Welcome to the United Nations 
OHCHR 
Statements Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Default title
04 November 1999
Share
Statement by Mary Robinson
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
General Assembly
Third Committee
New York, 4 November 1999
Mr./Madame Chair, Distinguished Delegates,
It is a pleasure for me to meet again with this Committee to introduce my annual report and to discuss with you, the distinguished representatives of our Member States, a subject which is at the heart of the concerns of the peoples of the United Nations; the promotion and protection of human rights.
My report covers a number of issues of importance and, together with the other human rights items and reports before this Committee, presents the wide and diverse range of human rights issues which face the international community. This Committee, a central body in the United Nations for human rights, is uniquely situated to consider human rights from a world wide perspective and I would like to this opportunity to share some reflections on the challenges which await us as we enter the next century.
Twin challenges; human rights protection and conflict prevention
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has reminded us that we face a two-fold challenge; to make the next century a century of human rights and to create a world wide culture of conflict prevention. Both of these challenges are interrelated and success in one will require progress in the other.
Embedding a culture of respect for human rights
Embedding a culture of respect for human rights in the societies, institutions and cultures of our planet is one of my prime objectives as High Commissioner. I believe we have in place the standards and proven methods to achieve that objective, if we will commit the political will and required resources.
My report surveys the international legal standards in human rights which provide detailed protection for the essential elements of human dignity and the range of procedures and methods the United Nations has devised to implement those standards.
United Nations human rights standards need to be ratified to provide the protection they were designed to give. I wish here to appeal again to all those States which have not done so to ratify those treaties. Particular attention should be given to the Two Covenants, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the International Convention on the Protection of Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. Both the Secretary-General and I have urged the ratification by all countries of the core human rights treaties by 2003 which we believe is a realistic time scale.
I very much welcome the adoption of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women which is an important step forward in the protection of the human rights of women and I urge its early ratification and entry into force.
Implementation of these treaties would go a long way towards dealing with the causes of many conflict situations we face today, which is why I give special priority to improving the functioning of the human rights treaty bodies. The work of these bodies can have a multiplier effect on the national level leading to progressively greater respect for human rights, however they are handicapped by being under-resourced and this issue must be addressed.
My report also deals with the special procedures which have their own specific contribution to make to identifying and bringing to an end serious violations of human rights. As with the treaty system, we will have to make a concerted effort to improve the special procedures and the support we are able to give. A number of practical suggestions have been developed which are reflected in my report.
Improving the functioning of the treaty system and of the special procedures will require the support and cooperation of Member States, and I look forward to working together with you for that purpose.
Strengthening national protection and reacting to allegations of violations require the vigilant efforts of human rights defenders. Last year this Committee and the Assembly marked the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by adopting a Declaration which explicitly protects those working for human rights.
Here I want to express my deepest concern for human rights defenders and journalists who are imprisoned, tortured and killed because, in carrying out the injunction of the Universal Declaration, they try to bring to light violations of human rights. A real test of our commitment to effective human rights protection will be measures taken to put the Human Rights Defenders Declaration into practice on the national level and what kind of international implementation mechanism we can put in place to protect human rights defenders.
Building national cultures of human rights requires targeted assistance in national human rights capacity building, which is why I have given emphasis to strengthening and modernizing our programme of technical cooperation. Based on national plans of action, wide involvement of civic society and the establishment of truly independent national human rights institutions the technical cooperation programme is making a quiet but visible contribution to improving the enjoyment of human rights in many countries.
As my report shows, we have found the regional approach very productive. I want to signal here the progress made in the Asia-Pacific Region in following up on their commitments in this matter. I also wish to welcome the adoption in Mauritius last April by the First OAU Ministerial Conference on Human Rights of the Grand Bay Declaration and Plan of Action. My Office is already at work on finding ways and means to assist and support that historic document.
