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American University of Beirut
4 March 2002



Mary Robinson,
United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights


Realising Universal Human Rights




Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am happy to be here at the American University of Beirut.

Since I took on the job of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights four and half years ago, I have welcomed opportunities to speak with university students during my visits to countries around the world. Today is no exception.

I have welcomed such opportunities because I take strength from the strong commitment of students and faculty alike in so many countries, to making human rights a reality both at home and abroad. I have found a desire even an impatience to move beyond asserting the importance of human rights. You want to make those standards a living reality for people everywhere. It is my privilege to lead the United Nations efforts to do precisely that.

It is particularly appropriate to be speaking at the American University of Beirut on the subject of human rights. This University is forever associated with the modern story of human rights protection through the work of Charles Malik. Charles Malik was a renowned professor of philosophy in this university. He became the representative of Lebanon on the first Commission of Human Rights in 1947. It was that Commission, which drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That was proclaimed in 1948 and is one of the most influential international documents of modern times. It has now been translated into some 300 languages making it the most translated document in history.

What I would like to do today is to reflect on how far we have come along the road that Charles Malik and those other pioneers envisaged in 1948, a road that would lead to universal acceptance and enjoyment of human rights. I would then welcome the opportunity to hear from you and to discuss how you believe we should move forward from here to make human rights more than goals or aspirations, but realities for all people.

Looking Back

The last decade of the 20th century saw a growing sense that the United Nations should be better equipped to face persistent challenges to human rights. The 1993 World Conference on Human Rights provided a detailed programme of action for strengthening the UN’s role and led to the creation of the post I now hold that of High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The first substantive speech I made as High Commissioner was in a setting not so different from this - at Oxford University. That speech reflected my frustrations and, at the same time, my sense of the potential of the United Nations if it really committed itself to converting the rhetoric of human rights into a practical reality for the millions of people throughout the world who need to have their rights championed and defended.

What was encouraging was that the speech was perceived by so many as a rallying cry for the very reform programme which the Secretary General, Kofi Annan, was then proposing for the United Nations.

The reforms put in place in 1997 to enhance the effectiveness of the United Nations reflected the wish of the Secretary General to place human rights at the heart of the organisation’s work. Five areas were identified as being crucial to the UN’s work and Executive Committees were established covering four of the five: peace and security, economic and social affairs, development co-operation and humanitarian affairs. There is no committee specifically devoted to the fifth main area of work, human rights, but in a sense we were accorded an even more central role in that my Office was called on to participate in all four Executive Committees, thus assuring that the human rights perspective would be heard and integrated into all of the organisation’s activities.

A key element in that integration has been our work to strengthen co-operation between my Office and other UN agencies based in different countries. In recent years, human rights have been integrated more and more into the development process, for example through closer ties between my Office and the United Nations Development Programme. Or the relationship we are building with the Economic and Social Commission based here in Beirut. The presence of human rights specialists is becoming a standard feature of peace-keeping and other UN post-conflict operations as well. Following my visit to Beirut I shall be travelling to Afghanistan. The people of that country who have experienced the horrors of war, decades of internal conflict, and the Taliban regime have an opportunity to reconstruct their society. Our contribution is to assist in that process in respect of human rights.

I should explain that the role given to me as High Commissioner by the UN General Assembly is one of catalytic leadership, based on the recognition that human rights is the responsibility of most if not all United Nations organs, and not the exclusive domain of my Office. The authority on which I operate is the wide range of human rights standards, which have been developed since the founding of the UN in 1945. As you know, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a landmark document in this evolution and it has given rise to over 60 human rights treaties and declarations which now cover almost every conceivable aspect of the individual’s rights. These range from conventions against torture and racial discrimination, to the protection of the rights of the child, the elimination to discrimination against women and the protection of minorities.

I work closely with the independent experts who serve on the committees that monitor whether or not governments abide by their obligations under the different human rights treaties. The reports of the committees perform a very important function in that they make recommendations for improvements and enable the public to examine different States records.

My Office also supports the work of experts appointed by the UN Commission on Human Rights to study and report on specific human rights concerns either in a particular country or on such themes as religious intolerance, arbitrary executions, extreme poverty, torture and violence against women to name a few. These mechanisms play a vital role in defending human rights; in fact the experts are the front line defenders of human rights within the United Nations system.

The other defenders on the front line are non-governmental organisations, NGOs. Local, national and international human rights NGOs are a vital part of the international human rights movement. They alert the world to human rights violations. They defend victims, promote human rights through education and campaign for improvements. NGOs increasingly work with the treaty bodies and the Commission. They provide information on human rights concerns to these bodies and monitor how their recommendations to Governments are followed up in practice.

