Thématique N°14

Integrating Human Rights into the Millennium Objectives, by Jean-François Cuénod

It is often asked whether fundamental rights have been left out of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). No one mentioned any vocabulary omissions with regard to human rights when drafting the MDGs. However, if we look strictly at the terminology of human rights conventions as well as the debates taking place within institutions that handles these issues on a daily basis, one may very well have the feeling that human rights are the forgotten ones of the Millennium Goals. In reality, human rights underlie all of these goals. Even if organisations could have strived for them to be mentioned more explicitly, even if just to establish respect for them throughout the monitoring mechanisms of the Millennium Goals , there is a real convergence between these Goals and human rights.

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