FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY FORUM EXPLORES IMPACT AND FUTURE OF UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS International Figures Call for Efforts to Establish Universality in Human Rights

HR/98/16/Rev.1
17 March 1998


A series of senior international figures called this afternoon for efforts to find common ground and establish true universality in human rights. The occasion was a forum marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The meeting, on the opening day of the annual session of the Commission on Human Rights, was chaired by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and featured addresses by, among others, Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic, and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel.

The discussion focused on human rights as they related to emergency situations, sustainable development, economic and social concerns, and communication.

Mary Robinson, High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the forum had allowed participants to review the achievements of the United Nations in the area of human rights and to evaluate what still needed to be done.

Also providing statements were the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs; the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; the Executive Director of the World Food Programme; the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs; a representative of United Nations Volunteers; the Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund; the Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme; the Director of the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS; the Director of the United Nations Population Fund; the Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women; the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Programmes; the Executive Secretaries of the Economic Commission for Europe and the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; the Director-General of the International Labour Organization; the Assistant Secretary-General for Public Information of the United Nations; and the Secretary-General of the International Telecommunications Union.

Opening Statement by Secretary-General

KOFI ANNAN, Secretary-General of the United Nations, in opening remarks, said human rights were not only a catalyst for lasting peace and sustainable development, they were a cause in their own right. They should be pursued till the very end, till they become reality not just for the strong and the privileged, but for the weak and the threatened -- the peoples of the world for whom the United Nations existed. "That is why my reform plan has reinforced the role of human rights as a central, cross-cutting concern throughout the United Nations system".

The Secretary-General said the international community should now work truly integrating rights into every mission of peace and programme that it pursue. Whether it was in peacekeeping, the fight against poverty or the campaign for good governance, "we know that if human rights are respected, if they are advanced, all else will follow”.

Guest Speakers

ELIE WIESEL, 1986 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, said the world now talked of human rights as a modern secular religion. Its sacred aspect came from the fact that it touched all mankind. Any human being could be compared to another because the life of a scholar was no more precious than that of an illiterate person. Both their children could encourage their contemporaries. All human beings came from the same place and would return to the same place, but it was the time between that was different and it was up to each person to humanize this time.

Mr. Wiesel said the world had to humanize attitudes towards human beings. The United Nations was celebrating 50 years of human rights, but why did it start so late, were there no human rights violations before. Today, there were more than 2,000 commissions dealing with human rights around the world. Why did these commissions needed, maybe because there was scepticism towards authority. The world had to speak on behalf of humanity and it was up to those who were in authority to humanize things.

There was still racial discrimination, ethnic persecution, arbitrary arrests, and victimization of minorities, Mr. Wiesel said. Still, with the disappearance of two totalitarian regimes which marked this century with cruelty, liberty was more solid. The monuments of Auschwiz and Treblinka belonged to the past, as did apartheid and gulags. Since the 15th century, the world has known that Utopia does not exist. Intolerance continued to threaten all that civilization had gained. Religious fanaticism was followed by political fanaticism.

Mr. Wiesel said the fight for human rights must never be abandoned. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had spoken of preventive human rights. The world had to find the means to prevent hatred and fanaticism and violations of human rights. Men and women fought for their fundamental rights, for example their right to freedom. As long as there was one person deprived of freedom, Mr. Weisel said his own freedom was not whole. Other fundamental rights were the rights to dignity, an identity and a memory. People had to be sensitized to make them aware of other persons suffering and fear and needs. Even if a protest brought no fruit, making the protester only feel frustrated, nevertheless people had to remember that whatever they were doing was important to the world and to the victims. A stand was a message to victims that they would not be abandoned. Victims needed allies and friends to defend them. Human rights included not only the right of respect and freedom, but also the right of belonging to a community and having solidarity.

VACLAV HAVEL, President of the Czech Republic, said the Declaration of Human Rights differed from the many diverse texts that had played fundamental roles in human history in that its impact was not meant to remain confined to one culture or civilization; from the very outset, it had been envisaged as a universal set of principles and gradually it had become a point of departure for countless guidelines defining the rules of a worthy life together for the peoples and nations of the world. Such fundamental texts were not easily born, and the Declaration obviously was the fruit of the special climate right after World War II, when all humanity realized that if the world wanted to prevent repetitions of such apocalyptic horrors, it had to rise above particular interests or concerns of prestige and agree on a fundamental code.

The Declaration had notably predetermined the direction of the United Nations in the following 50 years, Mr. Havel said, but it was also true that human rights had been grievously violated during its tenure -- the genocide in Rwanda, the killings in Chechnya, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the situations in Tibet, North Korea, Burma, Cuba, and Kosovo: these were but a part of the list of events to be kept in mind as massive violations of human rights had become almost exercises in live transmission. Nonetheless, he believed that the frequent breaches of the Declaration's principles had been far outweighed by the historic importance of the global commitment to human rights.

