The Age of Sustainable Development" gives students an understanding of the key challenges and pathways to sustainable development - that is, economic development that is also socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable.
Major UN Covenants and Declarations
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A Era do Desenvolvimento Sustentável
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Human Rights and Gender Equality
Professor Sachs delves into the ethics of wealth, poverty and inequality as well as the forces that widen inequalities.
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Jeffrey Sachs
Director, Earth Institute; Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development; Professor of Health Policy and Management
[MUSIC]
Values underpin sustainable development, and one kind
of value approach is the human rights approach.
The idea that every human being on the planet within any political system has
human rights, and human rights of five sorts as I have mentioned.
Civil rights as citizens. Political rights to
participate in governance. Economic rights
that define the right of individuals to meet basic needs.
Social rights the right to live in secure families and communities.
And cultural rights, the right to participate in one's culture.
And that human
rights approach while not universally subscribed to by
each person on the planet, has been found compelling across the
world by individuals, by activists,
by many different kinds of groups, by most
governments. And it has become enshrined in a very
important way in international law and in the norms
of the international political and diplomatic system under
the United Nations. When the United Nations was formed at the
end of World War Two, one of the first great steps of the
United Nations a few years after its founding in 1948
at the urging of Eleanor Roosevelt, the former first lady of the United
States and a great champion of human rights, was the adoption by
the member states of the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. It is a wonderful, remarkable document.
A very powerful one that was adopted in the wake
of World War Two at a time of hope and also remembrance
of the devastation of World War Two and the idea that
by meeting the basic rights and needs of all people in
the world one would not only ensure their dignity
improve their economic well being, but also
help to prevent another global war and global disaster.
The Universal Declaration is in essence the moral charter of the United Nations.
The UN has it's legal charter which defines it's institutions, it's
functioning, the selection of the Secretary
General, the operations of the security
counsel and the General Assembly.
It is itself an extremely important
document of international law and practice.
But the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the moral s, heart and soul
of the United Nations. And when the UN takes
actions in the area of economic development or protecting the environment,
or protecting refugees or addressing natural disasters
almost always it's to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the
eyes are drawn and that the attention is placed.
Because that provides an inspiration and a guidance
that continues more than half a century later.
Well over half a century after the adoption of the Universal Declaration.
Coming out of the Universal Declaration were two more detailed international
covenants that also helped to implement The Universal Declaration.
One is the International Covenant on Political and
Civil Rights, the other is the International Covenant
on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. So between those two
covenants, one covers the five main areas of human rights.
Most of the governments subscribed to both of those covenants.
Interestingly, the United States did not subscribe to the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Political rights and it's interesting to know why.
While many, many Americans including myself certainly agree with the
International covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights, the libertarian streak
in the United States which goes back to the founding
of the U.S. as it broke away from from Great Britain.
The libertarian streak which takes the view that government's main role is
to provide defense, security and and private property,
but not to do more than that because of the risks to liberty.
That libertarian streak in part of American
politics we don't want to guarantee or
to underpin or to encourage the idea of economic rights because economic
rights means economic responsibilities to, especially for the rich.
And the libertarians say, don't go there, let markets, let individuals transact.
It's not the role of the state in
their view to implement an ethical framework beyond
that of the protection of the individual and, and private property.
So the US did not sign that, though most of the world's governments did.
Later on, that was in 1966 when those two international covenants were
adopted the UN has adopted many more specific ambitious goals
around meeting the basic needs. The most important by far we've
noted have been the Millennium Development Goals adopted in the year 2000.
And I'll note in just a few minutes that those two took their inspiration
from the Universal Declaration and from the
international covenants, because the Millennium Development Goals
were taken from the start as a way to implement, in essence, the human rights to
a decent economic life helping the poor to break free at the poverty trap.
Let's go back to the 1948 Universal Declaration that is so important
and it is a very moving document which I hope will continue to be honored,
respected, read embraced and improved upon in the 21st century.
So in 1948 the governments of the world agreed to the following.
They said the General Assembly, Proclaims this
Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common
standard of achievement for all peoples and all
nations, to the end that every individual and
every organ of society, keeping this
declaration constantly in mind, shall strive
by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and
by progressive measures, the progressive realization
of the rights, national and international,
to secure their universal and effective
recognition and observance, both among the peoples
of Member States themselves and among the peoples
of territories under their jurisdiction. So that
is the preamble more or less to the Universal Declaration.
Saying that all of the Member States should strive to teach, advocate
and honour and progressively achieve all of the rights
of the Declaration itself.
Well there are many rights and it's a a document that bears study.
But I wanted to highlight just a few of them.
Article 22 calls for the right to social security.
In other words, to a guaranteed base so that human
dignity and the most basic needs of water, shelter, clothing and
so forth can be met.
Article 23 of the Universal Declaration calls for the right to work, to
a livelihood, to be able for individuals to support themselves and their families.
Article 24 calls for the right to rest and leisure so that
one can't demand work of around
the clock and in burdensome and crushing ways.
Article 25 says that there is universal right
to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being
of the individual himself and of his family, including
food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services,
and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widow,
widowhood, old age or other lack
of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance.
What a remarkable bold statement.
