A Message from the Commonwealth Secretary-General

The focal point of our vision for better Commonwealth societies must be the welfare and wellbeing of Commonwealth individuals.

For the Commonwealth, this people-centred vision began to take shape 35-odd years ago. The Singapore Declaration of 1971 and the Harare Declaration two decades later helped us collectively to define and articulate our guiding principles and values. Respect for fundamental human rights is enshrined in those two Declarations.

But principles also require action to give them effect. Words alone do not protect and promote fundamental human rights. The Commonwealth has duly not only placed its marker in the ground in those two core Declarations; it has also taken affirmative action.

In 1995, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) was established to provide a mechanism by which serious or persistent violators of the principles of the Harare Declaration could be held to account. At that time, The Gambia, Nigeria and the Sierra Leone were discussed by CMAG. Firm and concrete political action by CMAG contributed to a resolution of the different situations by which those three countries found themselves out of synchronisation with the Harare Declaration and the rest of the Commonwealth. The CMAG, as a mechanism of international politics and diplomacy, remains unparalleled in the global architecture.

Promoting and protecting human rights in tangible ways has accelerated in other ways. A dedicated Human Rights Unit in the Commonwealth Secretariat is now in its fourth year and has helped enormously. It has given us our own committed team of experts, and given them the space to consider how best to put into practice the four focal points of our human rights work, those being:

There is ample evidence to show that our approach is achieving results. Our Human Rights Unit, for instance, is bringing a human rights dimension to police training institutions in Commonwealth countries. This fits in very well with the valuable work which CHRI has been doing recently on police accountability.

Our own particular work at the Secretariat has involved collaboration with police chiefs and trainers from five Commonwealth West African countries to build human rights into the police training curricula. What began as a pilot project has resulted in a Commonwealth training manual to be launched next month to mark International Human Rights Day. The police training project is also to be trialled in the Pacific as well as other parts of the Commonwealth.

This year, the Commonwealth Secretariat was also asked by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to translate into Chinese our 2001 publication, ‘National Human Rights Institutions: Best Practice’. This is a great endorsement of the good work of the Commonwealth in this area and the role we have to play on a global scale.

The Commonwealth must keep ‘raising the bar’ in these sorts of ways. Every time we raise the minimum acceptable standard in the area of human rights, we protect and promote better the interests of the woman and man and child in the Commonwealth’s streets. We also continue to hold out examples that often the rest of the world moves to emulate.

This year’s CHOGM theme, “Networking the Commonwealth for Development”, recognises the need to reach further than our national borders. It also raises questions and challenges for the human rights community about a rights-based approach to development. This is an area where energetic debate and discussion is ongoing. What is important to me is the result – that genuine, tangible development opportunities are forthcoming, especially for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable. Furthermore, development should not be simply seen in terms of GDP at the macro level or the amount in an individual’s pocket at the micro level. Development is also about social and cultural growth and enrichment.

The Commonwealth already has a myriad of overlapping formal and informal networks in place, which are well placed to deliver development dividends by tapping into a deep pool of knowledge and expertise. Civil society organisations, in particular, have a vital role to play in modern democratic societies and the contribution of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative has continued laudably to add tremendous value.

The Commonwealth is made up of 1.8 billion people, nearly half of whom are young people. We need to get the message through to them, as our future citizens and leaders, that fundamental human rights are to be defended, cherished, and upheld. They are an elementary part of the way we strive to lead our everyday lives now, and our determination is to see that advanced further in the years ahead for the benefit of all.