Statement by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein at an event organized by the International Bar Association and the Swedish Bar Association

24 November 2017

Your Majesty,
Excellencies,
Colleagues and friends,

I am deeply honoured to be awarded this prize. I accept it with pride, on behalf of all the staff of my Office, particularly because this is the second time you have singled out our work. This sustained support is very important to us, in the current turmoil. I am therefore profoundly grateful to the International Bar Association and the Swedish Bar Association for their consideration.

We are facing mounting inhumanity in the world. The conflict in Syria – which began, more than four years ago, as a protest against the detention and torture of children who had painted anti-government graffiti on walls – has metastasized into a war of a wholly new kind, that bleeds suffering across the region and beyond.

In many parts of the Middle East and North Africa we are seeing open warfare, even proxy warfare, with constant violations of the laws that set limits to war, to protect civilians. Across many countries, we face a new kind of extremism, nightmarishly brutal. In Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the latest wave of violence has taken on a new, and very worrying, religious emphasis. The crisis in Ukraine casts a shadow across Europe. Further afield, in South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation is being overwhelmed by massacre and famine.

There are many more conflicts, and many other countries where the reports of my Office indicate very alarming signals, and increasingly broad patterns of human rights violations. More and more, States are violating the international laws that they themselves signed and agreed. Seventy years after the world emerged from a devastating war, it seems the wisdom so painfully acquired during that conflict is being forgotten. The safeguards that were put in place are being trampled, and the fundamental lessons of respect for human equality, freedom and dignity are being cast aside.

To remind us of those lessons, the world has always been able to turn here, to Sweden. For me, this country’s bedrock respect for human dignity has been a matter of personal pride. As you may know, my mother is from Södertälje, and she brought us up with the values of equality, tolerance and personal integrity – values that are at the core of international human rights protection system, but which are also, I think, very Swedish.

His Majesty’s example, a few days ago, in respect of those who needed help in Skåne, following the snowstorm, is testimony to the bond between Sweden and those values.

Sweden is also deeply embedded within the UN’s DNA. From Dag Hammarskjold to the Deputy Secretary-General today, the contributions of Swedish nationals have been essential. This country has been a particular support for the UN's work for women's equality, one of the great steps forward in human rights across the world in recent decades. And I know you share my alarm at the growing backlash, in many countries, against the advancement of the rights of women and girls.

For my Office, you were part of our creation, twenty years ago. And ever since, you have been in a deep sense, a valued partner – one we have always been able to count on. My message to you this evening is: you can also count on us. You can count on us to advance the fundamental Swedish ethic of concern for others. We share that vision of a better world, where every human being is considered equal; where development is sustainable and inclusive; the rule of law is impartial; and where people are free.

Because it is the principles of human rights that build more stable, more prosperous, more peaceful societies. They teach us that where there are differences among us, these can be resolved through dialogue, cooperation, and mutual appreciation and respect.

This evening, in other rooms across the globe, and not so very far from here, there are people watching out of windows as bombs of fertilizer explode across their streets. Families whose sons have been taken, probably to a place of torture, who may never return. There are girls too frightened to go to school tomorrow, or too poor. There is enormous, preventable poverty, the misery of being subjected to corruption, to crippling discrimination. And all this shocking, needless suffering could have been prevented.

In these other rooms, people are gathering up their children and preparing to flee their cities and villages in fear and need. These are human beings. They are just as important, they have the same rights as I do, as we all do. We too, in those same circumstances, would perhaps also be leaving, in panic. Yet, all too often, when they flee in search of hope, these people are finding, not safety, but fences, detention, push-backs, discrimination, violence.

These people are not a threat to any society. Each of their stories is singular and all are tragic, but they are also stories of great hope. Every State on this Earth was built with the help of women and men who came from somewhere else, bringing their values and viewpoints to the common task. We need look no further than the one million or more Swedes who emigrated to the United States of America a hundred and fifty years ago, who brought with them dynamism, creativity and hard work and melded their culture with others. Karl-Oskar and Kristina. This is the oldest challenge of humanity: the challenge of learning to learn to live together.

It is a challenge that time after time, we have met. And in this 21st century, as population growth accelerates, and technology and trade bring cultures closer together, the leaders of every State must realise that diversity is inevitable. Investment in the integration of newcomers is not a drain on resources, but demonstrably brings with it economic and social benefit: it is an investment in the future.

Our responses to migration today will take the measure of our will to uphold human rights, within our own societies, and across the world. These forced movements of people are being driven by overwhelming human rights violations. If these violations continue, as States continue to flout the binding rules of international law, there will be more tragedies, more crises, more people compelled to flee their homes.

We need to see a strong, deep, broad-based and collective effort to address the overwhelming human rights violations at the root of these desperate movements of people. We have the information, and many tools. Tools that re-establish justice, and which prevent conflict. And those tools include our values. Because values of respect, equality and dignity are not luxuries for times of ease. They are a deeply felt sense of justice, of standing up for one another. And they are the practical drivers of harmonious co-existence and peace.

My Office, with years of experience in preventing and responding to violations, has much to offer in this colossal effort to reaffirm the desire for dignity of all human beings – those values that uphold development and peace for all. You in Sweden can count on us, as I hope we can continue to count on you.

Thank you.