SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGS) ARE NOT ANY DIFFERENT FROM THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS (MDGS) GIVEN THEIR OBVIOUS DISCONNECT FROM HUMAN RIGHTS STANDARDS

Abstract

This research work evaluates the gap between the human rights obligations of the United Nations member states to which they have voluntarily committed themselves against the backdrop of the International development agendas that they have adopted in the form of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The aim was to contribute to the International legal scholarship on Human Rights and the MDGs/SDGs with a view to achieving a better understanding of the convergences and incongruences between the two fields that ordinarily ought to cooperate more harmoniously towards the common aim of improving human well-being. Using the doctrinal legal research methodology, this research examines the obvious disconnect between the MDGs and SDGs on one hand, and human rights on the other. It was found that although both the MDGs and the SDGs that subsequently replaced them both made peripheral references to the need to protect and preserve human rights, with the latter being more ambitious and precise in so doing, the duo curiously failed in practical terms to address the non-existence of actual and enforceable human rights obligations on the part of States, particularly in view of the fact that their focus were at variance with International Human Rights standards. It was recommended inter alia that given the situation as demonstrated above, the United Nations Member States should, with a view to main-streaming human rights into the practical realization of the SDGs: adopt and adequately implement laws, policies, regulations, and national strategies that will promote equality and non-discrimination which is in conformity with international and regional human rights standards; and, Recognize that human rights are central to addressing the underlying grievances that foster violent extremism and terrorism and must be protected thereby countering terrorism by extension.