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Scaling Up Nutrition
17 January 2019
Our publication No One will be Left Behind and its recommendations have been widely cited in Mary Robinson 's speech at the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council inter-sessional meeting on human rights and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
‘I am grateful to Dr Christophe Golay and the Geneva Academy for updating me on the extent of these important recommendations. I agree with the Geneva Academy and with other experts who point out that the main weakness of the 2030 Agenda lies in its accountability framework, based on national review and peer-reviewed guidance’ mentioned Mary Robinson, a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Chair of The Elders and President of the Mary Robinson Foundation.
Mary Robinson also presented our publication’s main recommendation, which is that ‘the UN human rights mechanisms should see this weakness as a call for action, and take further steps to share the results of their work with monitoring mechanisms established by the 2030 Agenda, and by including in their work insights of the monitoring of the SDGs’.
No One will be Left Behind looks at the role of UN human rights mechanisms in monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that seek to realize economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR).
It discusses the mutually reinforcing relationship between the SDGs and ESCR. ESCR can offer a legal foundation and guidance in the implementation of SDGs, and the SDGs may increase support for the realization of ESCR.
The publication highlights that the weakness of the 2030 Agenda lies in its limited accountability framework, based on voluntary national reviews and soft guidance from peers. In that context, UN human rights mechanisms – UN treaty bodies, the UN Human Rights Council and its Universal Periodical Review and Special Procedures – can give the SDGs a strong legal basis and provide a means of accountability via independent mechanisms. They can transform the SDGs’ beneficiaries into rights-holders, and the UN Members States as those having legal obligations to implement the 17 goals. The international human rights system can provide guidance to states in the implementation of the SDGs, as well as to national, regional and international mechanisms established in the framework of the 2030 Agenda, notably the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF).
The publication also draws attention to the need to fully integrate human rights into the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs, while also providing a set of concrete recommendations for states, UN human rights mechanisms, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the HLPF as to how this might be done.
The Research Brief Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals provides a summary of this publication.
News
US Mission Geneva
Our new paper ‘Diversity in Membership of the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies’ examines the composition of UN human rights treaty bodies (TBs) notably in relation to gender balance, geographical representation, as well as TBs members’ subject-matter expertise and professional background.
News
Geneva Academy
As part of the Geneva Academy Fridays series, researchers from 20 countries briefed state representatives about their research on the national impact of the United Nations treaty bodies.
Event
photobeppus
This public conference will discuss the implementation of the UN Declaration on the rights of peasants in Europe and its contribution to the SDGs and the UN Decade of Family Farming.
Training
Nicolas Axelrod / Ruom
Cette formation en ligne permet d’acquérir une connaissance approfondie des droits économiques, sociaux et culturels (DESC), des obligations des états et des mécanismes chargés de les protéger et de surveiller leur mise en œuvre.
Training
UN Photo / Jean-Marc Ferré
This training course will explore the origin and evolution of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and its functioning in Geneva and will focus on the nature of implementation of the UPR recommendations at the national level.
Project
MSF
This research aims at building a common understanding and vision as to how states and the relevant parts of the UN system can provide a concrete and practical framework to address human rights responsibilities of armed non-state actors.
Project
ICRC
This project aims to raise awareness about the complementarity of human rights and development by analyzing the relationship between economic, social and cultural rights and global development goals, namely the Millennium Development Goals adopted in 2000 and the Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015.
