal Dervis:    Global economic growth has never been as rapid as in the last five years, and yet the distance between the poorest nations and the richest is widening. Inequalities within nations are also increasing almost everywhere. In too many countries, rising national GDP has failed to ‘lift all boats;’ some prosper, but too many others are left in extreme poverty. It is clear that economic growth alone does not guarantee wider human development.    It is within this context that we need to implement the values enshrined in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and reiterated so compellingly in the internationally agreed Millennium Declaration, to make globalization a more equitable and inclusive process that fortifies human security rather than undermines it. One of the greatest challenges of our time is this need to work together to address the un-equalizing nature of current global growth if we are to reduce poverty, enhance human security and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.    Poverty and social inequality persist because many lack their universally-guaranteed human rights and fundamental freedoms. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights emphasized that human rights are inherent to all people regardless of their race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Freedom from poverty is a basic human right and tackling poverty should, therefore, be addressed as a basic human right, not as an act of charity. Real success in tackling poverty requires giving the poor a political voice in the societies where they live. This year’s Human Rights Day theme, “Fighting Poverty: a Matter of Obligation, not Charity”, reaffirms the commitment to this approach.    Our work in development should empower people to articulate their needs, rights and concerns, to demand better social services, and to exercise their universal human rights by holding governments to account. Development strategies must focus on inclusive growth and democracy must work for the poor.    UNDP emphasizes that a human rights-based framework is essential in bringing about more equitable development. The UN Secretary-General’s High Level Panel report, Delivering as One, published last month, argues that actions to integrate human rights into all aspects of the UN’s work will help to make our development efforts significantly more effective.    Human rights are not a luxury which can only exist after a certain level of development has already been achieved; instead they are integral to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Almost sixty years have passed since the Universal Declaration and the words and values contained therein remain essential for defining and progressing towards human development for all.    Following is the message by Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa (Bahrain), President of the UN General Assembly, on the occasion of Human Rights Day, observed 10 December:    This year, we commemorate Human Rights Day with the theme “Fighting Poverty: a matter of obligation not charity”.    When poverty is so immediate and the suffering so intense, the world has a moral and strategic obligation to fight poverty and to address the human rights concerns of the most vulnerable.    The poorest are more likely to experience human rights violations, discrimination or other forms of persecution. Being poor makes it harder to find a job and get access to basic services, such as health care, education and housing. Poverty is above all about having no power and no voice.    History is littered with well-meaning, but failed solutions. If we are to eradicate poverty and promote human rights, we need to take action to empower the poor and address the root causes of poverty, such as discrimination and social exclusion. It is because human rights, poverty reduction and the empowerment of the poor go hand in hand that we all have a moral duty to take action.    December 8, 2006    We must do better, by Kofi Annan.    The United Nations has a special stake, and a special responsibility, in promoting respect for human rights worldwide. But I don"t need to tell you that the United Nations has often failed to live up to that responsibility.    I know that 10 years ago many of you were close to giving up on any hope that an organization of governments, many of which are themselves gross violators of human rights, could ever function as an effective human rights defender.    One of my priorities as secretary general has been to try and restore that hope by making human rights central to all the UN"s work. I"m not sure how far I have succeeded, or how much nearer we are to bringing the reality of the UN in line with my vision of human rights as its "third pillar," on a par with development in addition to peace and security.    So today I suggest that we try and think through, together, what is really needed.    First, we must give real meaning to the principle of "Responsibility to Protect."    As you know, last year"s World Summit formally endorsed that momentous doctrine — which means, in essence, that respect for national sovereignty can no longer be used as an excuse for inaction in the face of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.    Yet one year later, to judge by what is happening in Darfur, our performance has not improved much since the disasters of Bosnia and Rwanda. Sixty years after the liberation of the Nazi death camps, and 30 years after the Cambodian killing fields, the promise of "never again" is ringing hollow.    