The HC issued a yesterday focused on inequalities – the theme of Human Rights Day this year.
The past two years have demonstrated, all too painfully, the intolerable cost of soaring inequalities. Inequalities that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly 73 years ago on 10 December 1948, sought to eradicate in its effort to pave a path to a better world.
The decades since then saw some very significant progress. However, over the past twenty years, since 2001, a succession of global shocks have undermined that progress. And this devastating pandemic has laid bare many of our failures to consolidate the advances we had made.
Inequalities have fuelled the pandemic, and continue to do so. In turn, the pandemic has fed a frightening rise in inequalities, leading to disproportionate transmission and death rates in the most marginalized communities, as well as contributing to soaring poverty levels, increased hunger, and plummeting living standards.
Women, low-income and informal workers, younger and older people, and those with disabilities, as well as members of ethnic, racial and religious minorities and indigenous peoples are among those hit hardest, creating even greater age, gender and racial inequalities.
Inequalities have widened both within and between countries, with most developed economies forecast to grow in 2022, while the lowest-income countries are projected to endure continued recession, pushing their people even further behind.
This divergence has been aggravated by shockingly unequal vaccine coverage – as of 1 December, barely 8% of adults had received one dose of vaccine in low-income families, compared to 65% in high-income.
The environmental crisis caused by climate change is further exacerbating discrimination, marginalization, and inequity.
A growing debt crisis is also weighing heavily on many countries. Over half of least-developed and low-income countries are now in, or at high risk of, debt distress.
This is a critical period in world affairs. Humanity is reeling from the setbacks sparked by COVID-19, and struggling to make the radical changes necessary to prevent further environmental disaster.
Yet the measures needed to prevent catastrophic climate change are well-known. We also have the knowledge and means to establish universal social protection measures and take the necessary actions to end discrimination, advance the rule of law and uphold human rights.
Equality is at the heart of human rights, and at the heart of the solutions required to carry us through this period of global crisis.
As a common single race – the human race — our only way forward is to work together for the common good. This was well understood during the years of rebuilding after World War II – the years that saw the development of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the subsequent elaboration of the all-embracing system of international human rights law.
However, our failure to build back better after the financial crisis a decade ago, coupled with the social and economic turmoil caused by COVID-19 and the rapidly accelerating impacts of climate change, suggests we have forgotten the clear and proven remedies rooted in human rights and the importance of tackling inequalities.
We must bring human rights back to the forefront if we want to maintain progress – not just for those who suffer from the gross inequalities that blight our planet, but for the sake of all of us.