The work done by NGOs is not without risk. Those who seek to promote and protect human rights have often become victims of violations themselves as a direct result of their tireless work. Concern to protect them led in 1998 to the adoption by the UN of a Declaration on Human Rights Defenders that defines their rights and calls on all states to respect their freedom to work as human rights advocates.


The challenges that remain

Clearly, we have made good progress in raising the profile of human rights internationally and bringing the wider UN family together to address human rights in an integrated manner. This progress is important, but what I have witnessed over the past four years plus makes it painfully clear how enormous the challenges are in establishing a culture of human rights around the world.

Consider some of the all too common examples:

Extreme poverty denies millions human dignity, leaving them with little hope to secure the fundamental rights to which all people are entitled.
Racial discrimination and gender inequality remain daily realities; religious and ethnic minorities are persecuted in many parts of the world.
Civilians are no longer only victims of war - today they are regarded as instruments of war. Girls and women are raped, children recruited and kidnapped to become child soldiers, forced to give expression to the hatred of adults.
Millions of refugees and internally displaced persons cannot return to their homes.
Those who defend the rights of others are silenced, imprisoned, killed.
The aftermath of 11 September has raised real concerns about terrorism but also the danger of limiting fundamental freedoms in response to the need to combat terrorism.


What is to be done?

The gaps between the rhetoric of human rights and the reality on the ground are of concern to everyone. They are the primary concern of national governments, which can either vindicate or erode them every day in their laws and policies, in the administration of justice, the workplace, and the marketplace.

What can be done to make a real difference? As a first step, at the national level an obvious thing that could be done is for all countries to ratify the main UN human rights conventions. Together with the Secretary General I have been campaigning for every country to ratify the six main UN human rights treaties by the year 2003. More countries are doing so but there are still major gaps.

Ratifying a Convention, as well as bringing greater transparency to a country’s human rights performance, can help it to set comprehensive goals and policies. Lebanon has ratified the six major human rights conventions and I am aware that efforts are being made to comply with their respective provisions. By signing and ratifying a seventh instrument, the Convention on Migrant workers, Lebanon would be not only be expressing its commitment to all human rights conventions but also making a major contribution towards the convention’s entry into force (there are currently 19 countries which signed the convention and one more is needed).

Human Rights and Terrorism

The phenomenon of terrorism sets many challenges to the interlinked purposes of the United Nations- international peace and security, human rights, human development and the rule of international law. These challenges are not new, but the terrorist attacks in the United States of 11 September reverberated around the world and shocked humanity. I have taken the view that, under existing norms of international criminal law, the attack on the World Trade Centre towers, can be characterised as a crime against humanity - both because of the nature and scale of the attack, and because it was aimed against civilians

At present there is no international court to try international crimes of this nature. But it is important to recall that, we now in principle have a statute, the Statute of the International Criminal Court, which provides for individual criminal responsibility for international crimes, including for the first time a standing international forum for their prosecution. We must ensure that this comes into force through sufficient ratification and thereby equip ourselves with the means to deal with such horrors as that of 11 September in the future. There are 60 ratifications required for the Statue to come into force. At the end of 2001 there were 139 signatures and 52 countries have ratified. The expectation is that the Statute could come into force in the second half of 2002. The universal ratification of the Statute is an important goal for the world community. The latest figures available indicate that 13 states in this region have signed the Statute. None have ratified it. We should discuss what could be done to encourage Arab states to take the necessary steps to join the Statute.

Prevention is the Key

One thing I have learned over the past four years is that more emphasis must be placed on prevention in the field of human rights. Prevention has become one of the main focuses of my Office’s work.

The sad reality is that for too long the international community has moved into action only after gross human rights violations have been committed, even though the evidence shows that the resources directed to intervention dwarf the amounts spent on preventive measures.

No single preventive strategy will be effective on its own. What is required is a combination of actions, namely:

economic and social development programmes which have human rights as their chief focus and which are capable of improving the lot of the poorest;
accountability for gross violations of human rights. Those who commit such crimes must be made to see that they will face justice;
strengthening capacity, support for democracy, for participatory systems of government, for the rule of law, the judiciary;
human rights education: teaching people to know their rights and thereby empowering them.


My Office is working to help strengthen preventive strategies. For example, there is great demand for assistance in setting up national human rights institutions. If these are independent, statutory bodies with real powers they can be a powerful force for change.

