UNGA Conference 2019: Inclusive Social Development for All

This session deliberated on the commitment to the protection of human rights and access to social services so as not to leave anyone behind. The speakers offered multiple perspectives and practices on how human rights could reduce inequalities, eliminate the causes of poverty and prevent internal and global conflicts. This session highlighted how the realization of economic, social and cultural rights plays an integral role in sustainable peace and conflict prevention.

The specific issues that emerged from the panel discussion were on the promotion of cultural rights in the construction of peaceful societies; creating a human rights-based approach to the United Nations Development Agenda; being aware of the violation of human rights that leads to social upheaval. Countries were identified where the violation of human rights is rampant. It meant that the country-based analysis mechanism on the abuse and violation of human rights should be included in the next policies to transform our world: inclusive social development for all.

Craig Foster

Football broadcaster; Author; Ambassador for Human Rights, AUSTRALIA

Thank you for the opportunity to impress on the United Nations and world community the critical importance of ensuring that sport, recognized in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as an enabler of development and peace,1 continues on its path to synchronisation with human rights and thereby upholds its duty to protect and further the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of people everywhere.

We will briefly explore 4 areas:

1. Importance of human rights in sport, and the challenges of implementation and enforcement

2. Global movement in sport towards gender equality and economic parity and challenging the prevailing arguments in this regard

3. Rise of racism in football

4. Extremely concerning, projected growth in displaced people through climate migration and international sport’s social responsibility to its member nations in this regard

In recent years, following a number of human rights crises particularly pertaining to Mega Sporting Events (MSE’s), a number of global sporting bodies have implemented human rights policies that obligate all official bodies to audit their human rights impacts and adhere to the ‘Protect, Respect, Remedy’ framework of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. FIFA, the global football governing body should be congratulated for being at the forefront of this change.

This is a growing trend that is of extraordinary social importance to the world as, the traditional call from sport to be independent of the impacts it creates, are no longer relevant.

The potential for positive social change is immense and, this room can anticipate with considerable hope the impact that applying all internationally recognized human rights standards in the International Bill of Human Rights including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights4 , the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 5 the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights6 and the International Labour Organisation’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work7 will have on the universality of rights when we consider the scale and social license of sport.

Sports has become the 21st century, universal vehicle for universal rights and, whereas the United Nations can urge, collaborate and perhaps coerce, to ‘push’, sport is one of the greatest ‘pull’ factors ever known to humankind and can impose, obligate and educate to a common, human standard.

However, as the world wakes to these obligations, and becomes increasingly aware of their rights, it is critical that sport upholds its duty. It cannot become hostage to political compromise and as we look ahead to social progress through sport and rights, we must acknowledge that failure to uphold these obligations has real, human impact. AFC) and Member State Federations to abide by the FIFA’s Human Rights Policy of 20178 was put to the test late last year with the detention in Thailand and attempted extradition of Mr. Hakeem al-Araibi, a Bahraini, refugee football on a protection Visa in Australia’s care, back to Bahrain contrary to Mr. alAraibi’s internationally recognized human right against refoulement as a refugee.

Despite his case being a clear contravention, and his position as a registered footballer for Pascoe Vale Football Club in Melbourne, Australia, a global campaign was required to impress on FIFA the importance of using their ‘apply effective leverage’ with all relevant stakeholders, including the Governments of both Thailand and Bahrain, under Article 4 of the Policy.

Were it not for this extraordinary outpouring of support from the global football community, outraged at the flagrant breach of Hakeem’s rights and the complete failure of the AFC to act, only issuing a public statement after more than 60 days in incarceration and in the context of the purported recusal by the AFC President from the matter,11 his hopes would likely have been forlorn.

We can acknowledge the immense power of sport in this case to enforce the rights of one young man, in part because the common international language of football cuts through to fans and supporters everywhere. Sports gave Hakeem a more ‘human face’ than the tens of millions of other refugees around the world, and in this we see both its true power and the persistent challenge to humanise a section of humankind when governments everywhere are increasingly seeking to do the contrary.

But the failure of football to actively promote his rights could have been fatal. We know this because, in a different context, we sadly witnessed a tragedy just weeks ago when FIFA refused to apply the express sanction of suspension or expulsion to their member nation, Iran for an ongoing gender equality violation in Article 3 and 4 of the FIFA Statutes12 and Article 5 of the FIFA Human Rights Policy.

