A/HRC/21/22 6. Although primarily aimed at health decision-makers, the guidance is also relevant to other sectors, including finance and education, as well as parliamentarians, judiciaries, inter-governmental agencies, national human rights institutions and donor States. The engagement of civil society is necessary for the effective implementation of the guidelines, and to hold Governments to account. 7. The High Commissioner encourages the implementation of the present technical guidance. The Human Rights Council could consider encouraging the dissemination of the guidance to all relevant parts of Government as well as other stakeholders and promoting its use in programmes and policies to eliminate maternal mortality and morbidity. The Council could also encourage inter-agency dialogue and collaboration within the United Nations systems on the implementation of the guidance through their own policies, programmes and technical support. II. General principles 8. Human rights are about empowerment and entitlement of people with respect to certain aspects of their lives, including their sexual and reproductive health. International human rights law includes fundamental commitments of States to enable women to survive pregnancy and childbirth as part of their enjoyment of sexual and reproductive health rights and living a life of dignity. Sound public health practice is crucial to enable States to fulfil these basic rights, but it must be complemented by broader measures to address women’s empowerment. 9. The present technical guidance builds on two previous OHCHR reports. In the first (A/HRC/14/39), OHCHR identified seven human rights principles fundamental for understanding maternal mortality and morbidity as a human rights issue: accountability, participation, transparency, empowerment, sustainability, international assistance and nondiscrimination. In the second (A/HRC/18/27), OHCHR outlined categories of good practices to address maternal mortality and morbidity in compliance with human rights obligations: enhancing the status of women, ensuring sexual and reproductive health rights, strengthening health systems, addressing unsafe abortion, and improving monitoring and evaluation. The work of other human rights mechanisms has also been taken into account in the guidelines.7 10. A human rights-based approach identifies rights-holders and their entitlements and corresponding duty-bearers and their obligations, and promotes strengthening the capacities of both rights-holders to make their claims and duty-bearers to meet their obligations. These rights and obligations are provided for under international human rights law. 11. The technical guidance, like previous OHCHR reports, are grounded in the respect for sexual and reproductive health and rights, as set out in the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development 8 and reiterated and expanded upon in subsequent United Nations documents and international law. 7 8 4 law. See Inter-agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crises, Inter-agency Field Manual on Reproductive Health in Humanitarian Settings, 2010. A/HRC/17/25; CEDAW/C/49/D/17/2008; CEDAW/C/50/D/22/2009; Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, “Access to Maternal Health Services from a Human Rights Perspective”, Organization of American States, 7 June 2010. Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 5–13 September 1994 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.95.XIII.18), chap. I, resolution 1, annex.