The Institutional Dimension of Global Human Rights Governance

— And on the Institutional Contributions of the Four Global Initiatives

MENG Qingtao & LIU Yu *

At a time when global crises continue to intensify, UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated at this year's high-level plenary meeting to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations that the core of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Pact for the Future, and the UN 80 Initiative lies in renewing the foundations of international cooperation. In the current context of global human rights governance, the international community faces governance deficits such as global poverty, regional conflicts, nationalism, unilateralism, and climate change. However, the fundamental challenge remains the “politicization of human rights,” which threatens “cooperation.” This refers to “the tendency and process by which actors in international relations handle human rights issues with a politically pragmatic attitude driven by certain political motives, using human rights as a means to achieve specific political interests.” The risks posed and potentially posed by the politicization of human rights can be analyzed from the perspective of institutional theory. Since 2021, China has successively proposed the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative, and the Global Governance Initiative (collectively referred to as the “Four Global Initiatives”). Faced with the challenge of the politicization of human rights in global human rights governance, these four initiatives, as international public goods for human rights contributed by China, hold significant institutional importance for effectively upholding and fulfilling the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations (hereinafter referred to as UN Charter).