The human rights-based approach provides both an objective and a process to achieve said objective. The objective consists of ensuring the effective realisation of human rights for all, including the most disadvantaged, in other words of fully achieving the ambition embedded at the core of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The process that this approach adopts implies that a certain number of principles, arising from consideration of human rights, are observed during the action taken by public authorities and, more broadly, by “duty-bearers”.

Beyond the diversity of its applications, a conceptual unity has appeared based on two main issues: first, restoring the primacy of the human being; and second, reasserting the rightful place of human rights in public action: the State should not only respect the human rights enshrined in the international conventions that it has ratified, but it must also be accountable for their implementation. Human rights are no longer placed on the outskirts of public action but must be placed at its core.