Sustainable Development Goals and Human Rights

The 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals and international human rights are connected to each other in many different ways. The contributions of this volume analyse this interdependency by addressing each aspect from a more human rights-focused angle and a development-policy angle. The comparative approach underlying the contributions sheds light both on similarities and differences between these two dimensions and therefore provides a broader perspective on the relationship between development policy and international human rights protection.More than a decade ago, the Human Rights Quarterly published an article with the illustrative headline “Ships passing in the night” written by Philip Alston, professor at New York University and meanwhile UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.1 The article described the relations—or, to be more precise—the ‘lack’ of relations between the human rights community and the development community: Both groups of scholars, politicians and activists work in many respects on the same issues and have similar objectives, but they hardly know of each other and therefore often act separately