Ignacio Sanchez Amor and Kyriakos Kyriakou-HadjiyianniCOPENHAGEN, 10 December 2017 – The most pressing human rights challenges facing the world could be alleviated by ensuring that international commitments are faithfully implemented, said the Chair and Rapporteur of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions today.
Committee Chair Ignacio Sanchez Amor (MP, Spain) said that to observe the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 69 years ago, countries should today recall the commitments that they agreed to in both the Universal Declaration and in OSCE documents.
“We are failing in our commitments, with illiberal states and authoritarian trends becoming the ‘new normal,’” Sanchez Amor said. “We cannot accept this as a regular part of the international political landscape, so on this International Human Rights Day, we should take stock of our international commitments and resolve to faithfully implement them going forward. We must work every day to ensure the full implementation of fundamental freedoms, too many of which are routinely violated. We have seen for example practices such as the slave trade return to our societies, which is something that we must never accept as tolerable.”
Committee Rapporteur Kyriakos Kyriakou-Hadjiyianni (MP, Cyprus) said that education is a key human rights commitment that is too often overlooked.
“Education is vital in today’s world and it is a major cause for concern that more than 100 million children are out of school worldwide. Millions of others receive inadequate education that leaves them lacking essential knowledge. On this International Human Rights Day, I would like to recall that our countries have agreed to the principle of education as a human right. It is time that we fully implement this commitment to universal education,” he said.
He added that improving access to education would have the added benefit of teaching tolerance and respect for human dignity. “Respect for human rights needs today to be cultivated through education systems in all countries,” Kyriakou-Hadjiyianni said. “Through education, we can achieve global convergence in our perceptions of respect for human rights.”
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 as a common set of human dimension standards for all countries.
