Security and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: the role of the United Nations Comments by Ms. Mehr Khan Williams Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights

Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for inviting me to make a small contribution to this important discussion.

Let me start with two assertions.

First, in conflict situations, security is the most critical issue. No other considerations – of development, or of rights, for examples – come close to it in importance.

Second, post-conflict peace building is at best a last-resort concept. The way we phrase it highlights that our understanding of the relationship between security and conflict needs to be better understood.

Addressing these issues openly and frankly will be critical to the ability of individual states, the international community and the United Nations to improve its work in enhancing security.

So, to my first assertion. In a state of insecurity, when death is threateningly close, talk of anything else is a luxury, to put it mildly. There is a direct, terrible impact on security posed by war:

* Conservative estimates suggest that in last century, nearly 200 million people died, directly or indirectly, as a result of conflict;
* While conflicts, particularly with an international dimension, may be on the decline, internal fighting has killed some 3.6 million or more during the last decade;
* More than 90% of those killed or injured in post-Cold War conflict have been civilians, half of them children.

So even on a narrow understanding of security, effectively addressing actual conflict – that is, halting the fighting and doing more to protect those caught up in it – this is critical.

The World Summit’s explicit endorsement of the responsibility to protect stands out as a watershed commitment of the international community. How this responsibility will be exercised will go a long way to answering our collective concerns regarding security; How, in fact, will we respond to protect future generations from those massive, and illegal assaults on physical security that so often accompany conflict?

But let’s be clear: if states or warring factions choose to fight each other, the capacity of the United Nations – of its civil service – to prevent such a course of action is limited, as we have repeatedly witnessed. We can provide three things: a forum for dialogue; a legal framework to guide behaviour; and an appeal to conscience. But none of this provides much succour for those caught in the fighting.

Responsibility for security lies with states. It is as simple as that.
My second assertion contains two elements.

For, if there can be no security in a state of conflict, then conflict can be best avoided by enhancing security. Insecurity is both a cause and a product of conflict. We need to do more to focus on insecurity, the cause. It is for that reason that I believe that a discussion on post-conflict peace building cannot - should not - take place without a clear focus also on pre-conflict prevention.

We need to better understand the causes and the complex nature of many of today’s conflicts.

One of the greatest achievements of the last century was the enunciation and creation of a detailed architecture by which to describe, and assess, human security. I refer to international law: human rights law, refugee law, humanitarian law, and international criminal law.

These carefully articulated and agreed norms and standards – in sum, legal duties on states – address every aspect of that security. Let me name but a few: rights to physical integrity, to shelter, to education, to food and to health; rights to political participation, to asylum, to justice, not to be discriminated against, not to be tortured. And they provide a means by which human development can be better understood as an entitlement and not merely as an aspiration.

Equally, the founders of this framework evinced an appreciation, perhaps implicitly but no doubt unequivocally, of security that embraced both the individual and the collective.

In other words, the denial of one, or even perhaps several, of those rights I have listed may not impact in any particularly meaningful way on our collective security. Their denial, however, will have very real significance for the security of those who are subject to the denial.

Increasing the intensity of these violations or the spread of rights violated, and we soon face a collective security problem.

Failed states are the frightening end-point of the progression. Violence, the collapse of governance, and the absence of justice go together with disease and starvation. Corruption becomes the norm. The rule of law disappears. The rule of force is supreme. Old enmities, often grounded in discrimination, resurrect themselves. The vulnerable find out just how vulnerable they are. Economies mutate, fuelled by the violence. Displacement ensues. Desperation is entrenched. Fear and despair feed intolerance and extremism. A seemingly permanent, hellish state of being is arrived at.

It is vital that we confront all these challenges in order to ensure our collective wellbeing. Very few internal conflicts have causes that are purely internal. Equally, the consequences of such state failure cannot be presumed to remain confined within borders.

Central to our response must be the recognition of our collective responsibilities and, in fulfilling them, of the primacy of the rule of law and of our human rights. The former is the lynchpin for the protection of the latter.

We need a system predictable and transparent, in which the legal responsibilities and obligations I have outlined, and a mean of accountability when they are breached, is put in place. This requires not simply the establishment of an effective, professional and impartial judicial system, together with legal protections for personal safety and freedom. It requires not simply the creation of a professional legally subject police. It requires also a system to ensure social, political and economic inclusion. These, in turn, require us to strive harder to end discrimination, to eradicate poverty and to do more to strengthen democratic systems of governance.

We need collective commitment to make these things happen. The Summit has taken us further forward. But the root causes of insecurity must be addressed in any attempt to build and retain the peace.

Thank you.