Human Rights Based Approach

Human rights are basic rights of human beings which in most countries are enshrined in the constitution. In addition, most countries in the world ratified the various international conventions on human rights. With the ratification, a country gets the obligation to respect, protect and fulfil human rights on its territory, without discrimination of any kind. Moreover, ratifying States are obliged to report to the competent UN committees about their achievements and challenges regarding their human rights obligations. International human rights obligations of donors and receiving countries are increasingly seen as an important common reference framework for development cooperation, setting standards and thematic priorities and providing a basis for responsibilities.
In the last years, several donors and recipient countries have developed a human rights approach to development and development cooperation. SDC, too, committed itself to integrate human rights into its work. According to SDC’s human rights policy, this means integrating human rights principles in the design, implementation and monitoring of development policies, programmes and projects at multilateral and bilateral level. Human rights principles include equality and non-discrimination, participation and empowerment, accountability and the rule of law, indivisibility and universality. Moreover, development cooperation is seen as a process to empower rights-holders and strengthen duty-bearers to comply with their human rights obligations.
Since local government units are part of the State structures responsible for the implementation of human rights, they are to be considered as duty-bearers in the areas of their competences and responsibilities: They are in an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil human rights in these areas (e.g. the right to health, the right to water). For example, local authorities have to design their policies and deliver services in accordance with the principle of non-discrimination. Development cooperation should strengthen their capacities to comply with human rights as well as empower the rights-holders to ask for local governments’ accountability.