 When I was in my preschool years, still barely able to walk, I used to accompany my mother who used to do a lot of social work. In the poorest neighborhoods of the city of Colombo, I come from Sri Lanka, an island nation in South Asia, which is the second poorest region of the world next to Sub-Saharan Africa. And this exposure to people who are scrambling even for a piece of bread or a cup of tea, whose biggest happiness was when they received an annual hamper with some rice, some coconuts, and some other dry provisions, really exposed me to the economic injustices, to poverty, to inequality, and to the lack of rights. In my life, I had been constantly straddling between the North and the South of the world, where I could see both within and among countries that there were so much inequalities and injustice. And I've always had a personal quest for freedom, for justice, and for peace. And this saw goodwill with the right to development, which is about all of these connected in one integrated framework, the quest for peace as well as human rights and development. And human rights issues in relation to the economy. The right to development as proclaimed by the declaration on the right to development of 1986, declared that all individuals and all peoples are entitled to contribute to, participate in and enjoy development. And development was described as a comprehensive process of economic, social, cultural, and political development. So it already integrated human rights. Human rights and fundamental freedoms are part of the trajectory of the right to development. It's about equality of opportunities for nations as well as individuals within nations who make up nations. It's about self-determination and sovereignty over natural wealth and resources. It's about civil and political rights just as much as it is about economic, social, cultural rights. So it combines as envisioned in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that people, everyone, everywhere is entitled to freedom from fear as well as freedom from want. So it brings all of these together and looks also at the international order. So it relates then to Article 28 of the Universal Declaration. And social and international order in which all rights and freedoms can be realized for all people everywhere. A new treaty on the right to development is in fact in process. It will come up again in the month of May before the Intergovernmental Working Group on the right to development where countries will further negotiate the treaty. It will certainly also as pointed out by the advisory committee of the Human Rights Council in a study, it will certainly help to bring the right to development to the same level and bring it on par with all other human rights and fundamental freedoms. The impact will be multi-dimensional just like the right to development because it will mean that, for example, fair distribution of the benefits of development is a key principle of the right to development. So it's free, active and meaningful participation in development. So expanding civic space, space for people, for civil society to be involved in decision making. Distribution, at this moment the world, one of its biggest challenges is the lack of good distribution or redistribution of resources, income and wealth with any degree of fairness. And the right to development treaty because it will be legally binding should certainly have an impact in improving inequalities or the situation or redressing inequalities within and between nations. This includes reform of the international financial architecture of the international order because many countries at the time that the current international financial and economic order was designed, many countries did not even exist. So this will be an opportunity for redressing inequalities at different levels and increasing opportunities for people in all walks of life and in all countries. The right to development is where peace, human rights and development all meet in one integrated framework as well as the environment and climate change because the Vienna Declaration, the Rio Declaration for instance said that the right to development must be fulfilled to meet the needs environmental and developmental needs equitably of both present and future generations. Every aspect of the right to development relates in some way to the economy, to economic opportunities at the national level but also at the international level to the distribution of resources and the distribution of the benefits of development at all levels. To moving economics towards advancing the human rights whether it be to food, water, housing, shelter, education, health or equality and non-discrimination the fight against racism the right to development came out of the decolonization of states and the fight for economic justice economic independence following political independence and it then looks for instance at issues of debt relief of issues of aid, the 0.7 aid target for developing countries or 0.15 target for least developed countries the vulnerabilities of small island developing states because this right looks at human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national level but also at an international order which is aimed at the constant improvement of human well-being. Many people have inspired me along the way Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela Martin Luther King, Jr. Pope Francis all those people who have fought for all of the issues that the right to development represents closer home in my own life my late father who showed me the values of public service all the articles all 30 articles of the universal declaration of human rights resonate with me because we need them all we need to equally move forward on making them all the lived realities of everyday people because too many people are suffering too many people are suffering because of either racism racial discrimination xenophobia on the one hand or deprivation of the most basic necessities of life on the other and that's the beauty of the universal declaration that it brings all these together perhaps closest to the right to development are the article 28 which I already mentioned on the social and international order the enabling environment to make all these rights and freedoms come true and become lived realities of people we have to push or we have to advance the enabling order or the environment in which we can do so whether it be within countries within communities or in the larger world and the right to development looks particularly at this larger world at issues of trade and investment how they impact on people's lives on issues of finance debt aid technology how access to technology could tremendously improve the human rights and lives of many people for example in access to education or access to medicines we saw in the recent, in the COVID pandemic that certain parts of the world especially Sub-Saharan Africa received far less vaccines than the rest of the world and that is just not not acceptable in terms of either the right to development or the universal declaration of human rights and some of these policies are at the international level and need to be changed the right to development could be a powerful force in changing the lives of people people everywhere so much more education advocacy and bringing the right to development on par with all other human rights because so far it hasn't been that redressing and engaging with states this is a terrain where there has been some polarization and politicization so we need to engage states and with states to make sure that there is political will to take the right to development forward