We also see our work to follow up the World Conference on Racism Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia, held last year in South Africa as being ultimately about prevention. The elimination of racial discrimination, not its control but its elimination, is our objective. That objective requires the commitment of all of us to the range of measures including educational measures that the international community agreed at the World Conference.

Regional initiatives in the Arab region

Another area of work concerned with both protection and prevention is building regional co-operation in the human rights field. I travel to many of regional meetings to lend support and to offer guidance. Increasingly, we are adopting a regional approach to our work, including in this region.

During the 1990's, the human rights movement burgeoned throughout the Arab world. From the Maghreb to the Gulf States, there are now more than 50 NGOs that work in monitoring, protection, awareness-raising, education, legal assistance, research and victim rehabilitation; at the same time, regional non-governmental institutions have begun to flourish.

In response to these positive developments, and to requests for assistance from governments and civil society, my Office’s involvement in the Arab world has increased. We have strengthened its relationship with Arab regional organizations.

We regrouped all OHCHR technical cooperation activities in the Arab world under a single desk, the Arab Region Desk. In addition, I have appointed two human rights regional advisors, to be based in the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) here in Beirut. One will be primarily concerned with the Arab region embracing the Gulf States and North Africa. This will enable us to be present and develop partnerships with UN agencies and NGOS in the region.


A Role for Universities

It would be a great mistake to imagine that human rights are solely a matter for governments, international organisations or even NGOs. Human rights begin at home and that includes in schools and universities. The potential the university community has to give leadership in building a human rights culture is immense.

I am exploring ways to work more closely with the academic community to build greater respect for human rights. In research terms for instance, we may need new models in which human rights principles can be more effectively implemented. We need to try out new models and see if they work. And if they do work, we should apply them.

We also need to make the case that human rights is not just for those who study law or politics – all parts of academic life have a role to play. Indeed it would be ideal if human rights courses were open to all students whatever their faculty or specialisation. For example, your School of Business could play a much needed role in helping us study how companies who are participating in the Secretary General’s Global Compact Initiative are implementing their commitments to the Compact’s principles in the area of human rights, labour and environmental standards. By becoming part of our Learning Forum, you would have a new window into the challenges companies face in being both good corporate citizens and profitable.

Or consider the fact that the benefits of modern technology are not reaching many millions of people on the planet. You may have read the remarks of the economist Jeffrey Sachs who has recently been appointed by the Secretary General as his advisor on achieving the development goals set by world leaders at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. Professor Sachs has called for new creativity and partnership between the rich and the poor. He has pointed out that research and development of new technologies are overwhelmingly directed at rich country problems. Meanwhile, malaria continues to kill more than a million people a year. Advances have been made in treating AIDS in resource-rich countries but in the developing world a deadly AIDS epidemic is raging.

I believe that Jeffrey Sach's call for a mobilisation of global science and technology to bridge these gaps is timely. What a contribution it would be if the business and academic communities were to take the lead to share their expertise and skills with the poorest countries of the world. Think of the progress that could be made in addressing the crises of public health, agricultural productivity, environmental degradation and demographic stress which so many people have to face.

What contributions could your Faculties of Agriculture & Food Sciences, Engineering & Architecture, Health Sciences or Medicine make to help achieve the Millennium Declaration goals?

The Call to Personal Action

Let me focus on the role of the individual. One of the strongest impressions I have from my work as High Commissioner is the importance of a bottom up approach to human rights - the role played at grassroots level by communities and individuals. Countless examples from around the world show us the extent to which individuals are willing to give of themselves, to be personally accountable so that rights we tend to take for granted can be assured. And, at the same time, many examples show how easy it can be to forget that without continuous commitment to the fight for human rights, the foundations of democracy can easily be eroded.

Human rights are not something far away; they start in communities and neighbourhoods. Who better than the Lebanese would know where resentment and intolerance among national communities could lead? For more than a decade, a whole generation witnessed the consequences of hate and blame, most of the families suffered sorrow and loss. I believe that complying with human rights principles is part of the solution, that it offers a vital framework to a more inclusive, sharing and equitable society in which reprisal and discrimination based on religion, race or gender have no place.

In the end, the hope for a culture of human rights is rooted in the belief that personal commitments are necessary to support and strengthen the laws and systems that protect such rights.

I was reading a news story recently that reminded me again of this truth. The article reviewed the work and achievements of the American author and citizen activist James Gardner who died last month. It included a quote by Mr. Gardner that I believe sums up our challenge:

"The identifying of values is a light preliminary exercise before the real and heroic task, which is to make the values live … Moral, ethical or spiritual values come alive only when living men and women re-create the values for their time - by living the faith, by caring, by doing."



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