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The UN responsibility for the cholera outbreak in Haiti 2016, para. 21
- Paragraph text
- Immediately after the publication of the panel's report in May 2011, a United Nations spokesperson was dismissive of the report on the grounds that it did "not present any conclusive scientific evidence linking the outbreak to the MINUSTAH peacekeepers or the Mirebalais camp". Senior officials have continued to rely on this defence. However, the more detailed and official response provided in a letter dated 25 November 2014 from Assistant Secretary-General Pedro Medrano Rojas, Senior Coordinator for the Cholera Response in Haiti, addressed to the special procedures mandate holders took a different tack. Although the letter is long and detailed, it curiously makes no mention of the panel's principal finding, which was, as noted above, that that "the source of the Haiti cholera outbreak was due to contamination of the Meye Tributary of the Artibonite River with a pathogenic strain of current South Asian type Vibrio cholerae as a result of human activity". In other words, MINUSTAH was indeed the source. Instead, after citing the panel's reference to poor water and sanitation conditions and inadequate medical facilities, Mr. Medrano suggested that the main outcome of the inquiry was the statement that the outbreak "was not the fault of, or due to deliberate action by, a group or individual". Similarly, regularly updated fact sheets describing the United Nations response continue to make no mention of the panel's principal conclusion in relation to MINUSTAH. It has been airbrushed out of the picture.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Health
- Water & Sanitation
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The implementation of the right to social protection through the adoption of social protection floors 2014, para. 25
- Paragraph text
- Scholars have argued that for both ILO and the World Bank, the social protection floor is closely linked to the objectives that inspired the drafters of the respective mandates they were given at the end of the Second World War. For the Bank, the Bretton Woods negotiations in 1944 are said to have been motivated in part by commitments to freedom from want and promoting social security, while the Declaration of Philadelphia of 1944 committed ILO to contribute to the achievement of extended "social security measures to provide a basic income to all in need of such protection and comprehensive medical care". However, the harmony implied by this historical perspective is quickly dispelled by detailed accounts of competition and non-cooperation between the two agencies. Various authors have described how, over the past couple of decades, there has been a "fundamental clash of approaches, ideologies and policies" between the ILO Social Security Department (now the Social Protection Department) and the Social Protection and Labor Division of the World Bank. Those conflicts have played out especially "in the fields of pension policy, of safety net versus universal cash benefits policies, [and] of even the definitions and purposes of social protection".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Penalization of people living in poverty 2011, para. 58
- Paragraph text
- The introduction of biometrics to social benefits systems means that in some States, beneficiaries must submit to facial recognition technology, finger imaging and iris scans. These mechanisms give States extensive power and discretion to monitor and interfere in the lives of beneficiaries. The information obtained is frequently made accessible to other authorities for purposes other than those for which it was given, without beneficiaries' consent. Such practices seriously threaten the protection of personal data and the right to access and control one's personal information.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 10
- Paragraph text
- The income is “basic” in the sense that it is designed to guarantee a “floor” on which every recipient can stand. Because people’s needs are highly individualized and context-dependent, the amount that any specific individual requires will depend on factors such as local housing and living costs, the person’s health status, and whether there is any form of support network in place. But in its pure form, basic income would generally be assumed to be a uniform amount, which does not reflect those differentials. There are, however, different versions of the concept that envisage adjusting the amount over time, providing less money for children and more for the elderly, or adjusting for geography. The basis on which the floor is calculated and the amount to be paid will, of course, vary greatly from one country to another. Thus, while a national referendum on basic income in Switzerland proposed a payment of SwF 2,500 per month per adult, a South African initiative envisages a grant of US$15 per person per month, indexed to inflation.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Health
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The UN responsibility for the cholera outbreak in Haiti 2016, para. 45
- Paragraph text
- While the United Nations has been keen to emphasize how much it has done in Haiti, the reality is that Member States have so far agreed to contribute only 18 per cent of the $2.2 billion required to implement the National Plan for the Elimination of Cholera in Haiti 2013-2022.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The UN responsibility for the cholera outbreak in Haiti 2016, para. 25
- Paragraph text
- Finally, as noted above, the panel sought to mitigate the Organization's responsibility by noting that the outbreak was due not to one single event but rather to a "confluence of circumstances", including deficient water, sanitation and health-care systems. But again, apart from being inconsistent with the principal finding that MINUSTAH was indeed responsible, this construction conflates responsibility for bringing cholera to Haiti on the one hand with the country's vulnerability on the other hand. The fact is that cholera would not have broken out but for the actions of the United Nations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Health