For Latin America and the Caribbean, I am looking forward to a visit to that region later this month and to participating in the regional workshop in Quito, Ecuador. That workshop could well lay the basis for a regional strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean.
In promoting regional progress in human rights protection, I have found it very helpful to appoint a regional advisor to assist in keeping contact with regional realities and in taking the lead in developing regional activities. I am pleased that the distinguished jurist and former Chief Justice of India, P. J. Bhagwati was able to accept the appointment as regional advisor for the Asia - Pacific region.
Cross-cutting issues
Helping States to face the challenge of effectively protecting human rights requires the United Nations to focus attention on a number of cross-cutting issues whose impacts transcend borders and where solutions require collective thinking and action.
Racial discrimination, racism and related intolerance
No more serious danger threatens human rights today than the specter of racism. In every part of the world, the virus of intolerance seeks to destroy the healthy tissues of society and causes internal and international conflict, wide spread massacres and even genocide. That is why I give such high importance to my responsibilities as Secretary-General of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance which will be held in the year 2001. We are moving on a number of levels to ensure that the Conference is well prepared and that it will have a wide and lasting impact. I wish to appeal to Member States to make available the necessary resources as requested in the 20 May appeal.
The World Conference against Racism will be an ideal opportunity to mobilize the local and national community of each State in the campaign against discrimination and for the respect of the dignity of each individual. I would like to suggest that we engage civil society and the non-governmental community in each country along with national human rights institutions in examining the question of dignity and equality. What has been achieved and what still needs to be done, are two questions which they could address. The World Conference would then be able to benefit from the energy, imagination and commitment of the people of each country in building the international response to the challenge of discrimination.
The protection of indigenous peoples is also an important matter often linked with intolerance.
The International Decade of the World's Indigenous People has made some progress, but as can be seen from the Secretary-General's report much needs to be done to achieve the Decade's objectives. This will require the focused action of local communities, national governments and international organizations.
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Right to Development
It would be difficult to over estimate the contribution that real respect for economic, social and cultural rights and the human right to development could have to conflict prevention. How many of today's conflicts find their roots in peoples' struggles for recognition of their rights to economic well being, social dignity and respect for their own cultures?
Can we say we are respecting the right to development when, as the 1999 State of the World's Children Report tells us, nearly a billion people, a sixth of humanity, are functionally illiterate and will enter the twenty-first century unable to read a book or sign their names, and two-thirds of them are female. And what about the right to food when 830 million people are chronically undernourished?
The 1999 Human Development Report points to the bleak reality that, “more than a quarter of the 4.5 billion people in developing countries still do not have some of life’s most basic choices – survival beyond age 40, access to knowledge and minimum private and public services.
• Nearly 1.3 billion people do not have access to clean water.
• One in seven children of primary school age is out of school.
• About 840 million are malnourished.
• An estimated 1.3 billion people live on incomes of less than $1 (1987 PPP$) a day.”
Do not these statistics prefigure grave and widespread conflicts of significant proportions? The answer to that question is that they don't have to -- provided the international community shows the leadership required for national and international action.
That is why it is essential to give the highest priority to promoting respect for economic, social and cultural rights and the right to development. As my report shows, extensive inter-agency work is underway to mainstream in the spheres of development the imperative of respect for human rights. A valuable contribution to our thinking in this matter was the October 1998 Oslo Symposium on Human Development and Human Rights which was organized jointly with the Norwegian Government and UNDP; the papers of that symposium were published recently.
But the debate must be widened. It has become clear, especially in relation to the rights of the child, that the gap between policy making in the macro-economic sphere and in the social sphere must be closed. Decisions on macro-economic policy such as budget deficits, interest rates, exchange rates, unemployment and trade are too often made in ignorance and isolation from their human rights consequences. And it is left to social policy and the assistance budget to try to remedy the human suffering and dislocation those policies can cause.
And these consequences can be very serious. One child rights economist has said " an incompetent Central Bank can be more harmful to children than an incompetent Ministry of Education" and "trade and exchange rates policies may, for example, have a larger impact on children's development than the relative size of the budget allocated to health and education".
