Defining World Peace

The number of intentional homicides continues to rise. Violence against children still persists, from psychological aggression to physical punishment at home. It is the most disturbing of children’s rights violations.

There are more victims of human trafficking being found, most of them women and girls who were trafficked for sexual exploitation. The share of prison detainees who have not gone to trial or have not been sentenced has remained largely constant at 30 per cent of the prison population in recent years. There are more killings of human rights defenders, journalists and trade unionists. 

With this backdrop the world promised to improve Peace and Justice through strong institutions. It is perhaps the most difficult of promises to keep and it is also very difficult to see progress. For instance, birth registration is one key way to  make sure of  individual rights and access to justice and social services. Many regions have reached universal or near universal registration of births, but globally the average is just 73 per cent. Less than half of all children under the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa have had their births registered.

Stronger laws which give people the right to see any information about them held by public authorities have been put in place by 125 countries. This is encouraging. 40 of these countries have not included the right to appeal to an independent administrative body, something which is key for the proper implementation of this right. That is not so good.

Progress on national human rights institutions becoming compliant with the principles relating to the status of national institutions, otherwise known as The Paris Principles is slow and it needs to speed up. If growth continues at the same rate, by 2030 only a little over one half of all countries worldwide will have compliant national human rights institutions.

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