- Water & Sanitation
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The UN responsibility for the cholera outbreak in Haiti 2016, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- The opinion of the Office of Legal Affairs has provided a convenient justification for States to avoid engagement on the responsibility of the United Nations for the cholera epidemic in Haiti. Although the Security Council authorized the deployment of peacekeepers to Haiti and regularly reviews the status of the mission, it has notably failed to address the issue of the Organization's responsibility for the introduction of cholera. In June 2016 a bipartisan group of 158 members of the United States Congress stated that "each day that passes without an appropriate U.N. response is a tragedy for Haitian cholera victims and a stain on the U.N.'s reputation", and called upon the United States Secretary of State to pressure the United Nations to compensate the victims. Leading newspapers, including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, endorsed this call to focus on the misdeeds of the United Nations. Yet there is much to be said for the view that without the acquiescence, if not the active support, of the United States and other Security Council members, the abdication approach would not have been adopted by the United Nations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Humanitarian
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The UN responsibility for the cholera outbreak in Haiti 2016, para. 15
- Paragraph text
- As the magnitude of the disaster became known, key international officials carefully avoided acknowledging that the outbreak had resulted from discharges from the MINUSTAH camp. The implication that cholera had come from elsewhere also drew support from an environmental theory suggested by some scientific observers according to which the cholera microbe is naturally present in many backwater settings and can be activated by environmental shocks such as the earthquake that hit Haiti in January 2010 or by unusually heavy rains. Nevertheless, most scientific and media sources rejected this theory and placed the blame clearly upon the peacekeepers.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Health
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The UN responsibility for the cholera outbreak in Haiti 2016, para. 13
- Paragraph text
- Haiti's first-ever cholera outbreak began in mid-October 2010. Many scholars have repeated the claim made by the independent panel of experts on the cholera outbreak in Haiti that this was the first time in 100 years that cholera had occurred in Haiti, but in fact there is no record of cholera ever having previously been in Haiti. As of 28 May 2016, United Nations figures had recorded 9,145 deaths from cholera and 779,212 persons infected. Scientific studies have also claimed that the actual mortality rate is almost certainly substantially higher than reported. Between January and April 2016, 150 new deaths occurred, an increase of 18 per cent over the same period in 2015.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Health
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Extreme inequality and human rights 2015, para. 6
- Paragraph text
- When analysing inequalities, there are many other dimensions of well-being that can be taken into account apart from income and wealth. Economic inequalities can be distinguished from what can be termed "social inequalities". Social inequalities may refer to the distribution of, for instance, political power, health, education or housing among individuals in a society. In theory, a society may have health equality, for instance, when every individual has access to the same quality and quantity of health care. Social inequalities and economic inequalities may, and often do, interact with, and reinforce, one another, for instance when individuals with higher incomes or their family members have more political power or access to better education than those with lower incomes.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Health
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Penalization of people living in poverty 2011, para. 57
- Paragraph text
- To ensure that beneficiaries comply with conditions and requirements, States often subject them to intensive examinations and intrusive investigations. Social benefit administrators are empowered to interrogate beneficiaries about a wide range of personal issues and to search their homes for evidence of fraudulent activity. Beneficiaries are required to report regularly and disclose excessive amounts of information whenever it is demanded of them. In some countries, they must even submit to mandatory screening for drug use. They must also give their consent to authorities to scrutinize every aspect of their lives and to question their friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Beneficiaries are encouraged to watch each other and report abuses to programme administrators through anonymous channels. These intrusive measures undermine beneficiaries' personal independence, seriously interfere in their right to privacy and family life, make them vulnerable to abuse and harassment, and weaken community solidarity.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Violence
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The importance of social protection measures in achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2010, para. 34
- Paragraph text
- Social protection can also promote maternal health (Goal 5). For example, social cash transfers, which provide additional income, can be used by beneficiaries to cover health-care and transportation costs. Evaluations of the "Juntos" scheme in Peru, a conditional cash transfer programme, showed an increase of approximately 65 per cent in the number of prenatal and post-natal visits to health clinics and a reduction in the number of home births in areas where there were high levels of maternal mortality. In addition, social funds supporting the development of local health-care infrastructure have been proved effective in reducing infant mortality rates.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Health
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
12 shown of 12 entities