Frequently there were clashes between different historical, spiritual, political, and moral traditions, and the supposedly universal nature of the Declaration, Mr. Havel said. Sometimes such problems were raised as an ignoble pretext for autocrats to carry out malign intentions, but on other occasions the incongruities were real, and solving them was a challenge the world community had to address. There were a thousand ways to do so, but one viable course was in placing emphasis on the spiritual source of human rights -- something that was not an alien phenomenon for the non-European or non-American worlds. Most importantly, the primeval foundations of all the main religious systems of the world contained, in different forms, the same basic principles and moral imperatives.

He did not think today that the United Nations could ratify a document as significant as the Universal Declaration, Mr. Havel said; during preparations for the Anniversary Summit, for example, behind-the-scenes conflicts and competing intentions had kept those involved from agreeing on a text commenting on changes in the world over the last 50 years.

The United Nations needed to change with the times as well, Mr. Havel said. Among other things, he thought it should become the scene of a quest for a common denominator of spiritual values uniting the different cultures of the world; it should debureaucratize and deformalize its bodies and activities; it should restructure its Security Council into a group that was more flexible and more representative of the current global situation; and it should do all in its power to enable people to see it as their own organization, rather than as an organization of Governments.

Panellists

SERGIO VIEIRA DE MELLO, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said the international community should act together in mainstreaming human rights in all sectors of the society. The mainstreaming of human rights should be directed at uprooting hatred and discrimination. As seen in Afghanistan, discriminations were practised against a segment of the population. Social and psychological development should be achieved with due respect for fundamental freedoms and human rights. Serious human rights violations across boarders and impunity in general should come to an end.

SADAKO OGATA, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said that persecution, conflict, and serious violations of human rights were the ain reasons why 13 million refugees had had to flee their countries while millions of others were displaced in their own countries. There were Rwanda, Burundi, Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Liberia, and Afghanistan, the list was long and the human suffering intolerable. The core of refugee protection lay in the granting of asylum, therefore the right of asylum had to be upheld and respected. There was also a need for tolerance and understanding of refugees and asylum-seekers. Asylum also had to be upheld as a precondition in the search for solutions to humanitarian emergencies.

CATHERINE BERTINI, Executive Director for World Food Programme (WFP), said victims of war and civil violence needed not only access to food and essential health services, but also assurances that their basic human rights would not be violated. Partnerships among those with assistance and protection mandates were essential; the international community's responsibilities should be mutually supportive. However, assistance agencies were often expected to compromise or look the other way when basic human rights were violated as the price for being given access to the victims of armed conflict or for some supposedly higher political purpose.

KIERAN PRENDERGAST, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, said efforts should be made to enable all sectors of the populations of countries to have stakes and participatory impacts in their countries; human rights and peace programmes could not succeed if groups in society were powerless and marginalized. Human-rights investigations were a valuable tool and should be further used by the United Nations, especially in the aftermath of conflicts; such activities, for example, could be extremely useful in Afghanistan. In all areas, though, close cooperation was necessary between various United Nations bodies and non-governmental organizations.

SHARON CAPELING-ALAKIJA, of United Nations Volunteers (UNV), said hundreds of United Nations volunteers were working on different issues ranging from conflict prevention to the promotion of democracy. UNV was a natural human rights mainstreaming mechanism and could help coordination of human rights within the United Nations. UNV worked on the ground, representing the human face of the United Nations. For example, some 200 UNV volunteers were in Guatemala, reaching out to remote communities and isolated villagers and informing tens of thousands of indigenous persons for the first time of their human rights and the progress of the peace process. In 1997, UNV was also active in 10 other countries and it had developed a good track record in further promoting the understanding of human rights.

CAROL BELLAMY, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said respect for the human rights of children should be at the heart of all actions. The Convention on the Rights of the Child was the first human rights convention to be ratified by almost all Member States of the United Nations. UNICEF was endeavouring towards the full implementation of the Convention by all States. The Convention was not an abstract document, but a practical text to implement.

RAFEEUDDIN AHMED, Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said development efforts were unsustainable where rule of law and equity did not exist; where discrimination was accepted, or where there was denial of human rights. Similarly, human rights were greatly enhanced in the context of poverty-eradication strategies and the empowerment of women and men. At the request of Governments, and in support of its areas of focus, UNDP assisted in building capacity for good governance, popular participation, economic development, and human-rights promotion.

