Amid escalating carnage, broad impunity and trampling of international law, Türk calls on UN General Assembly to invest in human rights

Distinguished Chair,
Excellencies,

This is a crucial, and very dangerous, moment – for human life; for human rights; and for the stability and prosperity of States. 

Conflict is intensifying and spreading.

International law is being trampled, amid broad impunity.  

The promise of the Agenda for Sustainable Development is breaking down.

Climate change and other planetary shocks are accelerating. 

Criticism is criminalised, as the spaces for people to discuss and participate in decisions are being shut down. 

Hatred – based on sex, race, religion, sexual orientation or other characteristics – is roaring ahead, fuelling discrimination, divisions and violence. 

And as all these threats – and more – are rising, the effectiveness of multilateral institutions is being eroded by the polarisation of the international community into increasingly antagonistic blocs. 

It is precisely in the context of such crises that human rights offer effective solutions. 

So at this mid-point of my mandate, and as you consider the report before you, which outlines the work of my Office in every region, I would like to suggest key steps that could help States solve the issues that are tearing apart our societies – and our world. 

Distinguished delegates, 

We know that profound and prolonged injustice leads to tensions that may erupt in violence. 

We know that warfare, if its causes are not addressed, will metastasize into new battle zones; and that its effects will continue and even amplify in future generations.

The prolonged oppression of the Palestinian people and repeating cycles of hatred, death and destruction in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and elsewhere in the Middle East, are a tragic demonstration of this fact. 

For decades, Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory has deprived generations of Palestinians of their rights – to self-determination, to equality; to life; to dignity; and more. 

It is clear that there is absolutely no justification for the horrific atrocities committed on 7 October against Israelis by Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups.

In the year that has followed, shockingly, more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza – mostly women and children – as the relentless, intensive Israeli military offensive continues. 

We have witnessed recurring violations of fundamental precepts of international humanitarian law that may amount to war crimes and other atrocity crimes. I cannot underscore enough the desperate survival conditions of Palestinians in Gaza. 

And the deep trauma inflicted on people in Israel and in Gaza. 

Nearly 1.9 million people in Gaza have been displaced, many multiple times. Israeli military operations have resulted in homes, healthcare and infrastructure across Gaza destroyed. Adequate humanitarian aid and assistance have been systematically hindered and denied. An unknown number of people have died from the denial of food, water, sanitation, hygiene, shelter and healthcare. There is no place of safety, and people are terrified. Meanwhile, Palestinian armed groups operate among civilians, hold hostages, and fire indiscriminate rockets into Israel, in flagrant violation of international law.

And the year-long war in Gaza has been accompanied by deepening Israeli oppression, segregation and violence in the Occupied West Bank. 

More recently, months of exchanges of missiles between Hezbollah and Israeli forces along the Israel-Lebanon border have escalated into spiralling violence of much greater scale, and even greater danger, with Israeli troops now present in Lebanon. The toll on civilian lives and infrastructure is getting heavier by the day. 

The involvement of Iran, as well as non-state actors in Yemen and Iraq, creates the threat of a wider and more terrible war – one that could engulf the lives, the hopes and the human rights of people across the entire region. 

Meanwhile in Ukraine, we are approaching 1,000 days since the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion. The war has devastated people’s lives and their hopes for the future; it will leave a legacy of trauma and loss for generations to come. Ukrainian civilians are terrified by the Russian Federation's strikes on hospitals, schools, homes and supermarkets, and the repeated targeting of vital energy infrastructure has led to frequent country-wide blackouts. 

July 2024 was the deadliest month for civilians in Ukraine since October 2022, as documented by my Office – and I fear for Ukrainians this coming winter. There are also reports of civilian deaths in Russia. 

In Sudan, a vicious conflict has raged since April 2023, as two warring parties, affiliated groups and regional actors compete for influence and power. Indiscriminate warfare and targeted attacks, including ethnically-motivated attacks and sexual violence, have forced more than 10 million people – one fifth of the entire population – to flee their homes. 

Over 25 million people are facing acute hunger. Famine has been declared in one camp and is a real threat in 13 areas of the country. It is vital to end this conflict, with mediation efforts focused on accountability and human rights, to prevent persistent discrimination, recurring cycles of violence, and atrocities. 

I urge States with influence to insist that the parties cease hostilities and take measures to protect civilians and facilitate desperately needed humanitarian aid. An end to the flow of weapons from abroad is vital; compliance with the Security Council arms embargo regarding Darfur must be a priority. 

Myanmar’s crisis continues to plumb the depths of inhumanity, with further recent air and artillery strikes on civilians, mass arrests and reports of extrajudicial killings continuing unabated, amidst stifling impunity. 

Civilians are paying the heaviest price, with some of the highest numbers of civilian casualties reported since the crisis began in 2021, and the Rohingya community violently cornered in northern Rakhine State, with nowhere safe to turn. 

Distinguished delegates,

Nobody has been made safer by this violence.

War destroys. It destroys lives. It destroys communities, infrastructure and development. 

It profoundly damages the environment – poisoning ecosystems and choking off the future of humanity. 

War also poisons minds. It destroys empathy. It spawns cruelty, and a callous indifference to suffering, which fuels the atavistic machine of revenge and retribution. 

Continued impunity and injustice erode the values at the core of humanity, and pushes young people towards extremist ideas, fuelling new cycles of destruction and pain.  

War can only truly end when respect for human rights re-establishes reason, justice and compassion.   

Across these conflicts, access for human rights monitors is blocked in many places. That access is crucial. 

The clarity that stems from the monitoring work performed by my Office is fundamental to early warning; to prevention; to accountability; and to establishing a peace that has a chance of enduring, because it addresses root causes and leads to justice. 

In 2023, data that my Office was able to gather points to a steep rise in the global number of civilian deaths in armed conflict, and in the proportion of women, and of children, killed and injured. 

Amid this escalating carnage, my Office has documented again and again patterns that suggest that war crimes and other atrocity crimes have been committed, and that binding decisions of the Security Council and the International Court of Justice have been disregarded. 

International law is the edifice that generations before us built to protect humanity from self-destruction. Without law, there is only violence, injustice and exploitation. 

In the memory of every State of the United Nations lives a searing expression of the kind of slaughter and misery which is prevented by respect for legal norms. 

Yet every week, it seems, red lines are crossed. The basic minimum requirements -- respect for sovereignty; respect for the law of war; and respect for human rights -- are flouted. 

Humbly, my Office does everything it can to spotlight such acts, and to advocate for accountability and respect. 

Distinguished delegates,

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is an essential human rights tool that tackles the root causes of conflict and promises lives of dignity for all. 

But the Sustainable Development Goals are flagging, badly. The SDG Progress Report indicates that just 17 percent of targets are on track. Progress on 50 percent of them is weak and insufficient. And progress on more than one-third of the SDGs has ground to a halt or regressed below 2015 levels, when the targets were set. 

All the progress States have made since 2005 in reducing hunger has been wiped out.

The compounded effects of conflict, climate shocks and the economic turmoil of the COVID-19 pandemic are further deepening pre-existing inequalities within and between countries. 

Economic pain leads to many bad outcomes. It hampers the development of individuals, their communities, their societies and entire national economies. It can create a long tail of tension and violence. 

But Governments in many developing countries cannot invest in the right to food, the right to health, the right to education or many other fundamental rights, because they are hamstrung by debt and by inequitable global rules on tax and other issues. Developing countries face a $4 trillion financing gap to achieve the SDGs and lack access to development finance at reasonable rates. 

The Pact for the Future agreed last month is an essential step towards building a more equitable international financial architecture that enables States to invest in the 2030 Agenda and in human rights. 

I urge all States to back concrete reform to the global financial architecture as a human rights priority.  

It is also crucial to anchor national economies strongly in human rights – enabling them to build greater trust and respect, in more stable and peaceful societies, through a fairer distribution of the benefits of development. 

I urge national Governments to ensure their economic policies are guided by human rights norms – from budgets and taxation to investments and business activity. 

In so doing, they can prioritise justice and dignity, reduce inequalities, and secure – and let me spell this out, because it is important to do so – economic, social and cultural rights; civil and political rights; as well as the right to development, and the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

Despite global human rights commitments, billions of people around the world, including many in the richest countries, are living without these rights. 

My Office is working on practical projects to develop human rights-based approaches to taxation and public spending, in cooperation with the authorities in a number of States, including Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chad, Honduras, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi, Serbia, Uruguay, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

In one of these projects, our proposals would help the State increase tax revenues more equitably and reposition public expenditure to prioritize people’s needs and rights. In another, we are supporting the engagement of local communities – including marginalized groups – in setting priorities for local budgets.

In a third, detailed analysis and recommendations aim at the provision of higher quality maternal and newborn care that respond to the needs and rights of marginalized groups, including people living in extreme poverty and Indigenous Peoples. 

Another set of projects, in coordination with the International Labour Organization, involves assisting States to upgrade the accessibility of social security programmes for workers, particularly those in the informal economy.  

This work is already advanced in Ethiopia, Cambodia and Timor-Leste; project development is underway regarding domestic workers in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya; and the partnership will further expand in 2025. 

Practical initiatives like these can help to bridge political and economic divides, supporting Member States to meet the promise of the SDGs, and helping to bring societies from turmoil and division to greater solidarity and respect.  

Distinguished delegates,

We must learn the lessons of the past. Human rights unlock a wealth of benefits for all societies. 

Equality, which encourages everyone to contribute to their full capacity, benefits all of society. Recognition of the equality of every human being, and the universal right to participate in public life, are essential to building trust among and between people and the State. 

Many members of this Committee have witnessed how addressing discrimination against minorities and the disenfranchised can help heal, and build more resilient societies.

The setbacks to women's equality that we are seeing today are deeply shocking. They unjustly wound millions of women and girls, and they deprive all of society of the full contributions of all its members.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban's restrictions on women and girls have taken systematic gender persecution to another level, holding hostage the entire country’s economic and social development. 

Combating discrimination against women; against people of African descent and Indigenous Peoples; and against any group, on any account – ethnicity, language, migration status, disability, age, sexual orientation or gender identity, or any other characteristic – is a key focus of every aspect of our work. Inclusivity, diversity and respect for the other strengthen every society.

A broad, open civic space in which there is freedom of speech, and free circulation of information creates resilience. It opens up ideas, challenges assumptions and contributes to finding solutions to the challenges that we face. 

And participation in public life – including by women, minority groups and young people – promotes greater attention to people's grievances and needs, with more responsive and accountable governance. 

However, as our world is becoming more militarised, social cohesion is fraying and autocratic tendencies are on the rise. Legitimate protests are attacked; civic space is restricted; and in many countries, prisons are overflowing. 

But a closed, rigid, over-securitised approach does not make for safer societies or a safer world. 

It makes societies more likely to clash. It makes the world more ready for war.

We must rebuild a world of openness, trust and respect.  

Respect for the law, which has been agreed by States to protect the world's people from unbearable injustice, violence and harm. 

Respect for diplomacy and mediation, which nourish cooperative solutions and nurture a culture of peace. 

Respect for each other, and for our shared, equal and universal rights, which express the bonds that unite us all.  

And respect for the generations that will succeed us – the generations of the future.

Distinguished delegates, 

Our descendants will face the consequences of many of the decisions taken today. 

And we are already compromising their rights through our actions – and inactions – on two emerging threats. 

First, the unchecked development of digital technologies – including artificial intelligence, biotech and lethal autonomous weaponry – is outpacing efforts to regulate their risks. 

Second, the climate crisis and the collapse of ecosystems are profoundly alarming. 

The lives and rights of human beings – including the right to privacy and the right to a safe climate and a safe environment – cannot be sold to corporate interests, be they fossil fuel or digital tech. 

Last month, at the Summit of the Future, States outlined the prospect of a multilateralism that is more effective, networked and inclusive – a multilateralism that is better placed to tackle the threats of today and tomorrow. 

The Pact for the Future, including the Declaration on Future Generations and the Global Digital Compact, point to a future grounded in dignity, justice and human rights for all. 

My Office will continue to advocate for governance frameworks to focus on action that will advance, and not erode our human rights. 

Following last year's commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, my Office distilled its lessons into a key document.

Human Rights: A Path for Solutions signposts the route towards renewed action for peace; for economies that work for people and our shared planet; for effective and accountable governance; and guardrails to safeguard digital and scientific progress. 

My Office is at the service of all Member States, and all societies, to assist them to make effective use of human rights. 

Governments and other actors will not always like what we have to say. But I urge you not to shoot the messenger, and instead to focus on furthering our fundamental common objective: the promotion and protection of human rights for everyone, everywhere.

I urge you all to make use of this institution to the fullest, because a strong UN Human Rights Office and a healthy, well-resourced human rights ecosystem, are of global interest and benefit. 

We will continue to support the important work of the Human Rights Council, its Universal Periodic Review and Special Procedures, as well as the Treaty Bodies whose work nourishes the core of international human rights law. 

We will strive to be fit for the future, through renewed partnerships, a streamlined internal structure, and new emphasis on data analytics and strategic foresight to identify and address potential human rights risks. 

Human rights are an investment worth making. The work of my Office is of immense benefit to the world. 

We must grasp the opportunities that are before us, including in follow-up to the Pact for the Future, to build sustainable peace, development, prosperity and justice. 

We look to the members of this Committee for support in building the alliances, and the resources, commensurate with the urgency and magnitude of this task. 

Thank you.