GC Human Rights Preparedness

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As Nelson Mandela said: ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’. Reshaping the Balkans’ partitioned schools to focus on inclusion and human rights could help challenge societal divisions and prejudices.

Sri Lanka’s financial crisis, fuelled by government mismanagement and mounting foreign debt, has led to spiralling costs, drastic shortages and violent protests, with citizens fleeing to nearby India. The international community must act to protect rights of economic refugees.

The International Law Commission’s project on the Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters explicitly adopts a human rights-based approach to its core subject. Whether this will lead to harder forms of justiciability will largely depend on the capacity to frame disasters not as natural events but as both drivers and consequences of economic inequality.

Russia has a long history of media censorship but since invading Ukraine, state propaganda has reached enormous levels. Most independent journalists have fled the country so they can report factually on current events. Others are protesting from within.

As we celebrate having survived COVID-19, one distinct contrast remains—vaccination levels vary widely throughout the world. While most global north countries have hit their targets, Africa lags far behind, making it too early to abandon precautionary measures.

A human rights-based approach to development must be used when approving new extractive projects in traditional First Nations territories. It will foster meaningful participation and address inequalities stemming from resource-based development while ensuring preparedness to deal with geopolitical and health challenges.