WUNRN
WHO WILL BE ACCOUNTABLE? HUMAN
RIGHTS & THE POST-2015 DEVELOPMENT AGENDA - WOMEN
Also Women's Livelihoods -
PWESCR
Direct Link to Full 112-Page 2013
Publication:
OHCHR Report Calls for Integrating Human Rights
Standards in Post-2015 Development Goals
22 May 2013: A report from
the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) calls for
integrating human rights standards in post-2015 goals, saying discussion of the
post-2015 development agenda is an “unmissable opportunity” to address lack of
accountability and unfulfilled development commitments regarding the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs).
The report,
titled 'Who Will Be Accountable? Human Rights and the Post-2015
Development Agenda,' is co-published by OHCHR and the Center for Economic and
Social Rights (CESR). The report says that drawing on human rights norms and
mechanisms will strengthen the accountability of the responsible actors for
fulfilling development commitments; create the conditions for people, including
the poor and marginalized, to participate meaningfully in public decision
making; and allow cases of failure to fulfill development commitments to be
brought before national and international human rights mechanisms.
The authors highlight
current difficulty in holding industrialized countries to account for
commitments made to the global partnership for development (MDG 8). They
suggest that human rights violations may be addressed through judicial as well
as non-judicial mechanisms, with the latter including parliamentary committees,
administrative hearings, service delivery grievance procedures, citizen
consultation groups and community-based accountability systems.
The authors call for the
post-2015 development framework to reflect “freedom from fear” as well as
“freedom from want,” based on the principles of equity, equality and
non-discrimination. They propose that achieving equality should be a
stand-alone goal, and also integrated across all other goals, and that
monitoring mechanisms for the MDGs and possible new sustainable development
goals (SDGs) should be integrated with national monitoring of public policies.
They note that global goals and targets need not be the same as national
planning targets that could be specifically tailored to national circumstances.