Social Justice in an Open World: The Role of the United Nations
information on conditions and policies in developed and developing countries, but these reports had, and still have, a limited audience, even within the Secretariat and its different departments. Furthermore, the General Assembly regularly adopted resolutions on economic and social development and resolutions on the economic, social and cultural rights of people as if the two subjects had nothing in common. Human rights efforts focused on the individual, while the work on development and social justice concentrated on society and international cooperation for development. The pursuit of social justice, which involved efforts to achieve greater equality in the living conditions of different social groups and classes, required the active participation of public authorities. Distributive and redistributive policies were necessary for societies, and eventually for the entire internationalcommunity, to progress towards social justice. In contrast, human rights--or at least the most traditional and for many the most important human rights, including the right to life, liberty and security; the right not to be held in slavery or servitude; the right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; and various other fundamental civil and political rights-were historically secured through conflict and aggression against the powers of oppression and persecution. Respect for human rights implies restraint on the part of public authorities and the possibility for citizens to protect themselves from these authorities if the need arises. Traditional moral prescriptions such as "thou shall not kill" and "neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour" are human rights principles stated in the negative; social justice calls for positive and deliberate action.
It is important to call attention to the fact that this disconnection in the United Nations between work on human rights and work on development has largely been avoided in activities aimed at addressing the critical issue of the rights and situation of women. In a publication entitled Basic Facts about the United Nations, it is stated that "the Organization has played a leading role in the global struggle for the promotion and protection of women's human rights, and in efforts to ensure that women have equal access to public life and to opportunities in all aspects of economic and social development" .26 This is a legitimate claim. The legislative work in this domain, which covers both human rights and development issues, is carried out by the Commission on the Status of Women, and monitoring to ensure that States parties to relevant legal instruments fulfil their obligations is done by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. These two bodies, one intergovernmental and the other composed of experts, are served by the same unit of the Secretariat in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. If it remains true that two committees of the General Assembly, the Second and the Third, each retain competence and authority with regard to this issue, it is nevertheless clear that the Secretariat and the United Nations in general have actively sought and achieved coherence in addressing the various dimensions of the issue of justice for women.