A/HRC/33/31
III. 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the
implementation of the right to development
36.
As the High Commissioner stated during the Human Rights Council high-level
panel discussion on human rights mainstreaming, the 2030 Agenda and the Declaration on
the Right to Development are powerfully linked. By placing people at its centre, the 2030
Agenda could generate political momentum for the realization of the right to development,
while the right to development provided a vital enabling environment to ensure that the
goals of the 2030 Agenda would be achieved in practice and that development processes
were inclusive and just.31
37.
The High Commissioner underscored the substantive convergence between the
Declaration and the 2030 Agenda, the overall objective to eradicate discrimination and
inequality, the need for international cooperation and assistance and the need to pay equal
attention to freedom from fear and freedom from want. He also underlined the importance
of accountability and of human rights indicators or data in this regard and the need to link
human rights monitoring with the follow-up and review of the implementation of the
Sustainable Development Goals.
38.
The 2030 Agenda is informed by the Declaration on the Right to Development. 32 It
is guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, including
respect for international law and it is grounded in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and international human rights treaties. The 2030 Agenda recognizes the need to
build peaceful, just and inclusive societies that provide equal access to justice and that are
based on, inter alia, respect for human rights (including the right to development).33
39.
In addition to explicit recognition of the right to development, the 2030 Agenda
indirectly reaffirms and recognizes that it is grounded in the right to development by citing
the Millennium Declaration as a source. In the Declaration, Heads of State and Government
committed to making the right to development a reality for everyone and to freeing the
entire human race from want. 34 The 2030 Agenda also reaffirms the principles of the Rio
Declaration on Environment and Development,35 of which principle 3 stipulates that the
right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet the developmental and
environmental needs of present and future generations.
40.
Besides this direct and indirect recognition of the linkage between the 2030 Agenda
for Sustainable Development and the right to development, there is also substantive
convergence. Under article 4 (1) of the Declaration on the Right to Development, States
have the duty to take steps, individually and collectively, to formulate international
development policies with a view to facilitating the full realization of the right to
development. Undoubtedly, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development constitutes such
an international development policy.
41.
Both the Declaration and the 2030 Agenda envisage a human-centred development
process, in which all human rights can be fully realized. They both seek to eradicate
poverty, discrimination and inequality, both within and among countries, with a view to
improving the well-being of the human person and addressing the structural impediments
that disadvantage the poor and prevent development from benefiting all. The 2030 Agenda,
31
32
33
34
35
See www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=17107&LangID=E.
See General Assembly resolution 70/1, para. 10.
Ibid., para. 35.
See General Assembly resolution 55/2, para. 11.
See General Assembly resolution 70/1, para. 12.
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