PETER PIOT, of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), said it was no coincidence that 90 per cent of people infected with HIV/AIDS were in underdeveloped countries. Poverty was a violation of the rights of people and it helped spread the AIDS epidemic. There were three ways that HIV/AIDS and human rights intersected. Discrimination among those with HIV/AIDS was not only wrong but also a major obstacle to its prevention. The fighting of the stigma and discrimination of HIV/AIDS was overriding. Second, the violation of economic and social rights resulted in gender imbalance and children trafficking which helped spread HIV/AIDS. Third, the lack of if 90 percent of civil and political rights prevented care for people with HIV/AIDS. How a society dealt with those with HIV/AIDS indicated how it cared for its people. There was a strong relationship between health and human rights and health and development.

NAFIS SADIK, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund, said her agency had been striving to promote the reproductive health of women through measures of protection and awareness-raising programmes. The agency had centred its activities on the promotion of gender equality through increased efforts to raise the level of women's consciousness of their reproductive role. The broad campaign of family planning launched by the agency had also been accepted by a majority of populations. Missing

NOELENE HEYSER, Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), said the pursuit of sustainable development was a fundamental human-rights issue and was extremely helpful for women, who needed to gain greater power over their lives. Women's lives must been seen through a human-rights framework; UNIFEM programmes were dedicated, among other things, to combatting gender-based violence, promoting the activities of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), integrating gender perspectives into existing human-rights activities, and improving quick responses to problems affecting women caught up in armed conflicts. Concerns over violence against women should be included in all human-rights programmes now under way.

NITIN DESAI, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Programmes, said that the most important ways to mainstream human rights in the work of the United Nations was to take these human rights seriously. There was a tendency to distinguish between civil and political rights on the one hand and economic, social and cultural rights on the other. The United Nations had to continue to work on human rights and on development at the political level in order to advance humanity, and the United Nations was already seeking to make the eradication of poverty a global commitment.

YVES BERTHELOT, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe, said that if civil and political rights had been advanced significantly since the end of the cold war, economic, social and cultural rights had not known the same progress, and had in some cases suffered setbacks. Indeed, the income gap continued to grow around the world, and the precariousness of employment was increasing. The experiences of countries in transition proved that respect for the rights of individuals was a necessary, but by itself insufficient, condition to insure the fulfilment of economic, social and cultural rights. A policy was needed that combined the creation of wealth with social equity.

HAZEM EL-BEBLAWI, Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), said human-rights objectives in the widest sense were inherently included in the activities of the regional economic councils. ESCWA sought to include cross-cutting issues of development and human rights in many of its programmes; it focused to a great extent on sustainable development and gender issues. Distribution of income, problems of poverty, environmental issues, and other topics also were addressed, and extensive attention was being paid to follow-up to United Nations world conferences.

RUBENS RICUPERO, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), said the world shared a common responsibility for the state of human rights and likewise the environment anywhere, irrespective of borders or national sovereignties. However, he questioned if it was credible to claim this co-responsibility on the basis of the fundamental unity of humankind and at the same time to deny in practice that unity by refusing to share resources and technology. UNCTAD was committed to building consensus for the benefit of the development of the poor and the deprived. True globalization was much more than the unification of markets and economies, it was the unification worldwide of values and aspirations, of human rights and security, of communications, understanding and cooperation among cultures and religions.

MICHEL HANSENNE, Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO), said the ILO had been collaborating with other agencies in drafting fundamental conventions with regard to basic human rights. States parties to many of the convention were expected to implement them in good faith. Recently, ILO had drafted a convention which, if ratified, would consider child labour as an extreme form of human rights violation. The draft convention would be submitted to the forthcoming ILO annual meeting in June.

SAMIR SANBAR, of the Office of Communication and Public Information (OCPI), said the relationship between the human-rights culture and the communications culture needed to be fostered to achieve human-rights goals; people around the world needed to know about human rights in order to attain them, and that was the role of the United Nations public-affairs apparatus. The tempo of OCPI’s activities would be increased in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration. Technical advances such as the Internet made the spreading of human-rights information easier and more effective, which was especially important as outreach had to be expanded.

PEKKA TRJANNE, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunications Union, said that the purpose of the Forum was to communicate how to make human rights a reality. Therefore, it was no surprise that he would address the issue of access to communication and the right to communicate. There had been many communication advances, and one way the world was referred to today was as a global information society. All human activities relied increasingly on telecommunication technology like the telephone, television, radio, personal computers and super computers. All these different technologies were becoming interconnected. Unless the leaders of the United Nations system made sure the right to communicate was part of the mainstreaming of human rights, all other rights would become theories and not practice.

MARY ROBINSON, High Commissioner for Human Rights, took the floor briefly to point out that the forum had allowed participants to review the achievements of the United Nations in the area of human rights and to evaluate what still needed to be done.