Panelists from Left to Right: Professor Nico Schrijver, Leiden University; Ambassador Jean Feyder, Permanent Representative of Luxembourg; Ms. Navanethem Pillay, High Commissioner for Human Rights; Mr. Carlos Lopes, Executive Director of UNITAR; Mr. Pascal Lamy, Director General of the WTO, Ambassador Abdul Hannan, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh, and Ms. Violette Ruppaner, Director of 3DGeneva, Switzerland: on the 27th of September, 2010, UNITAR’s Multilateral Diplomacy Programme in coordination with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) organized a High Level Panel on Human Rights and Trade at the United Nations Office in Geneva. Mr. Carlos Lopes, the Executive Director of UNITAR, moderated the discussion and panelists included Ms. Navanethem Pillay, the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Mr. Pascal Lamy, the Director General of the WTO, as well as Ambassadors and senior international civil servants.Approximately 100 participants attended the panel discussion, including Permanent Representatives and diplomats of Permanent Missions, as well as UN delegates and members of specialized agencies and related organizations of the United Nations.
The event discussed the link between human rights and trade, which the panelists found to be interrelated. Mr. Lopes mentioned the impact that the financial crisis has had on human rights worldwide by placing economic efficiency over the protection of human rights in importance. He also shared some of the existing solutions for integrating human rights provisions into trade agreements, which include “[i]nternational agreements being formulated so as to commit developing and industrialized nations to achieve measurable outcomes related to the [Millenium Development Goals] MDGs” and that “the framework for future trade liberalization and protectionism [...] integrate international human rights law.” Ms. Pillay emphasized that free trade and human rights are not incompatible by explaining that “all human rights principles and the responsibilities that flow from them also apply, mutatis mutandis, to intergovernmental organizations and mechanisms, including an international trade regime.”Mr. Lamy also stated that “trade and human rights go hand in hand,” but also recognized that “progress still needs to be made to ensure better coherence between principles and realities.” The panelists all generally agreed on the importance of taking human rights law into consideration when drafting and ratifying future international trade agreements. The event was supported by the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).