Despite the implementation of Article 3 in 2016 and that Article 4 has been in place since 2004 which expressly state the gravity of discrimination on the grounds of gender, which can no longer be countenanced in global sport, no sanctions have been imposed and the world watched a female fan, Sahar Khodoyari, arrested and facing a lengthy jail sentence for her attempts to enter the Azadi Stadium in Tehran to watch a male football match, self- immolate and perish. This is despite the recommendation of the FIFA Human Rights Advisory Board of November, 2018 that a timeline to sanctions be immediately applied. This is a regrettable, avoidable and salutary tragedy that stains the very notion of sport.

Iran should be suspended from international competition until such time as women are provided with their rights accorded to all through football. To watch the sport, they love. Having the power, and authority to greatly further the economic and social rights of women through sports is of great importance as sports are arguably a human right and not only to participate but to spectate and celebrate,16 but this power is useless if politics impede its application. And the consequences can be devastating.

Further, the women of Iran will note with interest that the International Judo Federation suspended Iran on 18 of September for violation of its Code of Ethics and the Olympic Charter regarding non-discrimination on grounds of race, origin or nationality. Sports have taken valuable, exciting new steps towards a world which is fairer, safer and more equal than ever before and should be congratulated for so doing, but the final step is proving the most difficult, certainly for our largest sport, association football.

This problem is more acute because of the complete failure in global football for the electoral eligibility criteria of FIFA Code of Ethics18 to account for either inaction or even complicity in human rights abuse such as, for example the President of Iranian football,19 Mehdi Taj, who was elected in April as a Vice President of the AFC amid the failure of his governing body to protect Sahar and her colleagues. Or the Secretary-General of the Afghanistan Football Federation,20 Sayed Ali Reza Aghazada, elected to the Executive Committee of the AFC even though at that time suspended by the Afghan Attorney General’s office for alleged sexual abuse of women national team players.

The athletes, and players of the world must take responsibility for upholding the highest standards of governance of their sport including ensuring the efficacy, robustness and legitimacy of ethics chambers and fully independent oversight mechanisms because failures at governance level don’t only have economic consequences, they come at a human cost.

Sports governance is critical to providing the framework and environment in which the rights of others in, and through sport can be respected and FIFPro,22 the global footballer’s body has been too silent during recent AFC and FIFA elections in which consideration of the human rights of players were a nullity.

Women’s equality and economic and social rights are rightly on the global agenda at present and, again, football is undergoing positive change through the exertion of their rights by leading players, and teams. While the marvelous US Women’s National Team prosecute their economic rights against the US domestic governing body, the Australian National Women’s Team, the Matildas, Australia’s most loved representative team, are doing likewise on a global scale. And women everywhere should be in full support as the visibility of sport gives a social uplift to women raising their voice for equal treatment whether in the boardroom, the university, the workplace, home or any other area of social life.

The Australians, through their domestic player Union, Professional Footballers Australia (PFA)25 are challenging the lack of adherence to the FIFA gender equality statutes regarding FIFA World Cup prize money distribution. And the Jamaican women’s football team, earlier this month instituted a strike in protest at a failure of the Jamaican Football Federation to honor their contractual payments.

Sports do not exist only for economic reasons, and thus the proposition that women’s football, or sport must ‘pay its own way’ and be given only what it returns in kind, is fallacious where a global governing body is concerned. Sport is a social vehicle in which all have a right to participate, in an equal manner and without discrimination of any kind. FIFA, and other major governing bodies have a social responsibility to provide equal opportunity and rewards, to both female and male and, notwithstanding that women’s sport is growing exponentially in line with greater investment, women have a right to equality. Now. And the Australians will ensure that the women’s rights agenda, whether economic and the attendant social and cultural freedom this provides, will continue apace. All male players around the world should be in full, vocal support for their sisters and certainly women’s teams everywhere should be considering unified action to press their claim.

It is also time for FIFA to fully commit to equality in decision making at governance level consistent with Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals to ‘Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’ to become a glowing example to the world of the important sporting principle of equality between women and men. Currently, just one woman must be elected from the 6 Confederations out of a total of  FIFA Council Members, including the President.