How unmet that remains today we know with more than one billion people still
living in extreme poverty. These goals even
according to the founders of the Universal Declaration
would not be achieved instantly. They would only be realized progressively.
But progressive might mean time is time is up.
Time to meet these needs and we know as we've discussed,
that meeting the basic needs of all is within reach.
The end of poverty in its extreme form is itself within reach in our generation.
Article 26 says that everyone has a right to education.
Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages.
Elementary education shall be compulsory.
A merit good should apply to everyone in the world.
And Article 28 I find very, very interesting,
it says that everyone is entitled to a social
and international order in which the rights and freedoms
set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
In other words, this is not just an empty statement of wishes.
This is a call for a political order and a social order in which these rights
can be progressively realized. And I think that this is a key point.
One could still by cynical and say, doesn't matter, it's just words on a page.
Governments don't have to do this.
But it really does say more than that, and the effects are more powerful than,
just the cynical view that they can easily be discarded.
What the document is saying is that only do individuals have rights, but
individuals in our collectivity in our nations,and in a grouping of nations at
the United Nations, also has the right to a system of government, a system
of taxation and spending and delivery of services in which the rights and
freedoms set forth in the Declaration can be fully realized.
To implement this Universal Declaration, of course, is mainly the
responsibilities of each society, but the international covenants
which came in 1966 are more detailed
documents that describe more specifically the various
rights and more specifically how they are to be realized.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights focuses
naturally on the rights of citizenship and the protection
from abuses of the state. And let me just mention a
few of the key points of the civil and political
rights that are defined in the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Article 6, for example, says that the right to life is protected by law.
Government cannot willfully end without
a due process, take a life. And of course, in many countries of the
world capital punishment has been made illegal and has
been eliminated long ago. Yet we do know that governments continue
to kill their people that is not realizing the rights of this covenant.
Article 7 says that no one can be subjected to torture.
Here again we know that governments have violated this willfully.
The United States itself engaged in water boarding so called
after 9/11 until that was discontinued by the Obama Administration.
Or at least we hope and and it was
said by the administration that it has been discontinued.
But torture, of course, remains a terrible
scourge practiced in many parts of the world.
Article 8 says that nobody
can be held in slavery.
And while slavery is illegal throughout the world, we know that
there is human trafficking and that people are held in slavery though illegally.
Governments have the responsibility to fight to resist that and
to free people that are held against their will.
Article 9 says that there's a right to liberty and security of individuals,
that government cannot violate the liberty and security of their citizens.
Article 16 says there's a right of citizenship defined
as the recognition of all persons before the law.
Article 18 declares the freedom of thought.
Article 24, the protection
of children. And Article 26, the equal protection of
the law from discriminatory application. So you
can see that these are rights that
are not realized to the extent that they
need to be. But our rights that are widely accepted,
widely regarded, at least on paper, that's a start and in application,
but to be realized and to, to to be struggled for.
Now the companion to the civil and political rights,
are the economic, social and cultural rights adopted at the same time in the
complimentary international covenant.
And let me mention some of those economic and social and cultural rights.
And again, as in the Universal Declaration, Article 6 calls for the right
to work. Article 7 for just and favorable
conditions of work decent remuneration and safe working environment.
Article 8 declares the right of individuals
to form and to join trade unions.
Article 9 as in the Universal Declaration, the right to social security.
Article 11, the right to an adequate standard
of living, to be able to meet basic needs.
Article 12, very interesting and very important,
very relevant for the Millennium Development Goals and
for the sustainable development goals that will follow is the highest attainable, the
right to I should say, the highest
attainable standard of physical and mental health.
Very interesting.
At first one can't grant the right to health, per se.
People are ill they may suffer from
conditions that are not preventable or treatable.
So the standard
is the highest attainable level of health. Importantly,
physical health and mental health, because we know that
mental illness is a terrible scourge for individuals and
quantitatively a very heavy burden on societies around the world.
Article 13, the right to education. And Article 15,
the right to take part in cultural lives. And again as in the
original Universal Declaration the Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights realizes this isn't all at once.
This is a framework, it's a moral and ethical framework, it is a commitment.
And the way that it is defined, is that each state party to this covenant
undertakes steps individually, and through international assistance and cooperation,
and to the maximum extent of its available resources to, to honor
these rights and then quote, with a view to achieving
progressively the full realization of the rights recognized in this covenant.
So, this is a call on us.
It's to turn values
into practice.
And while cynics may say, so what, practice shows differently.
These values do reach the heart.
They do move governments.
They can make a big difference, and I think this has
been nowhere more clear than in the Millennium Development Goal effort.
Initiated in September 2000, you'll recall,
by the world leaders gathered at the United Nations, [COUGH] and providing
a motivation to meet these basic needs in health, in education, in
gender equality, in at least a minimum standard of living.
And when the MBG's were launched in September
2000 in the Millennium Declaration which framed them and
which looked to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the government
said, we will spare no effort to free our fellow men,
women, and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme
poverty to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected.
We are committed to making the right to
development a reality for everyone, and to freeing
the entire human race from want. Human rights at the core
of this development agenda, a motivation, a set of legal
agreements and a moral heart of the United Nations,
and of the sustainable development efforts in the years ahead.
[MUSIC]
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