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Human rights becoming world’s most important issue: UN official

— Photo: T. Singaravelou

Focus on UN: Special Rapporteur to the United Nations Doudou Diene delivering a lecture in Puducherrry on Tuesday.

PUDUCHERRY: United Nations Special Rapporteur Doudou Diene on Tuesday spoke on the origin, evolution and challenges of the United Nations, since its creation to the present day, to students and teachers of Lycee Francais, a French school here.

Delivering a lecture on “The UN’s role in the world since its creation in 1945”, he traced the beginnings of the United Nations and elaborated on its fundamental concepts.

Mr. Diene, the Special Rapporteur to the UN on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, said they had a mandate to examine all incidents that were manifestations of contemporary forms of racism and monitor the government measures to combat racism.

The lecture was also organised as an occasion to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948 by the UN General Assembly.

With one of the fundamental concepts of UN being human rights, he said it was becoming the world’s most important issue. “The paradigm has changed around 1960 and has been made more complex by expanding to include collective and cultural rights too,” he said.

“The UN is now entering a new era and its players have been diversified. It is a qualitative evolution through which the UN was becoming closer to the people and vice versa,” Mr. Diene further said. Students of Class XII of the school took part in the programme.

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Human rights becoming world’s most important issue: UN official

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