The Commission on Human Rights discussed this during the special dialogue on the rights of the child last April and the theme was continued in ECOSOC that, nationally and internationally, the human rights component must be factored into macro-economic decision making. The World Bank is developing the human rights elements of its policy making and the International Monetary Fund has just made an important step in this direction in its new approach to debt relief and poverty elimination.
Rights of the child
Ten years ago the General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child which combines the whole range of human rights and sets out new perspectives for the protection of the rights of children. This year we have been giving careful attention to how the various human rights bodies of the United Nations can improve their contribution to protecting child rights.
Children in armed conflict and juvenile justice are two areas which have been the focus of attention. I would like to appeal here for rapid conclusion of the optional protocol raising the age of recruitment into armed forces to the age of 18. It is, however, of great concern that in spite of the existing international norm of 15 years, children below that age are not only recruited into armed forces, but also exposed to the moral and physical dangers of combat. As I said in my report to the Commission on Human Rights, that existing international norm should be fully enforced. Arming children, directly or indirectly, should not be tolerated. I would like here to call upon countries exporting arms to undertake not to export them to countries which enroll children in armed forces in violation of their commitment under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Juvenile justice is another important issue which requires our close attention. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has asked me to consider ways of promoting a better understanding and implementation of child rights in juvenile justice procedures. We learn almost every day of the stark abuses to which many children are subjected when confronted with the criminal justice system and there is a clear need to better understand the underlying circumstances and identify possible remedies.
I believe the process leading up to an international conference would enable us to make significant progress in addressing these problems. The issues should be broadened to include respect for the rights of all children who are under the authority of the State, for example those in orphanages or foster homes. I will be working closely with the Committee, UNICEF, the concerned non-governmental organizations and experts in examining this issue.
Preventing massive violations of human rights
Embedding a culture of human rights in the lives of individuals, social groups, government organs and international organizations requires the patient and long term work of building up a human rights society. Unfortunately, that ongoing work is overshadowed by the tragic situations of large scale violations of human rights. The horrors of Cambodia, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kosovo and East Timor were brought home to us graphically by print media, radio and television.
Why?
The public response to these terrible examples of human rights abuses, understandably, is to ask why? Why can’t more be done about gross human rights violation? Why have people in the Balkans or East Timor or Central Africa to endure so much to secure rights about which there is a universal consensus? Why have there been genocides in Rwanda and Cambodia when the whole of the modern human rights movement is predicated on the determination, born out of the horrors of the Holocaust, that genocide would never happen again? Why cannot the international community - and the United Nations in particular - prevent these horrors from happening?
These questions are particularly poignant when we remember the warnings received of impending disaster. One year before the Rwanda crisis erupted, a report to the Commission on Human Rights had sounded the alarm. And we have known for some years of the deteriorating situation in Kosovo.
Raising the concept of prevention to the international level
It is here that the notion of human rights prevention comes into its own. We must raise to the international level the well known techniques of prevention developed on the national level.
These techniques cover the whole range of prevention including that of human rights institution building, and include ongoing efforts within the UN system to co-ordinate efforts to improve early warning and conflict prevention capacity. But when faced with impending human rights disasters, the international community often appears unprepared and caught off guard. Information is not in short supply, it is action that is wanting. The reports of human rights special rapporteurs and working groups and the reports and work of the human rights treaty bodies contain valuable sources of independent information and analysis which could help prevent disaster, if only that information could lead to action.
Could we not imagine an international mechanism which could consider that information and undertake or suggest appropriate action? That action could span the whole spectrum of established techniques of conflict prevention from quiet diplomacy, to public warnings to action by responsible organs. To be effective that mechanism, involving Member States, would have to be able to function with discretion. This would suggest that it meet periodically in private and review information which could indicate imminent or longer term problems. But to merit the confidence of the people, to help develop a sense of shared responsibility for the future among States, and to provide a basis for lessons learned, some public scrutiny of the work of that mechanism would have to be provided for. Could we not achieve the desired degree of transparency by making public the discussions, at a set interval after each meeting, as is the practice on the national level with certain government bodies dealing with very sensitive matters.
