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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
UN Photo / Jean-Marc Ferré
The new book The Human Rights Council: A Practical Anatomy by Eric Tistounet, Chief of the Human Rights Council Branch at OHCHR, is the outcome of a six-months research fellowship carried out by the author at the Geneva Academy.
News
Cha già José
Our new Research Brief lists actions that countries should take to ensure that their foreign policy is consistent with the United Nations (UN) Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, adopted by the United Nations in 2018.
Event
Parick Cordova/The National Guard
This online event – co-organized with FIAN International, WhyHunger, and the Human Rights Clinic at the Miami University School of Law – will reflect on the false and true solutions to ending hunger at its root causes in the U.S.
Event
Olivier Chamard/Geneva Academy
The 2020 Annual Conference will focus on the connectivity between regional and global human rights mechanisms and relevant links with national systems, as well as on the effectiveness of these interactions in a number of policy areas.
Short Course
Francisco Proner / Farpa/ CIDH
This short course, which can be followed in Geneva or online, aims at presenting the institutions and procedures in charge of the implementation of international human rights law.
Training
Water Alternatives
This training course provides participants with a deep understanding of the international legal framework for the protection of human rights and the environment as well as in-depth knowledge of how to promote environmental protection through existing human rights mechanisms. The 2020 edition will have a specific focus on water pollution and scarcity.
Project
ibmphoto24
This research project examined the impact of innovation and the development of new information technologies on human rights.
Project
Hugo Escalpelo
We are a partner of the Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project, housed at the University of Essex’s Human Rights Centre, which aims to map and analyse the human rights challenges and opportunities presented by the use of big data and associated technologies. It notably examines whether fundamental human rights concepts and approaches need to be updated and adapted to meet the new realities of the digital age.
Publication
Elgar