FIFA should commit to a gender equal balance at Federation, Confederation and thus global level and demonstrate strong leadership in showing the world that women are of equal stature, importance and value. And female players everywhere should consider this a strategic priority, and worth fighting for on behalf of women everywhere.

Recently, we have seen the rise of deeply concerning elements of nationalism and racially discriminatory treatment across the world, and the community of nations must escalate its response to ensure that no person is treated differently on the basis of any factor of difference, colour being just one, though historically one of the most prevalent and damaging.

In football, racist abuse of black players, in particular, has occurred worryingly regularly in recent years including cases involving players in England, Montenegro and Italy and at the very highest levels of the game. If these are allowed to go unpunished, the effects throughout society are detrimental to a world of unity, understanding and inclusion.

As yet, FIFA, UEFA and the Italian Football Federation (Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio, FIGC), in particular have not applied sufficient sanctions to deter this type of behaviour in stadiums and this should be a particular focus for the world of sport in the immediate term. I am pleased to see FIFA President, Gianni Infantino make strong statements in the past days regarding sanctions for offending clubs in Italy,31 however this is long overdue and further, where a Member Federation, or country, is unable to act in an effective manner, it is critical that FIFA has recourse as custodians of the game.

Sport has a central role, and responsibility to society to demonstrate that all involved, whether players, fans, officials adhere to a non-discriminatory code of conduct to demonstrate a powerful example of unity to the world during a time of growing division and rejection of difference.

Finally, as an Ambassador for Refugees with Amnesty Australia and a strong advocate for adherence to international human rights law regarding asylum seekers, including in my own country of Australia in which we face ongoing compliance challenges, I would like to impress on all global sports, whether FIFA, the IOC, FIBA, the Commonwealth Games and others that the number of displaced people is rapidly increasing and simultaneously our humane treatment of people seeking refuge is under extreme threat in many regions of the world.

According to the UN, the projected displacement of human beings from climate related change and extreme events and disasters is projected to increase dramatically in coming decades, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), by around 143 million people by 2050, aside from the more than 17 million in 2018 alone and, in light of the severe issues faced by our fellow human beings in this situation, this is something that I am personally very concerned about.

The economic, social and cultural rights of all involved are severely threatened, including the right of all children to an education, the right to health and an adequate standard of living (under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)) which too often is limited or missing altogether in the camps that house many hundreds of thousands, and this will become far more acute. In 2018 alone, UNHCR reported that at least 4 million refugee children had no access to primary school.

I am delighted that so many major sports have agreed to the UN Sport for Climate Action Framework35 and the 5 following principles:

1.Promoting greater environmental responsibility

2. Reducing overall climate impact

3.Educating for climate action

4.Promoting sustainable and responsible consumption

5. Advocating for climate action through communication

However, while many sports are highly active in reducing overall climate impact (2), few are educating for climate action (4) or advocating for climate action through communication (5) on a systemic basis. Sports is often called a ‘global family’ and this is certainly both a common refrain in football, and accurate in its characterisation of the commonality, sense of community and brother and sisterhood felt between competing nations.

Too many of our family are being, and will be, forced from their homes through both internal and crossborder migration from environmental factors and all of sport should recognise a common duty to assist our global community.

Jose Igreja Matos

President, European Association of Judges, PORTUGAL

I am here as the President of the European Association of Judges. We are the biggest organization of judges in Europe assembling 43 countries represented by their respective national associations. For the judiciary “dark clouds” are now pending in our old continent. During the past few years, we were confronted with a crisis of rule of law, with severe implications for human rights protection, which is spreading like a plague in multiple countries.

Allow me to tell you a story. Some months ago, I was, once again, in Poland, as you know one of the more disturbed countries within the European Union. I was speaking informally with an international expert that works now in Warsaw. And then she explained me, “Look, José, during more than 14 years I worked for international human rights organizations.

But very recently I decided to change my professional framework and actually to take a step back. I realize that to be really effective in avoiding violation of human rights, we desperately need to have previously an institutional framework. Courts and judges play an essential role especially to protect social and cultural rights; if we don’t have independent courts committed in an impartial way to defend our core values then we will be in very serious trouble.

So here I am now; working with judges because in Poland like in other countries of the region is mostly here that our future is being shaped.”

In a recent survey more than 60% of our 43 EAJ members declared that in the past 5 years the situation of judiciary in their countries concerning judicial independence as worsened.

