Preventing and ending atrocity crimes: a key challenge for the UN Security Council, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein High Commissioner for Human Rights

New York, 22 September 2016

Excellencies,
Colleagues and Friends,

The United Nations matters – of course: to our generation, to our children and to the future of our small world. If the work of the UN is blocked; if it no longer rises to the challenge of disasters, crises and chronic suffering – then as the UN begins to break down into irrelevance and inaction, humanity correspondingly faces enormous danger.

We are here because we are convinced the UN is capable of reinventing itself. Specifically, in the face of today's growing threats to peace and security, we are convinced the Security Council members, particularly the P5, can renew its procedures, for more effective and swifter action.

 Perceptions of an impasse within the Security Council are growing. As the speakers before me have said, Syria is the most burning example. Reliable information suggests that war crimes, acts of genocide and crimes against humanity have been allowed to occur unchecked. The country is haemorrhaging floods of refugees. And the war continues to tug neighbouring states into this dreadful conflict. Yet as all of us know, again and again, decisive action in support of peace and security has been blocked by political considerations and use of the veto.

Syria is not the only crisis where the Security Council's inability to agree on joint action has had an unforgivable and calamitous toll in human life. There are many situations where the threat of veto has had significant impact on essential security issues.

Recently, to enable the Security Council to respond effectively to gross human rights violations and the requirements of global governance, Member States have launched similar initiatives.

One by France and Mexico, and another initiative, propose restraint in the use of the veto.  Both initiatives could have a powerful preventive effect on future violations, by convincing potential perpetrators that atrocities will be met by the Security Council's decisive and effective action. Both proposals are clearly in line with the Human Rights Up Front core standard which demands all UN actions place the protection of human rights at their core. And they are very much in line with the Charter which binds Member States.  After all, Article 1, part 1 of the Charter states that the purpose of the UN is to prevent and remove threats to peace, in conformity with the principles of justice.

I strongly encourage active consideration of these initiatives – indeed, of any and all steps that will contribute to the Council taking action where there is high risk or real evidence of international crimes. 

Above all, I must emphasise what I believe to be the unanimous judgement of the human rights community: this effort is urgent. Human rights violations and abuses, if unchecked, will swell and metastasise. Inaction and failure to protect are harming millions of lives – and they corrode the legitimacy and work of the entire UN, which is humanity's most powerful system for cooperation in the face of threat. This cannot remain a purely theoretical debate. 

Perhaps every generation must step up and meet such challenges. We can meet this one. This is a challenge for all of us now.