ABSTRACT
In the lead-up to the sustainable development goals (SDGs), the human rights community, along with civil society more generally, had engaged in the negotiations for the new development agenda at an unprecedented level, especially when compared to the millennium development goals. International human rights law provides a scaffolding, and accountability mechanisms, that allow a systems-based and consistent response to sustainable development that can bring about transformative, structural change to reduce inequalities and challenge power imbalances. Human rights advocates achieved a lot in SDG negotiations: from the overall promise of ‘leave no one behind’, to references to human rights in the Declaration, to many of the targets which implicitly reflect human rights language. The critical engagement of human rights can further inform SDG plans and programmes with the principles of equality, participation and accountability to help fulfil the promise of leaving no one behind.
