Enough is Enough: The Future is Public - A well-attended conversation with nine human rights officials

“Enough is Enough: The Future is Public” was an exceptional event. Attended by over 500 people, it brought together for the first time nine global and regional human rights representatives to reflect on the crucial role of public services in building a more sustainable, inclusive, socially-just and resilient economy and society.


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Panellists and moderator

The event was moderated by Glenda Grace, Senior Vice Chancellor for International Affairs, Strategic Advancement and Special Counsel, City University of New York.

  • Philip Alston, John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law and co-chair of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University Law School, and former UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights

  • Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation

  • Koumbou Boly Barry, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education  

  • Solomon Ayele Dersso, Chairperson, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Founding Director of Amani Africa Media and Research Services, and Adjunct Professor at Addis Ababa University College of Law and Governance Studies

  • Leilani Farha, Global Director of The Shift, and former UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context

  • Léo Heller, former UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation

  • Aoife Nolan, Vice-President of the Council of Europe’s European Committee of Social Rights, and Professor of International Human Rights Law and Co-Director of the Human Rights Law Centre, University of Nottingham

  • Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, Executive Director of the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and former UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights

Soledad García Muñoz, Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, provided a short intervention by video.

The role of public services in the current context

The first part of the discussion focused on the pivotal role of public services in responding to the challenges the world is currently facing: the ongoing impacts of COVID-19, high and rising inequalities, and the climate and ecological crisis.

We can no longer debate whether or not public services are fundamental… If there is a time to completely settle this debate about whether access to public services is a fundamental human rights issue, it is this moment.

Solomon Ayele Dersso, Chairperson, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Founding Director of Amani Africa Media and Research Services, and Adjunct Professor at Addis Ababa University College of Law and Governance Studies

Public services are a key and irreplaceable means by which human rights are achieved.

Aoife Nolan, Vice-President of the Council of Europe’s European Committee of Social Rights, and Professor of International Human Rights Law Centre, University of Nottingham

The pandemic has generated an overwhelming consensus around the world on the need to strengthen public health systems as a public, not for-profit, effort that must leave no one behind.

Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation

Under human rights law, the States have an obligation to provide universal quality public services. Human rights monitoring bodies at the global and regional levels have increasingly recognised that the enjoyment of rights such as education, water, sanitation, health and housing, required quality, transparent, participatory, democratically governed and trusted public services.

Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, Executive Director of the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and former UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights

Privatisation and commercialisation without adequate State action have had disastrous impact of human rights in the [Inter-American] region, limiting access to services essential for human dignity to disable to pay and thereby exacerbating inequalities to the detriment of the most marginalised.

Soledad García Muñoz, Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

Structural barriers to challenging privatisation and building public alternatives

The second part of the discussion addressed the importance of challenging the dominant neoliberal narrative that has driven the privatisation and commercialisation of public services. The panellists stressed that challenging privatisation should be a fundamental concern for all human rights advocates.

Public services are central to all rights. It is not just economic and social rights. It is not just [those] like me who believe in social rights, it is people who are narrowly focused on civil and political rights who should be scared to death of what is going on, because the elimination of public services is going to eventually undermine all of those rights as well.

Philip Alston, John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law and co-chair of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University Law School, and former UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights

The first lesson that we can learn from this global environmental, social, economic, and even political crisis is the obligation of states. States are the primary actors in the delivery of public services and particularly education. We must absolutely remember this. The State is the primary guarantor of inclusive, public, quality, and free education.

Koumbou Boly Barry, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education

The barrier that we are facing in this particular area is that we need to a huge and fundamental paradigmatic shift across the board, a shift…where housing is viewed and understood as a human right.

Leilani Farha, Global Director of The Shift, and former UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living and on the right to non-discrimination in this context

Often the current narrative assumes a position that the public is intrinsically inefficient, and the private sector would bring efficiency to collective services… This ideological background is due to an ideological wash produced over decades and has been clearly strengthened in this neoliberal era.

·         Léo Heller, former UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation

The global manifesto on public services

The final part of the discussion focused on the significance of the global civil society on public services, which was launched on 25 October.

The manifesto is very timely and, I will say, necessary, so it’s very welcome. In this time, it’s very relevant to highlight the importance of the public sector in the era of neoliberalism where many people are advocating for the replacement of the State by the market.

Léo Heller

This [the manifesto] is really a great initiative which captures the current consciousness, the current consensus and indeed expectations of a wide segment of society in terms of the kind of world, the kind of societies that we would like to live in.

Solomon Ayele Dersso

What I thought was really innovative with the manifesto and really useful…is its explicit emphasis on public services having to be responsive and transformative… The stress on the need for public services to be environmentally and ecologically conscious is [also] welcome right now given the obvious, very clear link between climate change, the environment and human rights.

Aoife Nolan

I think it is an excellent manifesto… in the approach of promoting a global mobilisation, I have the intuition that we need to develop a powerful global movement of rights defenders in the world, just as the global youth movement has arisen in the face of climate change.

Pedro Arrojo-Agudo

The public services manifesto represents a unifying vision of public services that different actors and movements can rally around… What is also very important is that the manifesto is reflective of a broader dynamic… a growing consciousness regarding the crucial importance of public services… There is an emerging movement bringing together social movements, academia and civil society actors from a range of sectors and movements supporting public services.

Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona

This event was organised and hosted by ActionAid, the East African Centre for Human Rights, the European Network on Debt and Development, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights, Oxfam, Public Services International, the Society for International Development, and the Transnational Institute.

 

EventGI-ESCRPrivate actors & public services