60 years of human rights success but still a long way to go

As the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is celebrated tomorrow on International Human Rights Day (10 December), Amnesty International calls upon world Governments, including New Zealand’s new National Government, to use this time for action not just celebration.

“The senseless killing in Mumbai, the thousands of people fleeing the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and hundreds of thousands more trapped in the dire conditions in Darfur, Gaza and Northern Sri Lanka creates a burning platform for action on human rights,” says Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

It is against this backdrop to 60 years of the UDHR, that Amnesty warns that the world, including our own front yard, faces multiple challenges.

“New Zealand has come a long way in securing human rights victories but it is a grim fact that one in three of our women experience physical or sexual abuse in their lifetimes, many of our children are denied adequate standards of living, and our indigenous people’s customary rights have been put beyond their reach,” says Patrick Holmes, CEO of Amnesty International Aotearoa New Zealand.

“Our positioning in the Pacific also calls for the New Zealand government to address issues such as endemic violence against women in Papua New Guinea, attacks on freedom of expression in Fiji, and the threat of climate change refugees as sea levels rise in nations like Tuvalu and Kiribati,” adds Holmes.

The future for human rights lies in the hands of world leaders, and with the increasing risk of the global economic crisis throwing millions more into poverty, Amnesty is urging governments to protect economic and social rights with as much vigour as civil and political rights.

“The gift of the UDHR is that human rights are universal, where every person is born free and equal in rights and dignity; and also indivisible – all rights, whether economic, social, political or cultural – are equally important and there is no hierarchy of rights,” says Khan.

“Despite progress in many areas from many areas in the past decades, injustice, inequality and impunity persist in too many parts of the world. The time has come for governments to set right six decades of human rights failures and deliver on their promises,” says Khan.


Background:
Six decades of human rights success include:
- Ratification of international human rights treaties, including in New Zealand supporting Conventions to eliminate racial and gender discrimination, Convention against Torture, and International Covenants on Civil and Political, and Social and Cultural Rights,
- Recognition of rights of women and children,
Creation of the International Criminal Court and prosecutions for war crimes against humanity,
- Establishment of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission in 1978, and Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the UN,
- New Zealand leading a UN Resolution calling for a world moratorium against the death penalty, and the end of capital punishment in more than two-thirds of the world,
- Strong civil society support for human rights, including world-wide network of human rights defenders and organisations.

Six decades of human rights failures in New Zealand include:
- Failure to ratify or support a number of international human rights treaties including the protection of Stateless, Migrant and Indigenous peoples,
- A step backwards for Maori by taking away customary rights in the foreshore and seabed,
- The lack of protection of economic, social and cultural rights under domestic constitutional law,
- An alarming continuance in the rates of violence against women,
- Imminent immigration legislation that will fail to protect asylum seekers from arbitrary detention, persecution, torture or death,
- A youth justice system that is below internationally accepted standards.

Six decades of worldwide human rights failures include:
- Massive violations of human rights and humanitarian law in armed conflicts,
- Increasing targeting of civilians by armed groups and terrorists,
- Violence against women and children, including recruitment of child soldiers,
- Denial of economic and social rights to millions living in poverty,
- Corrupt and unfair judicial systems in many countries,
- Use of torture and other forms of ill-treatment,
- Denial of rights to refugees and migrants,
- Attacks on activists, journalists and human rights defenders,
- Suppression of dissent in many countries,
- Discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender and identity.



Click here for more information about Amnesty's UDHR 60th anniversary celebrations.

Click here to read an opinion-editorial by Amnesty's Secretary General Irene Khan on the UDHR's 60th anniversary.