Human rights
The UN has worked on the promotion and protection of human rights around the world since it was founded. One of its first major achievements was to pass the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in December 1948. Since then, the UN membership has negotiated a number of legally binding instruments on specific areas of human rights, from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). In addition, numerous non-binding Declarations, Guidelines and other documents have been negotiated to give colour to the legally-binding rights and set standards in specific areas.
Apart from the negotiation of legally-binding human rights treaties, the UN’s bodies dealing with human rights also negotiate non legally-binding resolutions which develop the standards set out in the treaties and look at how they are implemented.
The British Government has made human rights a central theme of its foreign policy. Within the first few days of taking office, the Government published a Mission Statement setting out four key roles for the FCO, one of which was to "work through international forums and bilateral relationships to spread the values of human rights, civil liberties and democracy which we demand for ourselves." Click to see more information on the UK's human rights policies and activities.
The Government has identified the rights of the child as a priority human rights theme. Children are a particularly vulnerable group in society, sometimes finding it difficult to make their voices heard.
On 11-12 December, a commemorative high-level plenary meeting devoted to child rights was held in the UN General Assembly. The purpose of the meeting was to evaluate progress made since the World Fit For Children Declaration and Plan of Action were adopted during the Special Session of the General Assembly on Children in 2002. The session included two round-table sessions on the themes of HIV/AIDS and providing quality education.
Two young volunteers from the Children's Rights Alliance for England, Alex (16) and Iqra (17), played an active role in the meeting. The young people wrote several blogs whilst in NY. The UK's keynote speech focused on the work of the UK Government in improving the lives of children and young people both in the UK and around the world.
Human rights bodies at the UN
The main forum for substantive discussion of human rights in the UN is the Human Rights Council (HRC), a subsidiary body of the General Assembly.
The Council was created by the General Assembly in its resolution 60/251 (3 April 2006) to replace the Commission on Human Rights which many states felt was failing to address human rights in an adequate way. Discussion in the Commission, particularly on the situation of human rights in individual countries, was often controversial. But the UK believes that the discussion on the implementation of human rights standards and obligations by individual states is vital to the promotion and protection of human rights globally. The UK has been re-elected for a second term on the Human Rights Council commencing in June 2008. During this time we will be active participants in the work of the Council, and will aim to strengthen the Human Rights Council, promoting universality, transparency, and objectivity in all its work.
Although the Commission on Human Rights has been wound up, other Functional Commissions of the Economic and Social Council continue to look at related issues. The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), for example, examines issues surrounding the advancement of women, equality and women's rights. The UK, a member of CSW, has played a leading role on gender issues in the UN over the years. In the past, the UK has contributed to the advancement of the agenda by sponsoring a resolution in CSW (with Bangladesh) on gender mainstreaming and in the General Assembly (with Turkey) on crimes against women committed in the name of honour.
UN General Assembly: Third Committee
In the UN General Assembly human rights are dealt with in the Third Committee which meets annually in New York in October and November. All UN member states have the right to take part in the plenary sessions and to table and vote on resolutions. Resolutions are broadly divided into thematic issues such as torture, racism, and the rights of the child, and resolutions that concentrate on a particular country.
On 15 November 2007, Third Committee adopted a resolution on the death penalty. The resolution called on states "to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty". It also urged states "to respect international standards" and "progressively restrict the use of the death penalty and reduce the number of offences for which it may be imposed."'
All new human rights instruments must be approved by the General Assembly (GA). Negotiations on those instruments therefore take place in the GA. The most recent addition to the body of human rights instruments is the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This was mandated by the General Assembly in 1991 and completed in 2006. The Convention aims to acknowledge where disabled people have had difficulty in accessing their rights and commits States to measures in a large number of areas which will guarantee better observance of disabled people’s human rights in the future. The UK signed this Convention on 30 March 2007 and intends to ratify it before the end of 2008.
Other UN bodies
Increasingly, other UN bodies are also taking human rights considerations into account in their own work. The Security Council looks at human rights issues when deciding how to deal with some international crises, many of which see the civilian population suffering gross violations of their human rights. The UN Funds and Programmes and other bodies, such as United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the World Bank, the International Labour Organisation and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) also examine the effect an improved respect for human rights can have on helping achieve their core concerns.
Children's rights alliance