AMMAN — HRH Prince Hassan has joined leading development advocates and practitioners calling for justice to be included in the Post-2015 Development Goals, according to a statement issued Saturday.
Signatories including Madeleine Albright, George Soros and Hernando de Soto endorsed the statement to member states of the United Nations, which sets out five measurable goals for access to justice which can strengthen efforts to eradicate extreme poverty.
The document (available on www.opensocietyfoundations.org) seeks to persuade members of the General Assembly that development targets should involve not just access to education, healthcare, clean water and other vital services, but also access to justice.
The statement invites member states to “declare now that justice, the rule of law and legal empowerment are essential principles in the new global development framework”.
Prince Hassan is a member of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, according to a statement from his office.
The commission’s 2008 report, “Making the Law Work for Everyone”, highlighted that as many as 4 billion people are “robbed of the chance to better their lives and climb out of poverty, because they are excluded from the rule of law”.
The recent statement continues the commission’s work by calling for people everywhere to be afforded the protection of the law.
“Around the world, billions of people live without the full protection of the law. They are unfairly driven from their land, denied essential services, extorted by officials, excluded from society and intimidated by violence,” the commission said.
“Their lack of legal protection is a source of repression and an affront to human dignity.”
Prince Hassan “will continue to advocate for justice in the Post-2015 Development Goals in local, regional and international engagements over the coming months”, according to the statement.
The UN and its partners are currently leading a survey titled “MY World” to invite people from around the world to vote online (www.myworld2015.org) for their priorities for development after 2015, the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals.
Users can select six priorities out of 16 choices such as better healthcare, access to sanitation and political freedoms. Voters can also suggest a priority.
The results of the survey “will be shared with world leaders in setting the next global development agenda”, according to the MY World website.
So far, around 1.5 million people from 194 countries have voted online, according to the website.