Accountability
A crucial factor in the prevention of gross violations of human rights is personal accountability and the end of impunity. I welcome the trend whereby courts are increasingly allowing the prosecution of human rights cases, irrespective of where they occurred or how much time has elapsed. I welcome, too, the fact that the international judicial machinery is finally moving into action: the setting up of ad hoc tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda was an important step forward and the adoption of the Statute of an International Criminal Court providing jurisdiction over the three core crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, was a milestone in the struggle to strengthen respect for international human rights and humanitarian law. What better way could there be to usher in an age of prevention than for States to ratify the Statute of the International Criminal Court and allow it to begin its vital work? I urge all States to ratify the Statute.
Concluding remarks
The difficulties we face in aspiring to a world wide culture of respect for human rights are enormous and some would say we are naive even to take up the challenge. But, after the dark days of the second world war the drafters of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights took up the challenge of hope and confidence and we have all benefitted from that vision.
On that foundation a strong system of rules and procedures has been built along with growing support of people all over the world for respect for human rights. I do not think that respect for human rights is an impossibly idealistic goal. But it will require responsible decision making by Governments. Nor do I despair of the United Nations as the focus for international human rights action. Its universality and impartiality, and its ability to listen to the weakest over the influence of the strong, makes it indispensable.
But even more important will be the strength of civil society. As the Millennium Assembly approaches, we must develop strong and mutually reinforcing relationships with the organs of civil society, to better hear the voice of "We the Peoples of the United Nations"
I have dealt with some of the important matters on your agenda but, unfortunately, have been unable to deal with many others which also deserve our close attention. I now look forward to your observations and questions and to working with you towards improving respect for human rights throughout the world.
Thank you
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
General Assembly
Third Committee
New York, 4 November 1999
Mr./Madame Chair, Distinguished Delegates,
It is a pleasure for me to meet again with this Committee to introduce my annual report and to discuss with you, the distinguished representatives of our Member States, a subject which is at the heart of the concerns of the peoples of the United Nations; the promotion and protection of human rights.
My report covers a number of issues of importance and, together with the other human rights items and reports before this Committee, presents the wide and diverse range of human rights issues which face the international community. This Committee, a central body in the United Nations for human rights, is uniquely situated to consider human rights from a world wide perspective and I would like to this opportunity to share some reflections on the challenges which await us as we enter the next century.
Twin challenges; human rights protection and conflict prevention
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has reminded us that we face a two-fold challenge; to make the next century a century of human rights and to create a world wide culture of conflict prevention. Both of these challenges are interrelated and success in one will require progress in the other.
Embedding a culture of respect for human rights
Embedding a culture of respect for human rights in the societies, institutions and cultures of our planet is one of my prime objectives as High Commissioner. I believe we have in place the standards and proven methods to achieve that objective, if we will commit the political will and required resources.
My report surveys the international legal standards in human rights which provide detailed protection for the essential elements of human dignity and the range of procedures and methods the United Nations has devised to implement those standards.
United Nations human rights standards need to be ratified to provide the protection they were designed to give. I wish here to appeal again to all those States which have not done so to ratify those treaties. Particular attention should be given to the Two Covenants, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the International Convention on the Protection of Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. Both the Secretary-General and I have urged the ratification by all countries of the core human rights treaties by 2003 which we believe is a realistic time scale.
I very much welcome the adoption of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women which is an important step forward in the protection of the human rights of women and I urge its early ratification and entry into force.
