ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A senior United Nations official denied on Wednesday that the Universal Declaration on Human Rights is exclusive to any one group, emphasizing that it applies to all.
"It's called the Universal Declaration on Human Rights because it's universal. It doesn't have any footnote saying, but this is not counting for stateless people or people of one gender or one religion. Therefore, the right to life and dignity is a right for everybody, also for stateless people, no matter in which region we are talking about," President of the General Assembly’s 80th session Annalena Baerbock, told Rudaw during a press briefing.
"Obviously, we are living in a real world, so obviously social rights are most of the time connected to a national state, and therefore also to access to healthcare, to social protections, [and] to education," she added.
The Second World Summit for Social Development is being held in Qatar next month.
Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al-Thani, the Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations, was also at the briefing.
"[T]his summit is also there for learning from each other. There are countries around the world where, even without a passport, you have access to free healthcare. There are states around the world who say we give the right of education to every child. We have special schools, especially for refugee children, for example," noted Baerbock.
Kurds are considered to be the largest ethnic group without a state.
Namo Abdulla contributed to this article from New York.
