HUMAN RIGHTS DAY MESSAGE OF BERTRAND RAMCHARAN ACTING UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

POVERTY, CONFLICTS, TERRORISM, VIOLENCE, PREJUDICE
AND BAD GOVERNANCE GROSSLY VIOLATE HUMAN RIGHTS

10 DECEMBER 2003

We must all be deeply distressed and anguished on this Human Rights Day that, 10 years after the solemn commitments of the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights (1993), human rights are grossly violated throughout the world because of poverty, conflicts, terrorism, violence, prejudice and bad governance.

Notwithstanding the lofty commitments in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, and the more recent commitment to human rights values in the Millennium Declaration (2000), the universality of human rights remains formal rather than real in the contemporary world. Inequalities and injustices against women and children are commonplace, and racism and racial discrimination have far from receded.

Poverty has not declined. On the contrary, for nearly a billion people the economic, social and cultural rights of the Universal Declaration, whose fifty-fifth anniversary we commemorate this year, will remain illusory. They will hardly be able to survive and many will not live to the age of fifty-five. Democracy, the rule of law, and respect for civil and political rights are distant from the wretched poor of the earth. The struggle against poverty must remain at the forefront of the human rights movement.

In today’s world civilians are deliberately targeted in conflicts and the rules of international human rights and humanitarian laws are flouted with impunity. Contemporary conflicts wreak havoc on the human rights of millions. It is therefore of the utmost urgency to intensify efforts for the prevention of conflicts – nationally, regionally and internationally. The prevention of conflicts means the prevention of gross violations of human rights.

Terrorism, alas, adds to the burdens of the world’s peoples. The Security Council, the General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights have all soundly condemned terrorism. Terrorists kill, maim, terrify and threaten without compunction. The international human rights movement must speak out against terrorism with all the force at its command.

Violence, deliberately perpetrated by authorities on their subjects, afflicts millions of the world’s people. Torture, arbitrary and summary executions, enforced and involuntary disappearances, arbitrary detention, and the ill-treatment of minorities, indigenous populations and migrants are widespread. Thousands of young women are trafficked into prostitution and slavery. The sexual exploitation of children is a blight on our civilization. We continue to experience a crisis of values among humankind. The international human rights movement must denounce gross violations of human rights wherever they occur. It is a duty of conscience.

Prejudice, racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-Islamism, anti-other religions, and other forms of intolerance are prevalent in our midst – often in the heart of societies that profess faith in the ideals of the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Governments profess tolerance while their people hate those of a different complexion or culture. The struggle for equality and non-discrimination must be a rallying struggle of the human rights movement.

Let us be honest and recognize that bad governance is at the root of many of the afflictions of the world’s peoples and of the gross violations of human rights that are rampant in the contemporary world. Equity and the stronger protection of human rights demand better governance. In the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the will of the people must be the basis of the authority of government. This will should be expressed in periodic and genuine elections by universal and equal suffrage in free voting procedures.

On this Human Rights Day, my heart goes out to the victims of human rights violations the world over. I plead for the cessation of these pervasive violations of human rights. I plead for the world of the Universal Declaration to become reality for all the world’s peoples on the ground. I plead for democracy, for the rule of law, and for justice.

I plead for stronger measures of protection, nationally, regionally and internationally. I call upon each Government to review the adequacy of its protection mechanisms at home. I call upon subregional and regional organizations to ask what more they could do to strengthen human rights protection. I call upon the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, the Commission on Human Rights and the human rights treaty bodies, each to consider what more it could do to strengthen human rights protection.

We have not yet attained the world of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But I am convinced that one day we shall. The promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights beckons us to a better world. Today, I plead for stronger human rights protection.