The United Nations Draft Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights

The United Nations Draft Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights are currently being developed to provide guidance on the implementation of existing human rights norms and standards in the context of the fight against extreme poverty.

In 2001, the former United Nations Commission on Human Rights (now the Human Rights Council) stressed the need to develop a set of Principles on the implementation of existing human rights norms and standards in the fight against extreme poverty. In response, the former UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights entrusted an ad hoc group of experts with the task of preparing the Draft Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights (DGPs).

The DGPs were submitted to the Human Rights Council (HRC) at its second session in 2007. In 2008, through resolution 7/27, the HRC requested the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) to undertake a consultation and organise a seminar on the DGP to gather the views of various stakeholders. OHCHR distributed the DGPs for comments to all relevant stakeholders including States, United Nations agencies, treaty bodies, and special procedure mandate-holders, other intergovernmental organisations, national human rights institutions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The Seminar was held in Geneva on 27 and 28 January 2009 and participants included State and UN representatives, human rights experts and civil society organizations. Background documents to this seminar are available here.

Following OHCHR’s report of the seminar (A/HRC/11/32) and the recommendations of the Seminar contained therein, in September 2009, through resolution 12/19, the HRC invited the Independent Expert to: pursue further work on the existing DGPs and present a progress with her recommendations on how to improve the current draft to the HRC in September 2010.

Recent activities on the DGPs

On 22 March 2010, the Independent Expert on human rights and extreme poverty organised a consultation on the Draft Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty with development practitioners at Brandeis University.
On 20 and 21 May the Independent Expert on human rights and extreme poverty organised an Expert Consultation on the Draft Guiding Principles in collaboration with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Geneva.
The Independent Expert continues to consult with relevant stakeholders about the Draft Guiding Principles. If you have any comment or suggestion, please contact the Expert at srextremepoverty@ohchr.org.

The report of the Independent Expert

On 2 October 2009, the Council adopted resolution 12/19, mandating the Independent Expert on the question of human rights and extreme poverty to submit a progress report no later than its 15th session in September 2010, presenting her recommendations on how to improve the draft guiding principles on extreme poverty and human rights, to allow the Council to take a decision on the way forward with a view to a possible adoption of guiding principles by 2012.

This report was presented at the 15th session of the Human Rights Council in September 2010. It includes both the rationale behind the report’s proposals and the basic conceptual definitions that frame them. It also outlines the main challenges experienced by persons living in extreme poverty that must be taken into account when preparing the Guiding Principles. Lastly it presents an annotated outline of the Independent Experts proposal on how to improve the draft guiding principles divided into three sections: The first section describes overarching human rights principles that should frame all initiatives addressing the situation of persons living in extreme poverty; The second addresses overarching policy guidelines to help States eliminate core obstacles that perpetuate extreme poverty; and the last section clarifies States’ obligations under a selected group of human rights. Each of these sections contains concrete examples of measures and provisions the Guiding Principles should include.

The report is available here E S and unofficial translation into French.

Consultation on the report of the Independent Expert

Human Rights Council resolution 15/19 of 30 September 2010 invited OHCHR to organize a two-day consultation on the Independent Expert's report. This consultation took place on 22 and 23 June 2011in Geneva.

To obtain more precise information and suggestions on this theme, OHCHR requested written comments and submissions on the Independent Expert's report. The written submissions were provided according to the following questionnaire in English - French - Spanish.

The contributions that were received by States, Experts and civil society can be found here.

Based on the consultation on 22 and 23 June and on the written comments received OHCHR submited an analytical compilation of the submissions received in writing and made at the consultation, as a report to the Human Rights Council at its 19th session.

The report (A/HRC/19/32) is available here: E F S A C R

The way forward

The Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Ms. Magdalena Sepúlveda, will pursue further work on the draft guiding principles and submit a final draft of the revised guiding principles to the Council at its 21st session to allow the Council to take a decision on the way forward with a view to the adoption by 2012 of the guiding principles on the rights of persons living in extreme poverty.

For more information please e-mail srextremepoverty@ohchr.org.