Turkey, today, represents the most terrible of the examples: thousands of judges and prosecutors arrested for years, expelled from the judiciary and with all their assets confiscated. The European Association of Judges has already spent more than one hundred twenty thousand euros in humanitarian assistance to several dozens of judges and their families with contributions that don’t exceed 900 euros to each of those families; only to cover very basic needs.

Democracy is based on elections providing legitimacy to the rulers but also the values assembled by the “Rule of Law”, as opposite of rule of men, in which the principles of separation of powers and judicial independence are vital prerequisites. The arrival of so-called illiberal democracies at the very heart of European Union has, since the early stages, instigated a vigorous attack on courts. Therefore, in countries like Hungary or Poland, the second pillar of democracy is neglected, if not dethroned.

The menaces to Rule of Law are now everywhere as democracy is being characterized as outdated and inefficient with its terrible habit of respecting minorities, upholding human rights and freedom of expression and of avoiding excessive concentration of State powers.

Alexis de Tocqueville, almost 200 years ago, baptized Democracy as “the great experiment”. I sympathize with this definition that alert us to the delicacy of democracy, characteristic of a system that is always being tested. I do believe, working intensively in the last years in different regions of the world, that the solutions for the problems the judiciary is facing today is intimately connected with Goal 16 of UN Sustained Development and should be built in cooperation and partnership with civil society working together in field projects that address our mutual concerns.

Obeying to a lesson of practical conduct enshrined in our European culture is advanced many centuries ago by Aristotle’s words: “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, for example men become builders by building and lyre players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts”.

An alliance of good will that the men and women have to protect democratic values is now the only remedy to the rise of populism and radicalism. That is why is so important for me, as a judge, to be present on this conference and to publicly praise the work of the Journalists and Writers Foundation and of all the global partners specially, in my particular case, the Associação Ilhas da Paz of Mozambique.

Isaque Chande

Ombudsman, MOZAMBIQUE

Early warning mechanisms of human rights to prevent conflicts: severe inequalities in access to social services

Humankind has never faced so many global challenges as it does today. The 2030 Agenda is one of the most consensual platforms aimed at establishing mechanisms to overcome problems such as poverty and unworthiness in which millions of people live. There is no doubt that millions of people on the continents of Africa and Asia lack access to basic services such as water, electricity, sanitation, health and food.

Agenda 2030 is presumed to be one of the most important vehicles for ensuring that the international community takes all necessary steps to achieve the seventeen goals set out in Agenda 2030.

My topic at this special and important event is to talk about the protection of social, economic and cultural rights, in order to show what we are doing in Mozambique and other African countries. We will highlight the diverse environment in which we are trying to figure out the best ways to implement the 2030 Agenda.

Moreover, we cannot talk about the protection of social, economic and cultural rights without mentioning one of the core ideas that are essential and meet all seventeen goals of the 2030 Agenda. We are referring to the idea of including social development for all. In fact, most objectives are based primarily on this concept of inclusive of social development, such as objectives 4, 8, 9, 11 and 16, among others. So, what does inclusive social development mean? In a nutshell, inclusive social development for all means that no one needs to be left behind and all human beings must be involved in the world’s transformation process.

Do we all know what social, economic and cultural rights are? It should not be difficult to find out what kind of human rights we are talking about. As it is well known, human rights are the principles established internationally to provide protection, guarantee and respect for human beings. They are guaranteed for any human-being regardless of race, color, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, social status and so on.

In short, social, economic and cultural rights are these specific human rights related to basic living conditions such as education, food, housing, employment, health and others. These human rights are indispensable for any human-being to live in dignity. As we all know, dignity is something that is inherited by humans and is essential to be respected by all entities, whether public or private. The question is how to protect them? And who is responsible for providing them? For these two questions there is no simple answer and, in some cases, there should be no consensus.

Although it may seem easier to answer the second question, we cannot say the same thing to the first. Indeed, there should be no doubt that the state has the primary responsibility to provide the minimum living conditions for those who need and are highly vulnerable. Assuming this responsibility for the state means that it must ensure that all citizens have access to basic education, health services, housing, food and related services.

Considering what we have experienced since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda, the first question on how to protect social, economic and cultural rights when the state does not provide them depends on public policies and the level of commitment of each government.

