The Truth Perspective | Ibrahim Shaglawi The Debate Between High Prices and Rights

It is well known that human rights are not measured by what texts and procedures provide, but by what the state protects in daily reality. Therefore, when high prices turn food, health, education, transportation, and a dignified life into rights beyond citizens’ reach, the crisis goes beyond the economy to political responsibility.

Prices are not a fate separate from public policies, and the state’s ability to protect purchasing power and manage the effects of high prices is part of its duty to safeguard rights. Consequently, the continuation of deteriorating living conditions without effective policies represents a failure of the government, and also reveals an inability to fulfill its political commitment toward the citizen.

From this perspective, the significance of the National Human Rights Mechanism’s tour of the states becomes clear, as it begins with Gezira State to assess its readiness to participate in preparing the national report and implementing the recommendations of the Universal Periodic Review. The real challenge is not the completion of procedures, but the ability of this process to move the picture of rights from paper to people’s lives and lived reality.

The link between high prices and human rights may appear to impose upon the Mechanism something outside its mandate, as it is a legal and human rights body, not an economic body concerned with controlling prices or managing citizens’ livelihoods.

 But the correct approach is different: the Mechanism does not address high prices; rather, it monitors their impact on rights. When a citizen is unable to purchase food, or when education, medicine, and transportation become beyond their means, the economic cost becomes an obstacle to a fundamental right guaranteed by law, namely the right to a dignified life. Here, the gap between the recognized right and the accessible right becomes apparent.

This gap is at the heart of our issue. High prices are not a violation of human rights, but they become a human rights matter when their effects lead to depriving broad segments of society of basic rights. Therefore, the participation of the states should not merely be a process of collecting and analyzing data, but an opportunity to measure reality: What are people eating? How do they obtain treatment? How much of their ability to access education and transportation remains? And what have the announced policies done to reduce these gaps?

Here, the matter shifts to the government, not the Mechanism. The war explains a large part of the crisis, but it does not eliminate the responsibility to manage its consequences. The government may not be able to prevent price increases, but it is responsible for the environment in which prices operate, protecting production, securing supply chains, combating monopolies and speculation, improving transportation and services, securing basic commodities, and protecting the most vulnerable groups. The way the cost of the crisis is distributed is as much a political decision as it is an economic matter.

The real danger is that deteriorating living conditions become normalized in public consciousness, and that the decline in people’s ability to access food, treatment, and education is viewed as merely an inevitable consequence of the war. That is more dangerous than high prices themselves, because it transforms the crisis from an exceptional situation into a permanent reality, making the citizen the weakest link who bears the greatest cost while the capacity of state institutions to respond declines.

Therefore, the Universal Periodic Review of rights should not be merely a legal procedure, but a tool for understanding the impact of policies on people’s lives, where they have succeeded, where they have failed, what needs to be changed, and who bears responsibility for that. The value of the national report is not measured by the number of rights it lists, but by its ability to reveal the gap between the right guaranteed by law and the right that the citizen can exercise in reality.

The equation is clear: the Mechanism monitors, documents, and recommends, while the state formulates policies, implements them, monitors them, and then bears their consequences. But the separation of mandates should not separate the issues. Rights need an economy capable of making them accessible, and the economy needs policies that protect people from bearing the cost of imbalances.

Thus, through the foregoing, the debate between high prices and rights becomes clear. High prices do not merely test the citizen’s ability to purchase, but also test the state’s ability to protect a dignified life. When rights guaranteed by law become beyond people’s reach because of the cost of living, the crisis goes beyond the economy to political responsibility.

 Here, in the view of #The_Truth_Perspective, the state is not measured by what its laws stipulate, but by its ability to transform these rights into a reality that the citizen can exercise.

Wishing you continued health and well-being

Sunday, September 13, 2026. Shglawi55@gmail.com