By Miles Young, Director of the Human Rights and Social Development Division at the Pacific Community (SPC)
Last Wednesday, 10 December 2025, marked Human Rights Day across the globe, commemorating the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948. Born from the devastation of World War II, the UDHR is an international legal framework designed to prevent atrocities, protect human dignity, and create conditions under which people and communities can flourish. This framework is not abstract – it belongs to each of us. When everyday people understand and claim their rights – and when States uphold their obligations to protect and promote rights – societies will thrive.
The theme for Human Rights Day 2025 was “Our Everyday Essentials,” to remind us that human rights are not distant legal principles but shape the lives we live each day. Whether raising a family in safety, practicing our faith, going to school or work, accessing health care, speaking freely, protecting our land and oceans, or simply enjoying clean water and nutritious food – these everyday essentials are made possible because of human rights in practice. When people know their rights and feel empowered to claim them, human rights become a living force, strengthening the social fabric and enabling everyone to fulfil their potential in all their diversities.
While we have every reason to celebrate Human Rights Day, there remains much to do in advancing human rights in the Pacific, particularly with respect to the rights of women and girls, persons with disabilities, and Pacific Islanders of diverse sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics. We must also recognise that the recent past has seen significant global backsliding in human rights, diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and good governance. We in the Pacific are not immune from these developments, particularly in the face of growing pressures, including climate impacts, social inequalities, demographic shifts, and increasing expectations on public institutions. These challenges highlight why human rights matter: they provide a blueprint for fairness, accountability, and dignity, and they help communities stay united in difficult times. Discrimination and exclusion weaken societies. When some people are pushed aside, everyone loses. Potential goes untapped, trust erodes, and communities become less safe and less resilient.
Recently, the Pacific has demonstrated what becomes possible when the human rights framework is understood, claimed, and shaped by our communities. Human rights can flourish when rooted in Pacific cultures, Indigenous knowledge, and the relational values that bind our societies – values that emphasise collective wellbeing, mutual care and respect, and harmony with our environment.
One powerful example is the Pacific’s leadership in making the international human rights system more tangible and accessible. In 2020 and again in April this year, the Pacific – supported by the Pacific Community (SPC) – facilitated visits to Apia, Samoa, and Suva, Fiji, of UN human rights treaty bodies that traditionally undertake their work out of Geneva. Hundreds of Pacific government representatives, civil society groups, faith-based organisations, and community leaders engaged directly with these bodies in our own region. This grounded the talanoa in lived Pacific experience and empowered Pacific people to speak in their own voices about the issues affecting their lives. The visits also gave the UN bodies a deeper understanding of Pacific realities, resulting in guidance that is more relevant and useful for our context. Above all, having these bodies in our islands brought human rights sharply and deeply into public awareness, making them feel real, accessible, and owned by the people they are designed to protect.
A second example is the Pacific’s remarkable leadership in the global campaign that resulted in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion on climate change. Initiated by students at the University of the South Pacific and advanced by the Vanuatu government and other Pacific governments, the campaign united 13 Pacific Island countries and numerous regional organisations. The advisory opinion affirmed that States have legally binding obligations, including under human rights law, to protect the climate system for present and future generations. Using the frame of human rights and international law more broadly, Pacific peoples shared testimonies, scientific evidence, and lived experience with the ICJ to shape this historic outcome to confront climate change, the greatest challenge facing our region. This was human rights in action: grounded in community stories, carried by youth leadership, and driven by Pacific solidarity. Moving forward, we look to Pacific leadership to ensure that the advisory opinion is effectively used to implement global actions to effectively respond to climate change.
A third example lies in the Pacific’s recognition of Indigenous and traditional knowledge (ITK) as a foundation for human rights and sustainable development. For example, traditional land and marine management systems in Fiji, Vanuatu, and Solomon Islands are informing contemporary environmental protections and biodiversity conservation. The Vanua Diploma programme, led by the Great Council of Chiefs and the Fiji National University, strengthens Indigenous leadership grounded in cultural values and aligned with international human rights instruments including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These examples show how human rights gain strength and meaning when they resonate with cultural identity, community structures, and shared responsibilities.
Taken together, these three examples – alongside the Pacific Forum Leaders 2025 Ocean of Peace Declaration and the 2018 Boe Declaration which broadens the concept of security to include human rights, humanitarian assistance, and environmental resilience – tell a powerful story about the Pacific’s place in the global human rights ecosystem. We are not merely engaging with a system built elsewhere – we are shaping it, demonstrating how human rights can be applied creatively, culturally, and collectively to improve people’s lives while upholding universal principles.
As we acknowledge Human Rights Day 2025, we remember that the UDHR was created during a time of deep global crisis, to forge a path of hope, dignity, and unity. Today, as the Pacific faces its own challenges, the human rights framework remains one of our strongest tools for building societies where everyone is valued, safe, and can contribute and thrive regardless of gender, age, ability, identity, culture, or background.
But human rights will only reach their full power in the Pacific when they are understood, embraced, and claimed by everyday people. When communities know how human rights protect them, when young people see human rights as tools for shaping their future, and when all Pacific peoples recognise human rights as aligned with our cultures and values, our region becomes stronger. So, in acknowledging Human Rights Day, we invite all Pacific peoples to learn and engage more deeply in human rights and use the human rights framework to achieve the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ vision of a “resilient Pacific Region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion and prosperity, that ensures all Pacific peoples can lead free, healthy and productive lives.”
Mr Miles Young is the Director of the Human Rights and Social Development Division at the Pacific Community (SPC) based in the organisation’s regional office in Suva, Fiji. Born and raised in Fiji, he has over 25 years of professional experience, largely working as a human rights and rule of law development practitioner across the Pacific, Asia and Africa, including with the Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Justice Programme in Indonesia, and the International Development Law Organization in Italy and Australia. Miles has worked on a wide range of substantive areas in the human rights and rule of law spaces including access to justice, women’s rights and gender equality, constitution-making, judicial administration, international trade law, and food security. Miles has also worked in private legal practice in Fiji, Australia, and Indonesia, and holds degrees in politics and law from the University of Sydney, Australia.
