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Friday, March 29, 2024
The Observer

Speaker emphasizes international solidarity

Independent expert on human rights and international solidarity for the United Nations Human Rights Council Virginia Dandan spoke about the importance of international solidarity in a lecture Thursday afternoon sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Dandan said the goal of international solidarity is to allow local issues to be solved on an international level.

“International solidarity is a platform that broadens the participation of implementing human rights across borders,” Dandan said.

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Caitlyn Jordan
Virginia Dandan, an independent expert on human rights and international solidarity for the United Nations Human Rights Council, lectured on solving local issues on an international level.

This is especially important in developing countries, Dandan said, since they may not have the means required to solve a problem.

“Many countries lack the financial resources and lack the human resources necessary to handle problems on their own,” she said.

Yet international solidarity is still important in more established countries, Dandan said.

“Even in wealthy countries, there are still pockets of poverty that remain,” Dandan said. “In trying to eradicate inequality and discrimination, what country in the world can do this on its own? They need international cooperation.”

This international cooperation is universally beneficial, Dandan said.

“Countries are still interdependent with each other,” she said. “They are still interrelated in what they’re doing.”

Dandan said fighting human rights violations through international solidarity would make the causes of these violations clearer to other countries dealing with similar issues.

“International solidarity tries not only to encourage human rights, but is able to get to the root causes of the violations of human rights at the international level,” she said.

The movement aims to help all countries involved by promoting the values of the United Nations, Dandan said.

“The collective purposes and actions of international solidarity must be directed towards fostering the three pillars of the United Nations, which are peace and security, development and human rights,” Dandan said.

Luigi Crema, a visiting Kellogg fellow from the University of Milan, provided commentary on Dandan’s talk and discussed her role in the United Nations.

“She is trying to take an idea from the limited boundaries of a political body and move it towards international needs,” he said.

The global fight against terrorism is an example of international solidarity, since many countries acknowledge the threat terrorism poses and have worked together in an attempt to eliminate it, Crema said.

“This fight embodies a political view that is global and not just local,” Crema said.

Everyone can participate in international solidarity by remaining aware of global issues and becoming involved in attempts to eradicate these issues, Dandan said.

“Those hopes that you have for your own individual tomorrow must include a very real engagement with what is happening around us,” she said. “Let us not give [future generations] a world where they have no more choices to make because they have to live with what we have done today.”