If one had to point to the highest entity that safeguards human dignity, it would suffice to point to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Its responsibility is to promote and safeguard these universal ideals.
The world has placed its trust in this international watchdog. Among the priority thematic areas on which this unit is working are: strengthening international human rights mechanisms, combating impunity and reinforcing accountability, promoting equality and the rule of law, incorporating universal guarantees into development plans and the international economic sphere, expanding the democratic system as a form of government for nations, creating mechanisms that provide early warning of possible human rights violations and, of course, protecting human rights in special situations of conflict, violence and insecurity.
The activity of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
The OHCHR works to strengthen the human rights program implemented by the United Nations through various executing agencies, to which it provides special support, and in this sense its activities are closely linked to those carried out by its partners.
Likewise, part of the office's strengths are the actions it carries out with the governments of the following countriesIn addition, the UN, parliaments, courts, national institutions, civil society, regional and international organizations to promote mechanisms that protect universal guarantees at any scale and in accordance with all particular regulations.
The office will give priority to the most urgent cases of human rights violationsspecifically those that put people's lives in imminent danger. Its regulations also state that it will pay equal attention to the fulfillment of civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.
Measuring the results of your work is also an important part of your administrationThe company is committed to assessing the impact of the substantive benefits received by individuals and peoples around the world through its work.
A long-range work
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights focuses its work on three dimensions:
- Establishment of standards.
- Supervision of the work performed.
- Field application.
In order to achieve this, they offer specialized human rights advice to governments and other stakeholders.The company's activities are carried out by national and international institutions and non-governmental organizations in the performance of their duties.
A percentage of the office's funding comes from the regular budget of the United Nations and the rest comes from voluntary contributions from member states and other donors sensitive to the issue.
On human rights
These universal guarantees are interrelated, interdependent and indivisible. They are contemplated in the law and guaranteed by it, through legal figures such as treaties, customary international law, general principles and other sources of international law.
These regulations establish the measures that governments must take in certain situations in order to promote and protect the fundamental principles and freedoms of individuals or groups.
The principle of universality is one of the most important qualities of this proclamation, The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women provides that all States have the duty - irrespective of their political, economic and cultural systems - to promote and ensure the safeguarding of these guarantees. In this sense, all States have ratified at least one of these legal instruments and 80% of them have ratified four or more of the main human rights treaties, according to UN data.
Sources consulted
- Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights - UN