The tragedy of Darfur has raged for over three years now, and still reports pour in of villages being destroyed by the hundreds and of the brutal treatment of civilians spreading into neighboring countries.    How can an international community that claims to uphold human rights allow this horror to continue?    There is more than enough blame to go around. It can be shared among those who value abstract notions of sovereignty more than the lives of real families, those whose reflex of solidarity puts them on the side of governments and not of peoples, and those who fear that action to stop the slaughter would jeopardize their commercial interests.    We must do better. Above all we must not wait to take action until genocide is actually happening, by which time it is often too late to do anything effective about it.    Second, we must put an end to impunity. We have made progress in holding people accountable for the world"s worst crimes. The establishment of the International Criminal Court, the work of the UN tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the hybrid ones in Sierra Leone and Cambodia and the various commissions of experts and inquiry have proclaimed the will of the international community that such crimes should no longer go unpunished.    And yet they still do. Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, and the leaders of the Lord"s Resistance Army, to name but a few, are still at large. Unless these indicted war criminals are brought to court, others tempted to emulate them will not be deterred.    Some say that justice must sometimes be sacrificed in the interests of peace. I question that. Indeed, justice has often bolstered lasting peace, by delegitimizing and driving underground those individuals who pose the gravest threat to it.    That is why there should never be amnesty for international genocide, crimes against humanity and massive violations of human rights.    Third, we need an antiterrorism strategy that does not merely pay lip-service to the defense of human rights, but is built on it. Terrorism in itself is an assault on the most basic human rights, starting with the right to life.    But states cannot fulfill that obligation by themselves violating human rights in the process. To do so means abandoning the moral high ground and playing into the hands of the terrorists.    That is why secret prisons have no place in our struggle against terrorism, and why all places where terrorism suspects are detained must be accessible to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Leading promoters of human rights undermine their own influence when they fail to live up to these principles.    We must fight terrorism in conformity with international law, those parts of it that prohibit torture and inhumane treatment, and those that give anyone detained against his or her will the right to due process and the judgement of a court.    Once we adopt a policy of making exceptions to these rules or excusing breaches of them, no matter how narrow, we are on a slippery slope.    Meanwhile, we must realize the promise of the Human Rights Council, which so far has clearly not justified all the hopes that so many of us placed in it.    Of course it"s encouraging that the council has now decided to hold a special session on Darfur next week. I hope against hope that it will find an effective way to deal with this burning issue.    But I am worried by its disproportionate focus on violations by Israel. Not that Israel should be given a free pass. But the council should give the same attention to grave violations committed by other states as well.    The council"s agenda should be broadened to reflect the actual abuses that occur in every part of the world. Human-rights abuses do not occur on paper. They are committed by real people, against real victims, in specific countries.    Human rights are perhaps more in need of protection in Africa than in any other continent. Africa"s many conflicts are, almost invariably, accompanied by massive human-rights violations.    As I said when I first addressed African heads of state, at Harare in 1997, to treat human rights as an imposition by the industrialized West, or a luxury of the rich countries for which Africa is not ready, demeans the yearning for human dignity that resides in every African heart. Human rights are, by definition, also African rights.    Throughout my time in office my biggest concern has been to make the United Nations an organization that serves people, and treats them as people — as individual human beings, not abstractions or mere components of a state.    Of course I know that individuals don"t exist in a vacuum. That"s why human rights must always include rights to collective self-expression, which are especially important for minorities.    But no one"s identity can be reduced to membership of a single group, be it ethnic, national, religious or whatever. Each one of us is defined by a unique combination of characteristics that make up our personality. And it is that individual person whose rights must be preserved and respected.    The task of ensuring that that happens lies at the very heart of the UN"s mission.    * Kofi Annan concludes 10 years of service as secretary general of the United Nations at the end of this year. Excerpted from an address to Human Rights Watch marking International Human Rights Day. Published by the International Herald Tribune. Visit the related web page
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