Implementation of these treaties would go a long way towards dealing with the causes of many conflict situations we face today, which is why I give special priority to improving the functioning of the human rights treaty bodies. The work of these bodies can have a multiplier effect on the national level leading to progressively greater respect for human rights, however they are handicapped by being under-resourced and this issue must be addressed.
My report also deals with the special procedures which have their own specific contribution to make to identifying and bringing to an end serious violations of human rights. As with the treaty system, we will have to make a concerted effort to improve the special procedures and the support we are able to give. A number of practical suggestions have been developed which are reflected in my report.
Improving the functioning of the treaty system and of the special procedures will require the support and cooperation of Member States, and I look forward to working together with you for that purpose.
Strengthening national protection and reacting to allegations of violations require the vigilant efforts of human rights defenders. Last year this Committee and the Assembly marked the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by adopting a Declaration which explicitly protects those working for human rights.
Here I want to express my deepest concern for human rights defenders and journalists who are imprisoned, tortured and killed because, in carrying out the injunction of the Universal Declaration, they try to bring to light violations of human rights. A real test of our commitment to effective human rights protection will be measures taken to put the Human Rights Defenders Declaration into practice on the national level and what kind of international implementation mechanism we can put in place to protect human rights defenders.
Building national cultures of human rights requires targeted assistance in national human rights capacity building, which is why I have given emphasis to strengthening and modernizing our programme of technical cooperation. Based on national plans of action, wide involvement of civic society and the establishment of truly independent national human rights institutions the technical cooperation programme is making a quiet but visible contribution to improving the enjoyment of human rights in many countries.
As my report shows, we have found the regional approach very productive. I want to signal here the progress made in the Asia-Pacific Region in following up on their commitments in this matter. I also wish to welcome the adoption in Mauritius last April by the First OAU Ministerial Conference on Human Rights of the Grand Bay Declaration and Plan of Action. My Office is already at work on finding ways and means to assist and support that historic document.
For Latin America and the Caribbean, I am looking forward to a visit to that region later this month and to participating in the regional workshop in Quito, Ecuador. That workshop could well lay the basis for a regional strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean.
In promoting regional progress in human rights protection, I have found it very helpful to appoint a regional advisor to assist in keeping contact with regional realities and in taking the lead in developing regional activities. I am pleased that the distinguished jurist and former Chief Justice of India, P. J. Bhagwati was able to accept the appointment as regional advisor for the Asia - Pacific region.
Cross-cutting issues
Helping States to face the challenge of effectively protecting human rights requires the United Nations to focus attention on a number of cross-cutting issues whose impacts transcend borders and where solutions require collective thinking and action.
Racial discrimination, racism and related intolerance
No more serious danger threatens human rights today than the specter of racism. In every part of the world, the virus of intolerance seeks to destroy the healthy tissues of society and causes internal and international conflict, wide spread massacres and even genocide. That is why I give such high importance to my responsibilities as Secretary-General of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance which will be held in the year 2001. We are moving on a number of levels to ensure that the Conference is well prepared and that it will have a wide and lasting impact. I wish to appeal to Member States to make available the necessary resources as requested in the 20 May appeal.
The World Conference against Racism will be an ideal opportunity to mobilize the local and national community of each State in the campaign against discrimination and for the respect of the dignity of each individual. I would like to suggest that we engage civil society and the non-governmental community in each country along with national human rights institutions in examining the question of dignity and equality. What has been achieved and what still needs to be done, are two questions which they could address. The World Conference would then be able to benefit from the energy, imagination and commitment of the people of each country in building the international response to the challenge of discrimination.
The protection of indigenous peoples is also an important matter often linked with intolerance.
The International Decade of the World's Indigenous People has made some progress, but as can be seen from the Secretary-General's report much needs to be done to achieve the Decade's objectives. This will require the focused action of local communities, national governments and international organizations.
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Right to Development
It would be difficult to over estimate the contribution that real respect for economic, social and cultural rights and the human right to development could have to conflict prevention. How many of today's conflicts find their roots in peoples' struggles for recognition of their rights to economic well being, social dignity and respect for their own cultures?
