Posts in category: Statement

On Tuesday, March 13, Ecologic signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in the person of Mr. René-Louis Perrier, President of Ecologic and in the presence of Ms. Lepage, lawyer and former Minister of the Environment and MEP.

Ecologic is an eco-organization approved by the State to organize the collection, the depollution and the recovery of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) on the French territory. Invested with a mission of general interest, Ecologic is now part of the companies that have signed the DDHu!

If you also wish to sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, you can contact the Friends of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by mail at 42 rue de Lisbonne 75008 Paris !

On this Wednesday, March 7, 2018, the International Institute of La Francophonie (2IF) adds its signature to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Olivier Garro, director of 2IF, received as guests Mrs. Corinne Lepage (lawyer, former Minister of the Environment and MEP) and Nicolas Imbert (Executive Director of Green Cross France & Territories).

Corinne Lepage and Nicolas Imbert then led a conference-debate before the students of the Master 2 and the University Diploma “Francophonie New Economy and Sustainable Development” on “The Universal Rights of Humanity: issues and difficulties”.

The International Conference of Bars and Law Societies (ICBS), meeting in Haiti from December 6 to 9, adopted Resolution No. 7 on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, enshrining the principles of :

• responsibility, equity and solidarity within and between generations;
• dignity of humanity;
• continuity of the existence of humanity;
• non-discrimination;

During this congress, the IBC affirmed its commitment to the principles of the HRD and recalled the essential role of the lawyer in civil society. It has therefore decided to adopt the Declaration and is committed to carrying and promoting this text.

On Wednesday, February 21, the association of the friends of the DDHu was invited by the Bar of Marseille on the occasion of the Open House of the University of Aix-Marseille.

It was an opportunity for us to meet the pedagogical team of the University as well as the (future) students present and to present them the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Therefore, the Dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science of Aix-Marseille, Mr. Jean-Philippe AGRESTI, has agreed to sign the DDHu on behalf of the University of Aix-Marseille.

OMECA – the World Organization of Experts, Counsel and Arbitrators, an NGO associated with the United Nations Department of Public Information in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), signs the statement on February 6, 2018.

On Tuesday, January 23, 2018, the Ecole de Commerce de Lyon group received as a guest Ms. Corinne Lepage, appointed by the French Presidency to carry the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on behalf of France at the UN and on the sidelines of COP 21 for a conference on the theme of :

“Universal human rights: issues and challenges”.

At the end of the conference, the Ecole de Commerce de Lyon group, which represents 11 schools across France, signed the DDHu, becoming the second academic entity, along with the University of Modena in Italy, to sign the declaration.

• Why a universal declaration of human rights when there is already a universal declaration of human rights? The time has come because the stakes have changed. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose effective application is more necessary than ever, is concerned with the rights and freedoms of each individual. It does not respond to the collective issues of the rights of future generations, public goods, climate change, the sixth destruction of species, the endangerment of human, animal and plant health by chemical pollution or transhumanism. The purpose of the Universal Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Mankind is precisely to establish the principles and rules to ensure an appropriate response.

• What is the HRDu? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the first text to recognize the rights and duties of humanity to ensure its own sustainability and that of other living species in the face of contemporary ecological and technological challenges. In short, it lays the foundations of a general planetary interest in which civil society is the main actor and guarantor rather than the States. That is why it is the only text to date that is signed by both public entities, non-governmental organizations, companies, universities and citizens.

• How was this text born? This text was born from an initiative of the President of the French Republic within the framework of the preparation of the cop 21; he charged Mrs Lepage to write a text fixing the responsibility of the current generations with regard to the great climatic and ecological stakes. Subsequently, civil society in all its forms, public entities, bar associations, NGOs, took up the Declaration in order to support it by the greatest number.

• What is the purpose of the UDHR? The Declaration, which has been drawn up in the form of a declaration with an extremely simple content (4 principles, 6 rights, 6 duties), not only has a moral and unifying impact on a project for humanity; it is also a legal act that everyone can use. In this regard, in two months, a book of article-by-article commentaries by 16 law professors on the Declaration will be released, highlighting the jurisprudential capacity of each of the articles. It is part of the great movement launched on climate justice and which will progressively extend to all areas that concern the dignity and rights of humanity. It is a tool at the service of all those who want to act in favor of the sustainability of life on Earth.

• What are we committing to by signing the declaration? The signing of the declaration is above all a moral commitment to respect the rights and especially the obligations contained therein. But it is also a legal commitment. In other words, non-compliance with the obligations could be invoked as it is already the case for charters and various declarations subscribed by public and private entities. Its strength comes from its less formal character than other acts, from the importance of its dissemination in civil society, in public communities as well as in the private sector, and especially from its content.

• Who can sign the declaration and how? Any individual, any public or private entity can sign the declaration directly on the website ( https://droitshumanite.fr/sign/ ) or in a more formal way by organizing a signing event with a representative of the association of friends of the declaration.

• What is the Association of Friends of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? It is an association intended to bring together the signatories of the declaration and to define the development strategy to obtain the most support possible. This association, chaired by Corinne Lepage, relies on a board of directors, on some twenty ambassadors and on the signatories who themselves agree to actively support the declaration.

• Who has signed up to date? Cities such as Strasbourg, Paris or Modena, regions such as the region of Tangier-Tetouan, a State, many French, European and African bars, NGOs, thousands of citizens and personalities from very different worlds such as Matthieu Ricard, Edgar Morin, Jean-François Clervoy, Yann Arthus Bertrand and many others

• What can it bring to a city or a region? The mayor of Strasbourg, who was the first to sign the declaration, answered this question perfectly. Since then, all the cities that have adopted the declaration have done so unanimously, regardless of their political sensibilities. This simply means that cities, departments, regions and more generally public authorities are today the first actors and guarantors for their fellow citizens of the adaptation to the indispensable transformations and of the short and long term security.

• What can it bring to a company? The status of the company in society is changing profoundly. Beyond its primary function of production, the company needs more than ever to have meaning for itself and its employees. Social and environmental responsibility is now part of the law. Moreover, a certain number of countries now recognize, as in France, a duty of vigilance or, as in the United States, the responsibility of parent companies for their subsidiaries. In all cases, adherence to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms a company’s sense of responsibility, its willingness to take a long-term view and to participate in the definition of a form of general planetary interest, which is increasingly demanded by those who work for it as well as by society.

• What can it bring to an NGO? Whatever the purpose of the NGO, including human rights, adherence to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights can only strengthen and reinforce its action by inscribing it in the inter-generational and long-term as well as in a global vision, and this without there being any competition between the organizations. It is indeed the sharing of a common struggle for a viable and desirable future that is at the heart of all the actions of non-governmental organizations.

• What can a bar bring? Lawyers are the spearhead of the universal declaration. All French Bars, the European Bars Conference, and probably soon a part of the International Bar Association, 19 African and European Bars have adhered to the declaration. It is natural that this text be carried by lawyers, and eventually by lawyers all over the world, simply because it is in the DNA of a lawyer to defend rights and because humanity more than any other entity needs to be defended.

• What can it bring to a university? The first university to sign the declaration was Modena in Italy and the second will be Aix-en-Provence. It is obvious that a university which has the double characteristic to carry the research and the teaching on the one hand the youth on the other hand must be by definition an active part in fact of the universal declaration of the rights of the humanity.