by Rodrigo Saad, Universal Rights Group - NYC

As UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed stated during her address to the Council last March, ‘Human rights are an intrinsic part of sustainable development—and sustainable development is a powerful vehicle for the realisation of all human rights.’ The adoption of the 2030 Agenda in 2015 signalled a fundamental shift in the UN’s development paradigm—from one traditionally based on a flawed orthodoxy overemphasising economic growth to a broader understanding of development, which takes into account the element of sustainability based on the human rights principles of equality and non-discrimination. In his May 2019 report on ‘progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals,’…

Read more

by Steven L. B. Jensen, Researcher at the Danish Institute for Human Rights

The SDGs are mostly aligned with human rights objectives — to emphasise this, the UN human rights mechanisms are showing a willingness to hold states accountable to their SDG commitments. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are renewing the debate on the relationship between human rights and development. In 2005, Philip Alston famously described the relationship between the Millennium Development Goals and human rights “as ships passing one another in the night, each with little awareness that the other is there, and with little if any sustained engagement with one another.” This changed with the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for…

Read more

by the URG team

Quick summary The 41st regular session of the Human Rights Council (HRC41) was held from Monday 24th June to Friday 12th July 2019. On 24th June, H.E. Ms. Michelle Bachelet presented her oral update on the global human rights situation. A number of dignitaries delivered statements during the session, including inter alia, H.E. Mr. Rumen Radev, President of Bulgaria; H.E. Ms. Hilda C. Heine, President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands; H.E. Ms. Katrin Jakobsdottir, Prime Minister of Iceland; H.E. Mr. Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia; H.E. Mr. Aksel Jakobsen, Deputy Minister for Development of Norway; and H.E. Ms. Yoka…

Read more

by Susan Randolph, Co-Founder & Economic and Social Rights Metrics Lead, Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI), Anne-Marie Brook, Co-founder and Development Lead, Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI)

There are strong connections between human rights monitoring and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Indeed, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ‘seeks to realise the human rights of all.’ So it should not come as a surprise to learn that the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI)’s metrics tracking country performance on the provisions of the core human rights treaties[1] are an important complement to the SDGs. This post sets out three ways in which HRMI data support comprehensive and robust SDG reporting: First, a key feature of HRMI’s assessments is that they are independent of governments, whereas the SDGs are…

Read more