A TRILOGY OF BASIC HUMAN CONCERNS: HUMAN RIGHTS; SUSTAINABLE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT; HUMAN SECURITY

Human rights must be recognised as the first basic human concern. The primary basis of today’s activities at the United Nations and its member Governments is to promote, protect and monitor human rights and the fundamental freedoms that derived from the International Bill of Human Rights, which has developed successively through the years. The Bill comprises three documents: a the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948; b the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, promulgated in 1966; and c the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, launched during the same year.

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  • This article is based on the contribution of the author to the 1998 National Human Development
  • Report - Turkey, prepared under the auspices of the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) for the United Nations Development Programme. The essay benefited from information, ideas and argumentation provided in several previous publications of the author, such as: Development for People: Goals and Strategies for the year 2000, ed. by Üner Kırdar and Khadija
  • Haq, United Nations Publications, New York, 1989.
  • Human Development Report 1990 and 1994, published for the United Nations Development Programme, Oxford University Press, New York, 1990 and 1994.
  • ‘Franklin Roosevelt and World Order,’ address by R. N. Gardner, unpublished papers of the Conference on Legacy of F.D.R. , Italy, September 1996
  • Human Development: The Neglected Dimension, ed. by Üner Kırdar and Khadija Haq, United Nations Publications, New York, 1987.
  • Integrating Human Rights with Sustainable Human Development, a UNDP policy document, New York, 1998.
  • Kırdar, Üner, Crisis of the 80’s, ‘Human Resources Development: Challenge for the ‘80’s’, North-South Roundtable publication in collaboration with the UNDP Development Study Programme, 1984, Chapters 19 and 20.
  • People: From Impoverishment to Empowerment, ed. Üner Kırdar and Leonard Silk, New York University Press, New York, 1995.
  • See: Human Rights, Fact Sheet No.16, UN Publications. Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, UN Publications, Part I, paragraph 5. Human Development Report 1994, UNDP, Oxford University Press, New York 1994, pp. 22-23.
  • *On the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights