Organisation Internationale de Droit du Développement

IDLO Justice Photo Exhibit in New York

IDLO Photo Exhibition on justice and the new development agenda opens in New York at UN Headquarters

Sponsored by IDLO with Majority World – a platform for photojournalists from developing countries who seek diverse and authentic narratives from their regions – the exhibit opened last week at the United Nations, in the aftermath of the historic UN summit that adopted the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.

Five leading Majority World photographers from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, India and Kenya were commissioned by IDLO to capture images that explore the human side of the rule of law and its importance in everyday life. The exhibit showcases conditions of poverty, inequality and environmental degradation that require responses rooted in equity, justice and the rule of law. 

The presentation of the exhibition in New York was intended to project the rule of law as lived experience, echoing the strong message emerging from the new development Agenda that the rule of law, as a universal value on which justice is founded, is the bedrock that ensures that development can be sustained.

Opening the launch of the exhibit, IDLO Deputy Permanent Observer to the UN, Ms. Judit Arenas, noted that, by putting equity and justice at the heart of the 2030 Agenda, the international community had sought to ensure that human rights, social inclusion and equal opportunity would guide development policies and that progress thus could be sustained. In the exhibit – she said -justice is the lens through which to gauge the scope and nature of development.

Ambassador Eden Charles of Trinidad and Tobago and current Chair of the Sixth (Legal) Committee of the UN General Assembly currently discussing “the rule of law at the national and international levels”, commended IDLO for being the only intergovernmental organization exclusively dedicated to the promotion of the rule of law and for calling the international community’s attention to the need for actions, based on the rule of law, capable of making the 2030 Agenda a reality in the life of people.

Ambassador Inigo Lambertini of Italy – IDLO’s host country –referred to the exhibit as an important and moving reminder to keep the focus on the human dimension of development, building on the message of the 2030 Agenda that equity and human dignity are at the core of all progress.

Ambassador Paul Alex Menkveld of the Netherlands said that his country was proud to be associated with the work of IDLO and that initiatives such as this exhibit make a significant contribution by inspiring urgent and principled action to turn the goals of the 2030 Agenda into reality.

Ambassador David Donoghue, who had served as the Co-chair of the negotiations leading to the 2030 Agenda, said that the images of the exhibition spoke with immediacy, vibrancy and pathos to the situations and challenges that the 2030 agenda seeks to address. He referred to the exhibit as a powerful reminder that the principles of fairness, justice and equity for which IDLO stands are at the heart of progress in acting on the new Agenda.

The exhibition has already been shown at the United Nations in Geneva on the occasion of the UN Human Rights Council, at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome, at the EXPO in Milan and will be shown in the upcoming months in The Hague, Netherlands.