Date : 2014.09.22

IMADR presented its oral statement on “Declaration on the right to peace” at the 27th session of the Human Rights Council. Whole text can be read below or downloaded here. 

———

IMADR Oral Statement: 27^th session of the Human Rights Council

Item 5: Report of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the right to peace

22 September 2014

Thank you Mr. President,

Let me express our appreciation to the work of the Intergovernmental Working Group to draft a United Nations Declaration on the right to peace. We particularly welcome its Article 2 which emphasises the principles of equality and non-discrimination. Although we support the Working Group’s efforts and leadership, we would like to reiterate a number of points regarding the drafting processes of the new UN declaration.

Firstly, we would like to recall that the essential mission of the Working Group, spelled out by the UN Human Rights Council resolution (A/HRC/RES/20/15), was to “progressively negotiating a draft United Nations declaration on the right to peace, on the basis of the draft submitted by the Advisory Committee”. Therefore, it is expected that in order to define the contents and the borderlines of the right to peace, as an individual and collective right, the work of the Advisory Committee with its legal expertise shall be fully taken into account.

Secondly, it must also be assumed that the text of the draft declaration on the right to peace should signify an added value as compared with the right to life in peace, already proclaimed some thirty years ago by the UN General Assembly, and clearly focus on the right to peace as an emerging right with its various dimensions. In that sense, it is fundamental to affirm that the human right to peace has to be expressed in the same way underlined in the article 1 of the UN 1984 Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace, enjoying human rights as declared in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Lastly, while it is in the interest of the subject matter and in general to the causes the United Nations is trying to serve that the broadest support be obtained, it is submitted that standard-setting activities like the present one should not be reduced to a lowest common denominator approach. We hope that the Working Group will have cognisance of human rights principles.

We encourage the Council members to engage constructively with the Working Group to finalise the draft declaration, which aims to promote that everyone’s right to live in peace and security be fully ensured.

Thank you Mr. President.