{"id":73649,"date":"2016-05-16T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=73649"},"modified":"2016-05-15T16:46:18","modified_gmt":"2016-05-15T15:46:18","slug":"new-challenges-for-global-citizens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/05\/new-challenges-for-global-citizens\/","title":{"rendered":"New Challenges for Global Citizens"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ren\u00e9<\/a>The Global Citizenship Commission (GCC) under the leadership of the former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown presented its report The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the 21st<\/sup> Century <\/em>to the United Nations on 18 April 2016. (1)<\/p>\n

The Global Citizenship Commission was created \u201cto illuminate the ideal of global citizenship. What does it mean for each of us to be members of the global society?\u201d (2) Human rights are the foundation of the global society.\u00a0 The principal aim of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was to create a framework for a world society that was in need of universal codes based on mutual consent in order to function. The early years of the United Nations was characterized by the division between the Western and Communist conceptions of human rights, although neither side called into question the concept of universality.\u00a0 The debate centered on which rights, political, economic and social were to be included.<\/p>\n

In the 1960s with the entry into the UN of a large number of African States which had not been present when the UDHR was proclaimed in 1948, there were discussions as to whether new States were bound by the UDHR values adopted before they were independent.\u00a0 By and large, consensus was reached on the universality of all the human rights set out in the UDHR.\u00a0 This universality was clearly reaffirmed in the 1993 Vienna Declaration of the World Conference on Human Rights in which nearly all UN Member States took part.<\/p>\n

In 1948, the members of the UN Commission on Human Rights saw the human rights process as a three-step effort.\u00a0 First was the proclamation of the general principles, which was the UDHR.\u00a0 The second step was to be the codification of these principles into laws both at the world and at national levels.\u00a0 The third step was to be some form of implementation through reports and observation, possible complaints procedures and ultimately some form of enforcement or sanctions.\u00a0 In 1948, it was not clear how the second and third steps should be carried out.<\/p>\n

In practice, through the leadership of UN Secretariat members of the UN Centre for Human Rights and active representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), there has developed a rich texture of human rights conventions with 10 \u201ctreaty bodies\u201d which receive reports on the application by governments of the human rights treaties they have ratified.<\/p>\n

The Commission on Human Rights has now been transformed but largely unchanged into the Human Rights Council.\u00a0 The Commission began the practice, continued by the Council, of naming \u201cSpecial Rapporteurs\u201d on specific issues such as \u201cStates of Emergency\u201d or on specific country situations where there was broad agreement that there were persistent human rights violations.<\/p>\n

Largely through the efforts of NGO representatives helped by UN Secretariat members but who must keep a \u201clow profile\u201d, there has been progress made both on issues and on bringing attention to vulnerable people.\u00a0 The Global Citizenship Commission highlights these advances, but as only one member of the Commission came from the NGO world, the NGO representatives\u2019 role is somewhat lost in the vague terminology of \u201ccivil society\u201d.<\/p>\n

I would stress seven areas which have become part of ongoing UN human rights work that owe their existence to NGO efforts in the Commission on Human Rights:<\/p>\n