Can we say we are respecting the right to development when, as the 1999 State of the World's Children Report tells us, nearly a billion people, a sixth of humanity, are functionally illiterate and will enter the twenty-first century unable to read a book or sign their names, and two-thirds of them are female. And what about the right to food when 830 million people are chronically undernourished?
The 1999 Human Development Report points to the bleak reality that, “more than a quarter of the 4.5 billion people in developing countries still do not have some of life’s most basic choices – survival beyond age 40, access to knowledge and minimum private and public services.
• Nearly 1.3 billion people do not have access to clean water.
• One in seven children of primary school age is out of school.
• About 840 million are malnourished.
• An estimated 1.3 billion people live on incomes of less than $1 (1987 PPP$) a day.”
Do not these statistics prefigure grave and widespread conflicts of significant proportions? The answer to that question is that they don't have to -- provided the international community shows the leadership required for national and international action.
That is why it is essential to give the highest priority to promoting respect for economic, social and cultural rights and the right to development. As my report shows, extensive inter-agency work is underway to mainstream in the spheres of development the imperative of respect for human rights. A valuable contribution to our thinking in this matter was the October 1998 Oslo Symposium on Human Development and Human Rights which was organized jointly with the Norwegian Government and UNDP; the papers of that symposium were published recently.
But the debate must be widened. It has become clear, especially in relation to the rights of the child, that the gap between policy making in the macro-economic sphere and in the social sphere must be closed. Decisions on macro-economic policy such as budget deficits, interest rates, exchange rates, unemployment and trade are too often made in ignorance and isolation from their human rights consequences. And it is left to social policy and the assistance budget to try to remedy the human suffering and dislocation those policies can cause.
And these consequences can be very serious. One child rights economist has said " an incompetent Central Bank can be more harmful to children than an incompetent Ministry of Education" and "trade and exchange rates policies may, for example, have a larger impact on children's development than the relative size of the budget allocated to health and education".
The Commission on Human Rights discussed this during the special dialogue on the rights of the child last April and the theme was continued in ECOSOC that, nationally and internationally, the human rights component must be factored into macro-economic decision making. The World Bank is developing the human rights elements of its policy making and the International Monetary Fund has just made an important step in this direction in its new approach to debt relief and poverty elimination.
Rights of the child
Ten years ago the General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child which combines the whole range of human rights and sets out new perspectives for the protection of the rights of children. This year we have been giving careful attention to how the various human rights bodies of the United Nations can improve their contribution to protecting child rights.
Children in armed conflict and juvenile justice are two areas which have been the focus of attention. I would like to appeal here for rapid conclusion of the optional protocol raising the age of recruitment into armed forces to the age of 18. It is, however, of great concern that in spite of the existing international norm of 15 years, children below that age are not only recruited into armed forces, but also exposed to the moral and physical dangers of combat. As I said in my report to the Commission on Human Rights, that existing international norm should be fully enforced. Arming children, directly or indirectly, should not be tolerated. I would like here to call upon countries exporting arms to undertake not to export them to countries which enroll children in armed forces in violation of their commitment under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Juvenile justice is another important issue which requires our close attention. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has asked me to consider ways of promoting a better understanding and implementation of child rights in juvenile justice procedures. We learn almost every day of the stark abuses to which many children are subjected when confronted with the criminal justice system and there is a clear need to better understand the underlying circumstances and identify possible remedies.
I believe the process leading up to an international conference would enable us to make significant progress in addressing these problems. The issues should be broadened to include respect for the rights of all children who are under the authority of the State, for example those in orphanages or foster homes. I will be working closely with the Committee, UNICEF, the concerned non-governmental organizations and experts in examining this issue.
