09.07.2013 Nr 234-E

The Foreign Ministry has decided to nominate the Let’s Do It Foundation’s worldwide cleanup campaigns “World Cleanup 2012” and “World Cleanup 2013” as Estonia’s candidate for the 2013 UN Prize in the Field of Human Rights for promoting a clean environment all over the globe. The foundation was chosen from among five candidates.

The civic initiative “Let’s Do It!”, which got its start in Estonia in 2008, has today become a global cleanup campaign that has united over a hundred countries and a million people with the events that have taken place this year and last year. “A clean environment is one of a person’s basic rights, and the World Cleanup campaigns have successfully started a global civic initiative to achieve a cleaner world,” stated Foreign Minister Urmas Paet. “A common concern for the state of the environment and the desire to take on one’s civic duty can also happen in societies where civic initiatives are badly needed in order to strengthen democracy,” he added.

Nominees for the 2013 UN Prize in the Field of Human Rights announced by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights can be individuals or organisations. All UN member states, UN agencies, NGOs, and others can submit candidates to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The prize is awarded to five or more winners every five years for outstanding achievements in the field of human rights.

The winner is chosen by a 5-member committee called together by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that consists of the President of the UN General Assembly, President of the Economic and Social Council, President of the Human Rights Council, Chairman of the Commission of the Status of Women, and the Chairman of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee. The award will be presented on Human Rights Day, 10 December, at UN Headquarter in New York.

The first UN Human Rights Prizes were awarded in 1968. Winners to date include figures that have changed the world such as Nelson Mandela and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as well as civic associations and those that have influenced life on a local level, such as the staff of the Sarajevo Hospital and “all defenders of human rights”.

Additional information: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEv...

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