{"title":"SIM Peter Baehr Lecture – Life Begins at Forty: Human Rights for the Future","authors":"M. Bachelet","doi":"10.1177/09240519211056204","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Distinguished participants, dear students, I am pleased to join you today in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Utrecht University’s Human Rights Centre. This celebration comes at a challenging time, when we are facing global threats to human rights across the globe. COVID-19 has shown us a world immersed in human rights gaps – and it has made them deeper and wider. The pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of political, economic and health systems, and laid bare systemic discrimination and deep structural inequalities everywhere, both within and between countries. At the same time, our world continues to suffer with climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. This triple planetary crisis created and sustained by human action – and inaction – is also directly and severely impacting a broad range of rights, including the rights to adequate food, water, education, housing, health, development, and even life itself. One of the greatest uncertainties about these challenges is what policymakers will do about them. Earlier this year I told the United Nations Human Rights Council that ‘navigating a clear way out of the complex COVID-19 crisis, and towards an inclusive, green, sustainable and resilient future, will be the work of this generation of world leaders – or their downfall.’ So, in the midst of so many threats to human lives, livelihoods and rights, allow me to share with you some thoughts on how grave they are – and, on how, together, we can overcome them. Recent months have unleashed extreme and murderous climate events on people in every region of the world: monumental fires in Siberia and California; huge sudden floods in China, Germany","PeriodicalId":44610,"journal":{"name":"Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights","volume":"11 1","pages":"329 - 334"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7000,"publicationDate":"2021-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09240519211056204","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"LAW","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Distinguished participants, dear students, I am pleased to join you today in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Utrecht University’s Human Rights Centre. This celebration comes at a challenging time, when we are facing global threats to human rights across the globe. COVID-19 has shown us a world immersed in human rights gaps – and it has made them deeper and wider. The pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of political, economic and health systems, and laid bare systemic discrimination and deep structural inequalities everywhere, both within and between countries. At the same time, our world continues to suffer with climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. This triple planetary crisis created and sustained by human action – and inaction – is also directly and severely impacting a broad range of rights, including the rights to adequate food, water, education, housing, health, development, and even life itself. One of the greatest uncertainties about these challenges is what policymakers will do about them. Earlier this year I told the United Nations Human Rights Council that ‘navigating a clear way out of the complex COVID-19 crisis, and towards an inclusive, green, sustainable and resilient future, will be the work of this generation of world leaders – or their downfall.’ So, in the midst of so many threats to human lives, livelihoods and rights, allow me to share with you some thoughts on how grave they are – and, on how, together, we can overcome them. Recent months have unleashed extreme and murderous climate events on people in every region of the world: monumental fires in Siberia and California; huge sudden floods in China, Germany
期刊介绍:
Human rights are universal and indivisible. Their fundamental importance makes it essential for anyone with an interest in the field to keep abreast of the latest developments. The Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights (NQHR) is an academic peer-reviewed journal that publishes the latest evolutions in the promotion and protection of human rights from around the world. The NQHR includes multidisciplinary articles addressing human rights issues from an international perspective. In addition, the Quarterly also publishes recent speeches and lectures delivered on the topic of human rights, as well as a section on new books and articles in the field of human rights. The Quarterly employs a double-blind peer review process, and the international editorial board of leading human rights scholars guarantees the maintenance of the highest standard of articles published.