In some countries, such as Brazil, there are legal mechanisms that allow vulnerable citizens to file legal proceedings against the state or municipalities, claiming their social, economic and cultural rights. For example, if a citizen needs medical care and cannot afford it, it is the obligation of the state or municipality to provide it. If they do not, and if the lawsuit has been opened, they may be convicted. In fact, there are many lawsuits that ended in the conviction of a state or municipality. This shows that the legal framework needs to be strengthened to help implement the main goals of Agenda 2030.

On the other hand, there are countries where such legal procedures have not yet been established. In these countries, governments generally use the national budget as the limit of their responsibilities to provide minimum living conditions. So, they were arguing that the national budget is the fundamental source that must be used to meet all needs of society, including vulnerable ones. In addition, they also argued that once the national budget was approved, it should act as the limit for governments to adopt all necessary social programs. Moreover, they argued that the judiciary should not condemn states or municipalities in this case, because it is not the responsibility of the judiciary to take care of those who are vulnerable. And finally, they saw the condemnation of the judiciary as an intervention that violated the sacrosanct principle of separation of power.

Indeed, it shows that there is no consensus on the implementation measures adopted around the world. In our view, there must be an obligation on the state to provide the minimum conditions so that citizens can live with the necessary dignity. Because dignity, as we said, is essential for all human beings. Indeed, as long as there are starving people, without access to education, employment and basic health services, inclusive social development will remain a big dream.

Mozambique is one of the nations that has approved the relevant international human rights instruments. Although it is also one of the poorest countries in the world, it has been doing much to reasonably implement human rights principles. For this reason, in Mozambique, the state is primarily responsible for promoting human rights and simultaneously ensuring their effectiveness.

The Mozambican Constitution, as its main law, in its Article 11, established major objectives of the Mozambican State, where among others, the following were highlighted:

1. The construction of a social justice society and the creation of material, spiritual well-being and quality of life

2. The defense and promotion of human rights and equality of citizens before the law

3. The strengthening of democracy, freedom, social stability and social and individual harmony

Although the Constitution provides for this provision, we are far from equating the effectiveness of social, economic and cultural rights. Nevertheless, given the country’s stage of development and limited economic resources, we recognize that there has been a commitment to implement the goals set out in the 2030 Agenda.

Unfortunately, efforts to protect social, economic and cultural rights are not enough to provide schools for all our children, especially those in rural areas. On the other hand, we are also facing challenges in providing basic health services, which means that many people, including children, women and the elderly, cannot access this service.

Job creation for young people is also one of the biggest challenges, although the government has established specific job creation policies for young people. What makes matters worse is that millions of people are still victims of poverty and hunger, including the most vulnerable, such as children, women and the elderly. Finally, I have never seen a vulnerable citizen who has filed a lawsuit to complain about violations of his social, economic and cultural rights. It seems that Mozambique is one of the countries that uses the national budget as a limit for its social, economic and cultural responsibilities. However, we are aware that the Government of Mozambique has implemented different social programs, including providing subsidies for the elderly and vulnerable.

Achieving inclusive social development is a long way to go. Therefore, much needs to be done to ensure the implementation of mechanisms that will allow countries to provide minimum living conditions.

There must be no doubt that it is the primary responsibility of the state to promote and protect human rights, including social, economic and cultural rights, and to establish appropriate mechanisms that it can allow citizens to fight for their human rights. For this purpose, it is important to establish a legal mechanism that allows citizens to open legal proceedings in case of violations of this type of human rights.

Finally, no country in the world will be able to tackle inclusive social development on its own. The main strategy is to act collectively so that no one can be left behind until 2030.

It is both a pleasure to come to these events and but it is also depressing. It is depressing, of course, because we hear all the problems over and over and over again, with little solution. And we look at these charts that we have worked on for all these years. When we scrutinize them, we see that there is still a lot to do. But what is uplifting for us is to be part of this gathering to share, learn and inspire each other because you all are involved in a lot of really good, important work. If you were not involved in this work, the world would be a lot worse off than where it is today. So, when you walked out of here, you should leave having listened to some new ideas, new energy, and to be grateful for each other about the work that we are doing together in this global family.

