No country can claim to be role model in Human Rights: French ambassador

---

French Ambassador to Bangladesh Charley Causeret Wednesday said no country could claim to be a role model in the area of Human Rights as none could claim to perfectly uphold Human Rights, reports UNB.
He made the remarks at a function at French Embassy to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights.
"The developed countries seemingly have a more theoretical approach while developing states, confronted with everyday hardship, have adopted a more pragmatic one. These two groups of countries have much to learn from each other," he said.
National Human Rights Commission Chairman Justice Amirul Kabir Chowdhury, Additional Foreign Secretary MAK Mahmood, and Dr Meghna Guhathakurta spoke on the occasion.
The French Ambassador believed that developed countries had much to learn from developing countries.
Citing two examples, he said in Mali, every year the President and all the members of the government stood in front of the media and anyone dealing with the protection of human rights to answer to their questions, even the most embarrassing ones.
Mentioning the micro-credit programme in Bangladesh, he said this system once appropriately implemented had brought economic empowerment to millions of women, not only in this country, but also in many developed ones.
"It has widened their activity, founded their independence, and fed their families while contributing to the development of their countries."
The Ambassador emphasised that a good number of instruments protecting human rights need to be signed or ratified by some countries.
Secondly, he said being a party to an instrument was one thing, applying it was another. The envoy said too many conventions, although already in force, were not fully implemented by many countries.
Causeret said it was absolutely imperative to work together, without bias or prejudice. He said the issues like child labour, children in armed conflicts, violence against women, torture, death penalty and protection of human rights defenders should be addressed.
He said dialogue in this matter seemed to be the key word and suggested that civil society and NGOs which played a major part for the promotion of human rights, would have to be closely associated with this common endeavour.
Additional Foreign Secretary Mahmood said at the global level, success in protecting and promoting human rights had been mixed.
"While we can claim certain degree of clarity at the conceptual level- civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, adherence to a universally reconginsed standard still remained far from satisfactory in most part of the world."
Mahmood said people were still exposed to multifarious violation of fundamental rights caused by factors political to economic, from cultural to institutional.