NEW YORK – The highest number of conflicts since the Second World War are obstructing the achievement of human rights and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a UN expert warned today.
“Peace is a precondition for development. To be sustainable, peace must be rooted in human rights and address prevailing discriminations and injustices,” said Surya Deva, the Special Rapporteur on the right to development in his report to the UN General Assembly.
Deva highlighted that conflicts divert much-needed resources away from the realisation of human rights, the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and the financing of a just transition to a green economy.
“Conflicts have unfortunately become a profitable business for some States and companies. Through unlawful invasions, some States are expanding their territorial boundaries, while others are grabbing the natural resources – including critical minerals – of invaded countries. Similarly, many companies in sectors such as arms and weapons, technology, natural resources and construction are profiteering from conflicts and wars,” the expert said.
The report identifies multiple intertwined root causes and drivers of conflicts: fight for control over natural resources, colonialism, both in its historical legacy and the current neo-colonial traits, inequalities, political exclusions and corruption and human rights violations.
“The right to development provides a foundation for the international community to make a shift from war economies to a peace economy,” Deva highlighted.
“To achieve a peace economy, States must invest in dignified life for all, reduce inequalities, address the political economy of conflicts, promote human rights-based good governance, build multilateralism and a culture of peace, reinvigorate disarmament, strengthen early warning systems and preventive diplomacy, focus on collective security, reform the Security Council and strengthen accountability for international crimes,” the Special Rapporteur said.
Deva provides a roadmap for a peace economy – comprising foundational, preventive, institutional and deterrent components – to achieve this required shift to leave no one behind.
“Peace is possible and is the best guarantee for national security. Sustaining peace is also far less expensive than funding war economies,” he said.