My work has been about civil rights, human rights work and NGO work in the United States, spanning over 50 years. I have also been involved in national human rights advocacy. The big question is “how do you protect the rights of people?” Do you go to court and say you have ultimately protected the rights of people? This is an issue that we are facing in the United States. Of course, it is an issue people are facing in other countries too The important thing is for us to keep in mind when we are out there having coffee or tea or beer in whichever country we live in, that our talk should be about these issues. Our idea of the rule of law is under attack.

The list of democratic countries is fewer, and going down every year. How is it that we go about furthering human rights, protecting human rights? How do we institutionalize democracy, how do we create these institutional frameworks that we accept and respect democracy? How do we create laws that actually penalize people who break them? Title nine is the law guaranteed women and girls from elementary schools all the way up to have equal access to sports. This opened the door for women to enter professional life and enjoy equality. I am sure this is totally true of Australia and less in the United States where a lot of the movement into higher education is because of scholarships open to men as well as women alike. Opening that door of professional life, like athletics scholarships, and opening that door to girls, opens many doors to different professions. When I entered law school 50 years ago, we had 92 people and 3 of them were women. When I stopped teaching law school three years ago, more than 50% were women.

So, is this the kind of institutional change? How do we work on that? How do we make that work? One reason why we are here today is to think about how to make this work. There are 70,000 human rights documents that had been generated by 700 NGOs. 70,000 documents on everything you could think of. But when we look at the world, where are we in terms of those basic ideas that I really know, with 70,000 documents that for us spell out equality, dignity, respect?

One of the reasons why we are here is because of the United Nations General Assembly gathering in New York. Three of the best documents you should have are about the universal declaration of rights, the international covenant on civil and political rights, which the United States calls civil liberties. Then, you have the third document, the international covenant on economic, social, and cultural rights. So, the second document, civil liberties is restrictions on government allowing guaranteed press and fair trials. These are very important possible liberties. The flip side of that, the positive rights like healthcare, a right to food, the rights of the safety net, are becoming less guaranteed globally.

Where are we on these human needs, how do we create mechanisms to address debate and sound policies? And this is something that we each of us has to figure out in our own lives. I cannot give you the answer. Not one of us up here can give you the answer. What do you do in your own lives? How do we do similar action plans in our own countries and respective communities? What can we do it? What kind of conversations do we have with people if we think that democracy is important, that the rule of law is critical. This should be our bread and butter. What can we do in our own lives? We are always waiting for the savior. We think of Martin Luther King and these people came from heaven, as our leaders. That is not true.

It was the parents, the friends, the teachers that raised up these leaders. Everything that we do in our lives, every moment of our lives, every contact and we have in our lives has an impact. That is how we can put meaning into those 70,000 documents.

This an example of how we can think creatively by using sports, as a sound example to advance the rights message. How do we use sports inside the United States? How do we use sports inside of other countries? How do we use sports internationally? This is a moment to rethink how we become proactive in our local community activities that bring out the question on rights. We are a global family through sports, but we are a global family in the context of human rights as well. How can we be creative? We can, we are watching the people of Hong Kong creatively standing up against what the Beijing government wants to impose in Hong Kong. How many weeks have we seen people out in the streets speaking with their feet? That is what we need to do. Speak with our mouths, speak with our feet. We have to organize ourselves into strong movements of people to have a better impact on an oppressive regime. We have to be creative because at the end of the day, it is not just about us, but it is about our kids and our grandchildren whom we should fight for. There is a poet in the United States and she has this line: We make a living by what we get. We make a life from what we give. Well, we have done for the world is immortal.

Antonio Alberto do Vale Cerqueira

Court of Ethics and Disciplinary at the Brazilian Bar Association – District Federal Section, BRAZIL

Violation of human rights leading to social unrest: Country-based Analysis

I would like to start by reminding you of a very important book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He was a thinker that lived in the 18th century and he wrote the social contract. The idea is that once we are born, every child in the world signs a social contract, which gives them their rights. Everyone who lives in a society, expects us to work, to marry, have kids, pay taxes and have a behavior that can be an example to everyone else.

This contract gives us the main rights, the human rights. So, we have to ask ourselves, how are the States, our countries respecting this role? Is everyone here is obeying their social contracts? Can we say we are receiving our rights? Do we have full access to these rights? Do we have food for everyone, housing for everyone, education, equality; no, we do not have. That is the reason why the criminal activities are growing in Brazil and in so many countries. People do not have basic rights.

