Experts call for respect for diversity of human rights development

The international community should respect the diversity of human rights development, experts said on Tuesday, as opposed to one single model and criteria.

They made the remarks at a side event of the 50th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council entitled Strengthen Global Human Rights Governance, Promote the Common Values of Humanity via video link.

Wang Chao, President of the United Nations Association of China, said that global human rights governance has suffered a serious impact under the combined influence of the changes unseen in a century, and the COVID-19 pandemic, hegemonism, racism, protectionism and narrow nationalism have risen, poverty and inequality have intensified, double standards have prevailed.

"We should support each country to explore its own human rights development path based on its own reality and the needs of its people," Wang said, stressing that the rights to life and development are fundamental human rights for developing countries.

China has set an example of "rising tide lifting all boats," Peter Herrmann, a member of the European Academy of Science and Arts, said via video link. He noted that in many other countries, the rising tide resulted in many people drowning, not least as the public benefit had been appropriated privately.

China's idea of a "comprehensive rule of law" generated a political-juridical concordance between the current implementation of the rule of internal law and the creation of a rule of international law, said Maria Francesca Staiano, director of the Center on China Studies of the International Relations Institute of the National University of La Plata.

In order to improve the serious humanitarian crisis caused by wars as well as extreme poverty, the only method that is in line with the rule of law is international dialogue, through international cooperation, she added.

In response to the current attempts by individual countries to politicize human rights to interfere in other countries' internal affairs, Liu Xinsheng, a member of the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, said that developing countries should strengthen solidarity and put forward their own human rights claims and views.

"Developing countries should unite and set up partnerships in terms of economy, trade and international organizations, such as the UN Security Council, since our interests intersect a lot," said Hassan Njifon Njoya, a political science lecturer at the University of Buea in Cameroon.

He also called for solidarity among developing countries in order to reduce the dependence on developed countries, criticizing the double standards of individual countries imposing, what they think, more superior values and lifestyles, on developing countries.

The global community should abandon ideological bias and strengthen consensus to contribute to human rights governance, said Li Xin, executive director of the Center for International Communications at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.

The path to improving the global human rights governance system should be to provide countries with public goods that promote common prosperity by promoting the common values of all mankind, Li added.