Preventing massive violations of human rights
Embedding a culture of human rights in the lives of individuals, social groups, government organs and international organizations requires the patient and long term work of building up a human rights society. Unfortunately, that ongoing work is overshadowed by the tragic situations of large scale violations of human rights. The horrors of Cambodia, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kosovo and East Timor were brought home to us graphically by print media, radio and television.
Why?
The public response to these terrible examples of human rights abuses, understandably, is to ask why? Why can’t more be done about gross human rights violation? Why have people in the Balkans or East Timor or Central Africa to endure so much to secure rights about which there is a universal consensus? Why have there been genocides in Rwanda and Cambodia when the whole of the modern human rights movement is predicated on the determination, born out of the horrors of the Holocaust, that genocide would never happen again? Why cannot the international community - and the United Nations in particular - prevent these horrors from happening?
These questions are particularly poignant when we remember the warnings received of impending disaster. One year before the Rwanda crisis erupted, a report to the Commission on Human Rights had sounded the alarm. And we have known for some years of the deteriorating situation in Kosovo.
Raising the concept of prevention to the international level
It is here that the notion of human rights prevention comes into its own. We must raise to the international level the well known techniques of prevention developed on the national level.
These techniques cover the whole range of prevention including that of human rights institution building, and include ongoing efforts within the UN system to co-ordinate efforts to improve early warning and conflict prevention capacity. But when faced with impending human rights disasters, the international community often appears unprepared and caught off guard. Information is not in short supply, it is action that is wanting. The reports of human rights special rapporteurs and working groups and the reports and work of the human rights treaty bodies contain valuable sources of independent information and analysis which could help prevent disaster, if only that information could lead to action.
Could we not imagine an international mechanism which could consider that information and undertake or suggest appropriate action? That action could span the whole spectrum of established techniques of conflict prevention from quiet diplomacy, to public warnings to action by responsible organs. To be effective that mechanism, involving Member States, would have to be able to function with discretion. This would suggest that it meet periodically in private and review information which could indicate imminent or longer term problems. But to merit the confidence of the people, to help develop a sense of shared responsibility for the future among States, and to provide a basis for lessons learned, some public scrutiny of the work of that mechanism would have to be provided for. Could we not achieve the desired degree of transparency by making public the discussions, at a set interval after each meeting, as is the practice on the national level with certain government bodies dealing with very sensitive matters.
Accountability
A crucial factor in the prevention of gross violations of human rights is personal accountability and the end of impunity. I welcome the trend whereby courts are increasingly allowing the prosecution of human rights cases, irrespective of where they occurred or how much time has elapsed. I welcome, too, the fact that the international judicial machinery is finally moving into action: the setting up of ad hoc tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda was an important step forward and the adoption of the Statute of an International Criminal Court providing jurisdiction over the three core crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, was a milestone in the struggle to strengthen respect for international human rights and humanitarian law. What better way could there be to usher in an age of prevention than for States to ratify the Statute of the International Criminal Court and allow it to begin its vital work? I urge all States to ratify the Statute.
Concluding remarks
The difficulties we face in aspiring to a world wide culture of respect for human rights are enormous and some would say we are naive even to take up the challenge. But, after the dark days of the second world war the drafters of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights took up the challenge of hope and confidence and we have all benefitted from that vision.
On that foundation a strong system of rules and procedures has been built along with growing support of people all over the world for respect for human rights. I do not think that respect for human rights is an impossibly idealistic goal. But it will require responsible decision making by Governments. Nor do I despair of the United Nations as the focus for international human rights action. Its universality and impartiality, and its ability to listen to the weakest over the influence of the strong, makes it indispensable.
But even more important will be the strength of civil society. As the Millennium Assembly approaches, we must develop strong and mutually reinforcing relationships with the organs of civil society, to better hear the voice of "We the Peoples of the United Nations"
I have dealt with some of the important matters on your agenda but, unfortunately, have been unable to deal with many others which also deserve our close attention. I now look forward to your observations and questions and to working with you towards improving respect for human rights throughout the world.
Thank you