Platform of meaningful exchanges to help enhance global human rights governance

Platform of meaningful exchanges to help enhance global human rights governance: China Daily editorial - Opinion - Chinadaily.com.cn

This is an editorial from China Daily.

Bringing together more than 400 Chinese and foreign guests from nearly 100 countries and international and regional organizations, the 2026 Forum on Global Human Rights Governance is being held in Beijing from Thursday to Friday. The event aims to help build a fairer, more equitable and inclusive global human rights governance system.

Under the theme "Joint Development, Shared Human Rights: The 40th Anniversary of the Adoption of the Declaration on the Right to Development and a New Vision for Global Human Rights Governance", the forum underscores China's commitment to development as the fundamental guarantee for human rights.

This perspective is deeply rooted in China's own achievements. A report evaluating the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2021-25), which defined the objectives and tasks for promoting human rights in China during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period, has concluded that all 181 tasks have been completed and 20 of the 44 binding targets were fulfilled ahead of schedule or exceeded the specified requirements.

China looks forward to sharing its insights on promoting human rights through better development at the forum "to turn the vision of the Declaration on the Right to Development into reality", as Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said on Monday.

China has built the world's largest education, social security and healthcare systems. Solid progress toward common prosperity for all has strengthened the foundation for advancing human rights, while the development of whole-process people's democracy has enhanced the protection of the rights and interests of all groups.

The forum's five sub-forums cover topics that are highly relevant to both China's practice and global needs. They address, respectively: the human rights implications of the Global Governance Initiative; the role and significance of the right to development; safeguarding the right to development in the age of AI; green development and the protection of human rights; and the relationship between modernization and the free, comprehensive development of individuals.

International human rights governance is indeed confronting multifaceted challenges. Polarization is eroding the foundation of multilateral cooperation across many regions, as geopolitical competition increasingly politicizes and weaponizes human rights issues. Meanwhile, some countries apply double standards and withdraw from international agreements, further undermining collective efforts. All this has shaken the global human rights governance system centered on the United Nations.

Not to mention that armed conflicts and humanitarian crises are worsening in some regions. A large number of civilians are direct victims of violent conflicts, and the red lines of international humanitarian law are frequently crossed.

Development imbalances and inequality are growing, marginalizing the right to development and hindering progress on the Sustainable Development Goals — a call to action adopted by all UN member states in 2015 to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

Meanwhile, climate change threatens the survival of vulnerable groups, and rapid technological advances, such as AI, are creating tensions between innovation and human rights protection, posing new governance challenges.

China is no exception to many of these challenges. The evaluation report notes that China still faces imbalanced and insufficient development, while scientific and technological development and industrial transformation give rise to new demands for rights. Notwithstanding these challenges, the country has effectively integrated human rights development with its national conditions providing a practical reference for other nations.

Unlike the Western-centric human rights narrative, China adopts a people-centered approach, fostering dialogue and promoting an inclusive, cooperative human rights paradigm through initiatives aimed at shared development. As the world confronts persistent inequality, poverty and underdevelopment, China's approach provides valuable insights for nations seeking to safeguard basic human rights and improve global human rights governance while pursuing their own paths to prosperity and progress.