A/HRC/21/45 with governments and agencies. As former Director of the United Nations Division on Human Rights Theo van Boven has emphasized: ―People Matter‖. VI. Moving forward 63. A preliminary report can hardly advance conclusions or formulate recommendations. These are but working hypotheses that must still be tested in the course of the coming years. The Independent Expert looks forward to receiving and analysing feedback from stakeholders, think tanks and universities. He recognizes that in order to advance in the realization of an international order that is more democratic and more equitable, a change of currently prevailing ways of thinking and behaviour is necessary. Positivism must be tempered by anthropological, social and cultural considerations. Building a culture of equity requires recognition that we all have the same human dignity and rights, i.e., that privileges must be phased out. Although equity is common sense, based on a conviction that we all share an aspiration to happiness, education is necessary to unlearn privilege, unlearn exclusion, unlearn discrimination, unlearn prejudice, unlearn war. This is possible, as the work of UNESCO demonstrates. A new human rights paradigm should replace the artificial division of human rights into rights of the first, second and third generations, with its inherent value judgment, which is both obsolete and misleading. A new paradigm of rights could be envisioned: enabling rights (peace, food, homeland, development), immanent rights (equality, due process) and end rights (identity, the right to achieve one’s potential). 64. With regard to an international order that should be more democratic, the Independent Expert is aware of the frequent disconnect between people and government, and the dysfunctions prevalent in many countries, both in government and within civil society itself. States and civil societies are invited to review the degree of correlation between the will of the people and the policies actually implemented. A responsible citizenry should enjoy the opportunity to peacefully articulate approval or disapproval of government policies, without intimidation or fear. Independent national human rights institutions, or other non-governmental agencies, could undertake the task of measuring the level of correlation through periodic polling and make corrective recommendations to parliaments. On the global scale, an appropriate organization or agency could take the temperature of world public opinion. Supplementing the General Assembly, which is composed of government representatives, other mechanisms could be devised to allow civil society in all countries to articulate their views, which in some cases may differ from those expressed in the General Assembly by government representatives. Moreover, the feasibility of global public opinion polling, possibly through the Internet or an aggregate societal platform, on issues such as peace, the environment and the common heritage of mankind should be explored. Such opinion polls would not have binding force, but would facilitate a better overview of popular will in all regions of the world. 65. With regard to a more equitable international order, the economic dynamics that make the rich richer and the poor poorer must be changed. This may entail, among other things, the cancelling of the debts of many developing countries. The Bretton Woods institutions have a crucial responsibility in this respect. 66. Bearing in mind that “the market” is not an invention of capitalism but that it has existed for thousands of years in many different societies, social justice logically requires that the profits resulting from the operation of markets and infrastructures created by society be equitably shared within societies and, in a larger context, within the human family. In order to achieve equity, other measures of affirmative action 20

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