Brazil is a huge country. It is the fifth biggest country in the world. Brasilia is the center, the Capital of the country. Brazil is divided by 26 states and 1 federal district, where the Brasilia is, very similar to here, like Washington DC. Brasilia is a very beautiful place. It is considered a world heritage site by UNESCO and it is one of the most developed cities of Brazil. It offers the best quality of life in the world. It has the highest per capita income in the country. It almost doubles compared to the rest of the country. There are many large spaces, a lot of green, not a huge traffic. The executives and judiciaries are the center of power. I was born and have been living there. However, only 3.3 miles away, we have a structural zone, “Favela”. It’ is so near, you can walk through there at a minimum distance. We have a huge lack of human rights over there.

Favela was born when Brasilia was developing and it became the waste deposit. There are no streets, there was no sanitation, there is not a school, nothing over there. I would like to focus on homicide rates per 100.000 inhabitants. What most people will say about homicides is the drug trafficking, assault, rape and everything anti-social. We have the graphic figures from 2011 to 2018 and we have Brasilia, this beautiful city. In 2011, the difference between the 100,000 inhabitants was over in ten times. It was a very bad place to be.

But the district federal government has been putting money in this city to improve economic development, schools, cleaning streets, sanitation, cleaning the city water. As you can see, the rate is dropping over the years. Now the difference is only five times approximately. So, what I can say to you, our conclusion is crimes are not because of the poverty. The main reason is when the states does not obey the social contract, as they were saying before, and it starts to take from these inhabitants for his citizens. The human rights include a right to good education, the right to food. The right to access the 17 goals that we have here.

We come to a very dangerous line. There is human dignity, life, and once we cross that line and the people live below it, then generations will collapse. If we think about these 17 Goals, maybe now it is too early to deliver this to the population.

But can we ask ourselves if the state can properly delivery these goals alone or we should participate even if it means crossing the dangerous line.

Today, a lot has been said about the importance of protecting social, economic and cultural rights, and, most importantly, human rights. Only promoting human rights-based approach, introducing mechanisms of prevention of violation of human rights can lead to inclusive social development. These things are crucial to achieving any global goal. But the question still remains: Why does the protection of human rights not always work? There are undoubtedly a number of factors, but one of them, in my opinion, is the gap between those who make policy, those who implement these policies and those who are affected by these policies.

The fact is that evolving nature of global challenges, namely, human rights problem, breed the necessity of finding new types of cooperation. And here comes what I call the network diplomacy, being one of the most effective mechanisms to boost human rights protection. Network diplomacy may be defined as the multi-level communication, representation and negotiation of an idea through a set of actors, which may extend, and that’s the most important thing, beyond the traditional, region, state sponsored institutions and encompass other actors integrated with the idea or parties involved.

As such, network diplomacy may feature a multipronged approach to tackling human rights related issues. Why network diplomacy? Because it is particularly potent as it allows engagement of a multitude of actors. Moreover, it is subject to comparatively low transaction costs. Again, why network diplomacy? Because it meets the requests of three major contemporary developments in international relations.

1. The necessity for increased cooperation in a volatile and highly populated globalized international environment. Nowadays, the world is facing a wide range of issues which are intricately linked to seemingly unrelated issues: from poverty, underdevelopment, food insecurity or environmental concern can now stem radicalization, terrorism, refugee crisis, conflicts and various other potential issues. In short, security threats have become uniquely multidimensional, and what may have required one or two parties in the past may require dozens of actors from various backgrounds today poverty, environment (e.g. military conflicts). More importantly, the issues of our current system transcend physical borders, which have now become the last remains of yesterday’s sovereignty. The cyberspace, organized crime, terrorism, and other significant and potentially destabilizing issues can cross borders and spaces quite easily, thus exploiting gaps (physical, material, legal, etc.) before traditional actors can identify and address these issues.

2. The current evolution of technologies, most particularly in the fields of information and communication dissemination. It is a trite truism, that the emergence of the internet and modern information technologies have significantly altered our social and communicative patterns, and thus our global environment. In this context, its influence on the public diplomacy appears evident. The amount of information is no longer an issue, and the sources have become multiple.

