Between Promise and Possibility: Human Rights and the United Nations Rights Up Front Initiative

Abou Jeng, United Nations

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Abstract

The promise to uphold human dignity in the post-war international order through an established regime of rights is central to the founding of the United Nations and a mainstay of its core operational focus. Although this has been mediated through principles framed around a network of conventions, its realization has been fraught with tensions and challenges of balancing sovereignty against the universal claims of the United Nations Charter. Over the decades, elements of the tensions have constrained the ability of the UN to adequately respond to human rights catastrophes.

In 2012, a review panel set up to assess the UN’s response to the last months of the Sri Lankan characterized the organization’s actions as ‘systematic failure’ and recommended ‘a comprehensive review of action by the United Nations system during the war in Sri Lanka and the aftermath, regarding the implementation of its humanitarian and protection mandates.’ The report led to the formulation of the Secretary General’s ‘Rights Up Front,’ an initiative which seeks to mobilize and optimize capacity and resources of the UN system to meet its responsibilities regarding human rights, especially in areas where it has thin presence. The aim of this paper is to account for the constitutive elements of the Rights Up Front as well as gauge its potential in opening frontiers in human rights advocacy. Its principal claim is that although the Rights Up Front renews the centrality of human rights in the UN architecture, the initiative’s current configuration within the UN system may limit its wider potential.

 
Oct 2nd, 8:45 AM Oct 2nd, 10:15 AM

Between Promise and Possibility: Human Rights and the United Nations Rights Up Front Initiative

University of Dayton

The promise to uphold human dignity in the post-war international order through an established regime of rights is central to the founding of the United Nations and a mainstay of its core operational focus. Although this has been mediated through principles framed around a network of conventions, its realization has been fraught with tensions and challenges of balancing sovereignty against the universal claims of the United Nations Charter. Over the decades, elements of the tensions have constrained the ability of the UN to adequately respond to human rights catastrophes.

In 2012, a review panel set up to assess the UN’s response to the last months of the Sri Lankan characterized the organization’s actions as ‘systematic failure’ and recommended ‘a comprehensive review of action by the United Nations system during the war in Sri Lanka and the aftermath, regarding the implementation of its humanitarian and protection mandates.’ The report led to the formulation of the Secretary General’s ‘Rights Up Front,’ an initiative which seeks to mobilize and optimize capacity and resources of the UN system to meet its responsibilities regarding human rights, especially in areas where it has thin presence. The aim of this paper is to account for the constitutive elements of the Rights Up Front as well as gauge its potential in opening frontiers in human rights advocacy. Its principal claim is that although the Rights Up Front renews the centrality of human rights in the UN architecture, the initiative’s current configuration within the UN system may limit its wider potential.