Governments can no longer shirk human rights responsibility

A new UN protocol raises economic and cultural rights to the same prominence as civil and political rights. And yet, despite their neglect, these rights are enshrined in the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; a treaty that has been ratified by 160 states and has the same status under international law as other human rights – such as the right to a fair trial and the right to free speech. Amnesty International can point to many examples where governments routinely flout international law protecting these rights, such as in Nigeria, where the local government in Port Harcourt on August 28, 2009, ignored a court order and demolished a waterfront settlement, leaving more than 13,000 people homeless; or in Slovenia, where many Roma families living in informal settlements are denied access to water and sanitation. Almost 40 years after the equivalent protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights came into force we have finally achieved parity between the two treaties and given true meaning to the principle of indivisibility and interrelatedness of all rights that found expression in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For human rights to be truly achieved, everyone whose rights are violated, whether civil and political or economic, social or cultural, must have an effective remedy.