Background and context

The Pact for the Future offers a unique opportunity for the international community to set out an ambitious vision to collectively address today’s challenges, and achieve a more just, peaceful, and sustainable future.

The widening gap between the vision and international commitments elaborated in the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development on the one hand, and people’s day-to-day reality on the other, means that the Pact for the Future must produce tangible positive change in the lives of people everywhere.

Human rights, including civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights provide the blueprint for a just, peaceful and sustainable future for everyone everywhere. Grounded in the dignity and equality of every human being, human rights offer solutions based on agreed standards, principles, and universal values.

The three United Nations pillars are of equal importance, interlinked and mutually reinforcing. Human rights are essential for building trust in institutions, addressing the root causes and drivers of poverty, inequality and conflict, and ensuring justice and reconciliation – and thus key to achieving peace and security and sustainable development.

Implementing the Pact for the Future in a way that recognises and puts these linkages into practice will ensure a focus on key issues, such as addressing inequalities and leaving no one behind, and ensuring meaningful, inclusive and safe participation.

Accordingly, it is crucial to ensure a strong human rights system that works effectively, impartially, and transparently across all human rights.

Panel discussion

The UN Human Rights Office, together with Costa Rica, South Africa, the European Union, Action for Sustainable Development and CIVICUS, is organizing a panel discussion to highlight the value of human rights in achieving sustainable development and peace and security, and in ensuring the effective enjoyment by all of all human rights. This includes the right to development.

The panel will showcase concrete applications of human rights as a bridge-builder between the people and the institutions of the State in a range of areas, including addressing inequalities, tackling discrimination, and addressing new and emerging challenges.

In particular, emphasis will be placed on how the United Nations, Member States, and civil society organizations, along with all other relevant stakeholders, can work together to implement the Pact for the Future, with human rights at its centre. As set out in “Human Rights: A Path for Solutions,” which built on the Human Rights 75 Initiative, linking universal human rights to the actions and commitments set forth in the Pact will revitalize a multilateral response-based system that works effectively, impartially, and transparently for both people and the planet.

Objectives:

Through concrete case examples and the sharing of good practices, the panel aims to:

• Demonstrate the importance of a strong human rights system for an inclusive and effective multilateral system that is better able to respond and deliver for the people and planet.

• Demonstrate the critical role of human rights in achieving peace and security and sustainable development, while reaffirming the interlinkages, equal value and importance of the three United Nations pillars.

• Strengthen buy-in, explore innovative solutions and forge collaborative partnerships for implementation of the Pact on our path for a better future with human rights at the core.

• Illustrate ways in which “Human Rights: A Path for Solutions” provides a key framework for this journey, including the synergies between this vision and the actions and commitments set forth in the Pact.

Format: The High Commissioner for Human Rights will deliver opening remarks and moderate a panel comprised of high-level representatives of the organizing coalition.

An interactive dialogue with interventions from registered speakers will follow.

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