Geneva, Switzerland — At a side event during the 56th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, experts emphasized the critical need for equality and the elimination of double standards in addressing global human rights issues.
Zhang Yonghe, head of the Chongqing Centre for Equal Social Development, highlighted the pervasive issue of inequality rooted in discriminatory concepts. “In recent years, inequality through discrimination and hostility can be seen everywhere,” Zhang stated. He expressed concern over politicians, media, and scholars who, based on prejudice and imagination, stigmatize other countries or nations. “China is one of the biggest victims,” he noted.
Zhang pointed out that there are systemic processes—from content production and concept shaping to the exporting of rules—that build an order of inequality, with each link reinforcing the others. “We need fairer rules and should abandon double standards,” he urged.
The event, hosted by the Chongqing Centre for Equal Social Development at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, was themed “Global Inequality and Its Adverse Impacts on Human Rights.”
Hernando Calvo Ospina, a journalist for Le Monde Diplomatique, expressed concerns about the monopoly and manipulation of information by mainstream media in the United States and Western countries. He accused them of acting as mouthpieces for their governments. “They selectively ignore human rights issues in their own countries while exaggerating and fabricating narratives to justify sanctions and aggression against certain nations,” Ospina said. “A grain of sand can be rendered into a beach of lies.”
David Lopez, the International Association for Human Rights and Social Development’s permanent representative to the UN, highlighted instances where military interventions were carried out without United Nations authorization. “This violated the UN Charter and caused regional turmoil and humanitarian disasters in places like Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria,” Lopez remarked. He accused certain countries of using alliances to maintain global hegemony, thereby demonstrating double standards.
Lopez called for a new international order based on mutual respect and equality. “We must ensure the fair application of international law to achieve true peace and justice,” he concluded.
Reference(s):
Equality and no double standards urged on human rights issues
cgtn.com
