Celebrating Human Rights Day: ‘Our Rights, Our Future, Right Now’
On 10 December 2024, the One Ocean Hub joins the global community in celebrating Human Rights Day—a significant occasion that marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in1948, the UDHR establishes the need to protect inalienable rights of all individuals, regardless of race, gender, colour, language, or political views.
This year, we celebrate the 76th anniversary of the Declaration under the theme: Our Rights, Our Future, Right Now. This theme is a powerful call to action, emphasising the urgency of addressing human rights challenges today to shape a fairer and more inclusive future, with stronger governance approaches. This resonates deeply with our work and ethos. This is because, over the past five years, we have worked to promote awareness of the role and relevance of human rights law for ocean governance, and to co-produce innovative and participatory approaches with marginalised and vulnerable groups in the global South (including communities in parts of Africa, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean).
For more than five years, the One Ocean Hub has co-produced innovative and participatory research for development with various communities that face ongoing and new threats to their human rights. These have included Indigenous and local communities in small-scale fishing and coastal communities whose human rights have been systematically violated for decades, even centuries, and who continue to face compounding challenges within the post-colonial dispensation. The coloniality that persists in current environmental governance strategies and implementation practices in various parts of the global South is often driven by unjust economic and political systems, trading off social justice outcomes in various “blue” and “green” environmental regimes, in turn giving rise to new risks to human rights, especially rights to a healthy environment, including a healthy ocean, and cultural life. Sustainable development outcomes, characterised by balanced environmental, economic and social considerations, are jeopardised by practices that violate human rights. This has been largely evidenced from One Ocean Hub research findings pointing to the need to transform governance practices in marine and biodiversity conservation, fisheries management, and blue economy expansion. Climate change adds another layer of complexity to these challenges, exacerbating the historical inequities endured by communities in marginalised and vulnerable situations.
We take this opportunity to pay tribute to and to celebrate all Indigenous peoples and local communities (including marginalised small-scale fishing and coastal communities), as well as women, girls, children and youth in these communities who continue to act as stewards and defenders of the ocean and marine biodiversity, using their knowledge systems to sustainably interact with and protect resources. We support recognition of the critical contribution that this makes to the defence of human rights, including environmental human rights. Although their fight for recognition in a world dominated by knowledge hierarchies in informing ocean decision-making is not an easy one, we continue to support their efforts and struggle for respect and recognition.
As we reflect on the theme “Our Rights, Our Future, Right Now,” the One Ocean Hub reaffirms its commitment to advancing human rights through research, advocacy, as well as fair and equitable partnerships, values that are enshrined in our Code of Practice. By centring the voices of the most vulnerable, we aim to support just governance practices that recognise, protect and support the full realisation of the human rights of Indigenous peoples and small-scale fishing communities in shaping the future of our shared ocean and planet.
Related SDGs:
