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17 March 1998
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Fifty-fourth session of the Commission on Human Rights, Geneva
16 March - 24 April 1998
Statement by H.E. Mrs. Patrizia Toia
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of Italy
Geneva, 17 March 1998
Mister President
In adhering fully with what was said by the Presidency of the European Union, and aiming to stress the great importance that the Union attaches to human rights, I would only like to add a few remarks about the way in which Italy conceives the special meaning of this important session of the CHR.
The presence here, today and in the next few days, of so many high government representatives, constitutes a tangible evidence that this session of the Commission for Human Rights is not an ordinary one.
We have come here, in fact, to reiterate the commitment of our respective governments to this very important yearly meeting addressing the whole range of human rights issues. But we are also here to reaffirm the solemn political and moral engagement that the international community assumed upon itself 50 years ago by endorsing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an engagement that was renewed in Vienna five years ago with the unanimous consent of all the members of the UN, much more numerous, of course, than those that made up that membership fifty years ago.
The importance of the Universal Declaration cannot be overstated. Certainly, a concern for the rights of the human person, for its protection against oppression and violence, is much older than a mere half century. It finds its origin and foundation in religious and philosophical traditions that are numerous and varied, but coincide in their convergent focus on the dignity of each individual, a precious value that must be preserved in any circumstance. And yet the Declaration was a new, one could say revolutionary event, and this in a double sense. First of all, that dignity is no longer, after the Declaration, a mere goal to be attained or a need to be addressed in a philantropic mode. Its content is made up of a variety of concrete rights, meaning that it must be gradually shifted from the moral to the legal sphere. And that is exactly what happened, if we look at the wide-ranging series of legally binding international agreements that have followed the Declaration: the two Covenants, the many conventions.
Secondly, after the Declaration - and after the renewed adherence to its spirit and contents that took place five years ago in Vienna - it is no longer possible to say that the struggle for the promotion and protection of human rights is not a common task for all nations, and that the situation of human rights anywhere is not the legitimate concern of the international community.
But it is very important, in this context, to address - and to challenge - the false dichotomy between the universality of human rights and the equal dignity of all cultures, religions, spiritual orientations. We should agree that universality is not questioned by the fact that different traditions find different foundations for the same goal of defending the dignity of the human being, nor that the language in which human rights discourse if phrased will differ from one part of the world to the other. It is indeed because of the need to defend and promote the dignity of all human beings that Italy has decided to give its strong support to the initiative in favor of Afghan women.
Universality of rights, in other words, cannot mean that the cultural foundations, the language, and even the institutional tools and the pace for the realization of those rights must be uniform in every part of the world. Conversely, the legitimate claim for respect of tradition and cultural specificity cannot mean evading the political responsability, and even less the existing legal obligations, in the area of universal human rights.
This is exactly the way my country, Italy, has always conceived its approach to human rights. I will only mention one initiative, that relating to the question of the death penalty. I think it is important to stress that by promoting it once again, this year, we are drawing attention to one of the most dramatic exceptions to the right to life, expressing the confidence - shared by many countries belonging to different traditions - that gradually that exception will go the way of other institutions that were once considered not only legal, but also natural, and which gradually came to be seen as unacceptable and were universally abolished. While we recall those existing obligations that already limit the application of the death penalty and regulate it, our ambition - while restating our own unabashedly abolitionist goal - is that of maintaining an awareness on the issue, of keeping dialogue open and foster a positive, evolutionary trend that, we are confident, before too long will allow the international community as such to reach a more demanding, more consistent universal standard for the protection of the right to life. We know that many in this Commission share this goal, and we hope that those who at this stage are not in the position of joining us will understand the spirit in which we are promoting our initiative, and will at least not oppose it.
"Universality with respect" should certainly be our common endeavor. But we feel that a second common engagement we should all embrace in this occasion is "universality with comprehensiveness." No universality is possible, in fact, if any space is left to the suspicion that some are trying to unduly privilege some rights, or sets of rights, to the detriment of others. There is no textual justification for such a selective approach: the Universal Declaration, in fact, is not only universal for its geographical scope, but also for its substantial
comprehensiveness.
That is why political and civic rights on one side, and social, economic and cultural rights on the other are but two sides of the same human rights coin, and why addressing them comprehensively is both a logical and a political necessity.
And that is why reaching a consensual convergence on the issue of the right to development should be a primary goal for this session of the Commission. It would be indeed an extremely important reaffirmation of universality, both in the sense of a common endeavor of countries belonging to all and every region of the world and in the sense of the comprehensiveness that is typical of an issue in which political rights (which are the only guarantee of development conducive good governance) are as important as socio-economic rights, and in addressing which the evidence of interconnectedness between the two sets of rights is an undeniable fact. It would indeed be a paradox, and a very negative one, if we were to fail to reach consensus on an issue that should constitute a privileged ground for proving, fifty years after the Universal Declaration, our commitment to universality. Let us work together with good will and an open mind, to prevent that failure, to reach that goal.
And, finally, I would like to propose - again with a reference to universality - to consider approaching the issue of human rights no longer as a separate item within the vast, manifold scope of foreign policy issues, but rather as a vital, essential constitutive component of every aspect of international relations. I would like to suggest, in other words, that the innovative focus characterizing the reform recently promoted by the Secretary General of the United Nations - the "mainstreaming" of human rights throughout the UN system, should give each and every country a very constructive, very promising point of reference.
Far from constituting a limit or a constraint for the pursuit of other goals within the scope of legitimat national interest, human rights should explicitly be "factored in" every aspect of foreign policy: security, where the protection of human rights is the number one preventive tool against conflict; development, where - as I have mentioned before - human rights is both goal and instrument, since development aims at satisfying human rights, and human rights are indispensable to allow the free and effective pursuit of development.
Dialogue instead of confrontation. Interconnectedness instead of counterposition. Mainstreaming instead of dichotomy. We feel that only by these fundamental options will we be able to transform the universality of human rights into a living global reality.
To conclude, I would like to remember that yesterday in his intervention the General Secretary stated that international coumunity in order to better deal with the the challenges of the next century should focus on the prevention of human rights violations. To this end we think that the establishment of an International Criminal Court and my country is happy to host in Rome the diplomatic conference for the establishment of the new international jurisdiction - will contribute greatly to avoid that the most important human rights violations be kept unpunished, thereby exerting a powerful preventive effect.
Thank you Mister President.
16 March - 24 April 1998
Statement by H.E. Mrs. Patrizia Toia
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of Italy
Geneva, 17 March 1998
Mister President
In adhering fully with what was said by the Presidency of the European Union, and aiming to stress the great importance that the Union attaches to human rights, I would only like to add a few remarks about the way in which Italy conceives the special meaning of this important session of the CHR.
The presence here, today and in the next few days, of so many high government representatives, constitutes a tangible evidence that this session of the Commission for Human Rights is not an ordinary one.
We have come here, in fact, to reiterate the commitment of our respective governments to this very important yearly meeting addressing the whole range of human rights issues. But we are also here to reaffirm the solemn political and moral engagement that the international community assumed upon itself 50 years ago by endorsing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an engagement that was renewed in Vienna five years ago with the unanimous consent of all the members of the UN, much more numerous, of course, than those that made up that membership fifty years ago.
The importance of the Universal Declaration cannot be overstated. Certainly, a concern for the rights of the human person, for its protection against oppression and violence, is much older than a mere half century. It finds its origin and foundation in religious and philosophical traditions that are numerous and varied, but coincide in their convergent focus on the dignity of each individual, a precious value that must be preserved in any circumstance. And yet the Declaration was a new, one could say revolutionary event, and this in a double sense. First of all, that dignity is no longer, after the Declaration, a mere goal to be attained or a need to be addressed in a philantropic mode. Its content is made up of a variety of concrete rights, meaning that it must be gradually shifted from the moral to the legal sphere. And that is exactly what happened, if we look at the wide-ranging series of legally binding international agreements that have followed the Declaration: the two Covenants, the many conventions.
Secondly, after the Declaration - and after the renewed adherence to its spirit and contents that took place five years ago in Vienna - it is no longer possible to say that the struggle for the promotion and protection of human rights is not a common task for all nations, and that the situation of human rights anywhere is not the legitimate concern of the international community.
But it is very important, in this context, to address - and to challenge - the false dichotomy between the universality of human rights and the equal dignity of all cultures, religions, spiritual orientations. We should agree that universality is not questioned by the fact that different traditions find different foundations for the same goal of defending the dignity of the human being, nor that the language in which human rights discourse if phrased will differ from one part of the world to the other. It is indeed because of the need to defend and promote the dignity of all human beings that Italy has decided to give its strong support to the initiative in favor of Afghan women.
Universality of rights, in other words, cannot mean that the cultural foundations, the language, and even the institutional tools and the pace for the realization of those rights must be uniform in every part of the world. Conversely, the legitimate claim for respect of tradition and cultural specificity cannot mean evading the political responsability, and even less the existing legal obligations, in the area of universal human rights.
This is exactly the way my country, Italy, has always conceived its approach to human rights. I will only mention one initiative, that relating to the question of the death penalty. I think it is important to stress that by promoting it once again, this year, we are drawing attention to one of the most dramatic exceptions to the right to life, expressing the confidence - shared by many countries belonging to different traditions - that gradually that exception will go the way of other institutions that were once considered not only legal, but also natural, and which gradually came to be seen as unacceptable and were universally abolished. While we recall those existing obligations that already limit the application of the death penalty and regulate it, our ambition - while restating our own unabashedly abolitionist goal - is that of maintaining an awareness on the issue, of keeping dialogue open and foster a positive, evolutionary trend that, we are confident, before too long will allow the international community as such to reach a more demanding, more consistent universal standard for the protection of the right to life. We know that many in this Commission share this goal, and we hope that those who at this stage are not in the position of joining us will understand the spirit in which we are promoting our initiative, and will at least not oppose it.
"Universality with respect" should certainly be our common endeavor. But we feel that a second common engagement we should all embrace in this occasion is "universality with comprehensiveness." No universality is possible, in fact, if any space is left to the suspicion that some are trying to unduly privilege some rights, or sets of rights, to the detriment of others. There is no textual justification for such a selective approach: the Universal Declaration, in fact, is not only universal for its geographical scope, but also for its substantial
comprehensiveness.
That is why political and civic rights on one side, and social, economic and cultural rights on the other are but two sides of the same human rights coin, and why addressing them comprehensively is both a logical and a political necessity.
And that is why reaching a consensual convergence on the issue of the right to development should be a primary goal for this session of the Commission. It would be indeed an extremely important reaffirmation of universality, both in the sense of a common endeavor of countries belonging to all and every region of the world and in the sense of the comprehensiveness that is typical of an issue in which political rights (which are the only guarantee of development conducive good governance) are as important as socio-economic rights, and in addressing which the evidence of interconnectedness between the two sets of rights is an undeniable fact. It would indeed be a paradox, and a very negative one, if we were to fail to reach consensus on an issue that should constitute a privileged ground for proving, fifty years after the Universal Declaration, our commitment to universality. Let us work together with good will and an open mind, to prevent that failure, to reach that goal.
And, finally, I would like to propose - again with a reference to universality - to consider approaching the issue of human rights no longer as a separate item within the vast, manifold scope of foreign policy issues, but rather as a vital, essential constitutive component of every aspect of international relations. I would like to suggest, in other words, that the innovative focus characterizing the reform recently promoted by the Secretary General of the United Nations - the "mainstreaming" of human rights throughout the UN system, should give each and every country a very constructive, very promising point of reference.
Far from constituting a limit or a constraint for the pursuit of other goals within the scope of legitimat national interest, human rights should explicitly be "factored in" every aspect of foreign policy: security, where the protection of human rights is the number one preventive tool against conflict; development, where - as I have mentioned before - human rights is both goal and instrument, since development aims at satisfying human rights, and human rights are indispensable to allow the free and effective pursuit of development.
Dialogue instead of confrontation. Interconnectedness instead of counterposition. Mainstreaming instead of dichotomy. We feel that only by these fundamental options will we be able to transform the universality of human rights into a living global reality.
To conclude, I would like to remember that yesterday in his intervention the General Secretary stated that international coumunity in order to better deal with the the challenges of the next century should focus on the prevention of human rights violations. To this end we think that the establishment of an International Criminal Court and my country is happy to host in Rome the diplomatic conference for the establishment of the new international jurisdiction - will contribute greatly to avoid that the most important human rights violations be kept unpunished, thereby exerting a powerful preventive effect.
Thank you Mister President.