Yesterday, diplomatic apparatuses required complex, sometimes covert sources and information to adequately address the challenges they faced, often to extract limited information from finite sources, with a significant risk. Today, sources are seemingly infinite, what could be gathered yesterday from a unique source through an intelligence service can now be replaced by a public diplomatic network with local communities and non-state actors. Journalists and other civil societybased networks can sometimes provide and disseminate valuable knowledge to and from diplomatic institutions more efficiently than the likes of Benjamin Franklin or Anatoly Dobrynin could have ever conceived.

As a particularly accurate prediction formulated by HSBC’s marketing team in the late 1990s: data, communication and networks will become the currency of tomorrow. Today, communication is without a doubt one of the central pillars of the network diplomacy. It is the main feature of the modern world, that is why, public diplomacy has transformed from a high-risk / high cost information gathering and analysis product into a low-cost / low-risk information gathering and dissemination process. If anything, today’s modern network diplomacy has in many ways started to replicate some of the marketing and public relations strategies developed by corporations from the 1980s.

3. The expanding number of relevant international actors and sources of influences. In the past decades a wide range of non-state actors such as multinational corporations (MNCs), international media outlets, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), armed non-State actors (ANSAs), religious groups and other civil society organizations (CSOs) as well as international and intergovernmental organizations have stepped more profoundly into the multi-layered field of global (geo)politics and therefore global diplomacy.

Their influence is at times comparable, even stronger (for short or extended period of time) to that of certain States or groupings of States. A highly contrasting example would be to compare the power of a corporation such as Facebook, Microsoft or Google and their global reach and influence to that of Lesotho, St. Kitts and Nevis or Suriname. In this context, it seems clear that the formulation of an effective diplomacy in the 21st century needs to devote more attention to the multiplication of “engage-able” actors, their interests, reach, influence, power and strategies, be they a group of small / medium powers such as the group of Landlocked Developing Countries or a set of CSOs such as the Vienna NGO Committee.

So, what we need to do is to unite interconnected individuals who occupy analogous positions in institutional or social structures that create you community relationships that, build upon, democratize, magnify existing social framework. I would summarize that in protecting social, economic and cultural rights we need: 1. Flexibility 2. Effectiveness 3. Act across traditional boundaries 4. Lower the cost of common activity So, in achieving SDG’s and protecting human rights traditional diplomacy needs to transcend traditional borders and frameworks, in order to create networks of actors from varied actors with varying views, degrees of power, skills and audiences through creation or adherence to new channels of communication and cooperation with other international actors.

Concluding, I would like to say that the UNGA Conference presents at vivid example of natural diplomacy. We are here united by common scope, all from different countries, speaking different languages, someone implementing human rights policies, someone forming these policies.

The vicious climate action demands that we pick up action points. Poverty is falling too slowly. No country is on track to achieve the goal of gender equality. Diversity is being lost at an alarming rate with the greenhouse gas emissions still rising when we are close to the three or five degree temperature increase with all the devastation that science keeps warning us about. And of course, the issues of human rights; all the questions that have been discussed in this session, cultural, economic and social rights are the core of what the United Nations has been dealing with. We know that there are many problems in many countries.

However, there is another fact that we must embrace to achieve the SDGs. And there is still time for us to get on track. It is critically important to support advocacy and public engagement and the SDG implementation. Education is another key tool to promote awareness of sustainable development since the next generation of leaders is being shaped by schools and universities. This critical front line has to provide the ambitious means and inspiration for new developments and solutions to be creative and tested.

SDG 16 and 17 explicitly called for the environment that supports tolerance, differing views with participation, responsible leadership, legal frameworks that appear to the human rights standards and great investment in transparent and accountable institutions, are critical in achieving this gap. There seems to be an obvious need to mobilize young people worldwide and foster their ideas, build on leadership and energize them to become more proactive in demanding for solutions to global challenges. Particularly the youth of today has the chance to shape what the world will look like in 2030. Clearly the youth of today will keep leaning out for love and connectivity. The SDGs are the primary means for the United Nations to satisfy their demand; but it’s also a need to ensure that women are centrally involved in all efforts aimed at SDG implementation.

Again, we should identify who is being left behind and set up the progress and inclusive strategies to reach to persons with disabilities, indigenous people and other marginalized groups. The UN General Assembly reiterated the determination for the implementation of the SDGs and the Secretary General issued a global call for a decade of action to deliver their SDGs by 2030.

We need all state stakeholders including you to step up. The United Nations remains committed to working with responsible partners on this journey.