Statement by Mary Robinson High Commissioner for Human Rights at the closing session of the 54th session of the Commission on Human Rights

Geneva, 24 April 1998

Mr Chairman,

I wish to congratulate you and the members of the Commission on the outcome of six weeks of serious deliberation and action across the full spectrum of human rights. Six weeks ago you posed a question - the challenge of "making a difference" - I am sure there will be speakers today who offer answers to that question. My own view is that it is a question which needs to be posed every day and I welcome the Chairman's assertions that the Commission's work takes place over a full year rather than for just six weeks. All of us - whether governments, NGOs, national institutions or in the United Nations - need to make a difference throughout the year.

Your session has provided some signal achievements. I was delighted at the approval of the draft Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. Its adoption at the General Assembly will be an important contribution to the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And yet we all know that adoption alone is not enough - declarations need implementation. The assassination of the Colombian human rights activist Eduardo Umaña Mendoza was a brutal reminder of the price being paid by those who devote their lives to the protection of human rights. As a first step in honouring the approval of the Draft Declaration I would earnestly hope that all individuals and all members of NGO's who came to this Commission to raise their concerns about human rights violations and abuses can return home to their own countries without fear of retribution.

Mr Chairman,

I wish to thank the Commission for the special meeting devoted to the question of integrating gender issues into its work and I welcome the dialogue begun between the Commission and the Commission on the Status of Women. This was a promising beginning on which to build understanding of the issues and the roles of both bodies.

Your session also enhanced its recognition of the role of national institutions in the promotion and protection of human rights. As you know, my Office places considerable importance on this approach to national capacity building based on the Paris Principles adopted in 1992 - which require such bodies to be genuinely independent and have appropriate resources and powers to discharge their responsibilities effectively. There has been an encouraging growth in the requests to my Office to support the establishment or strengthening of such institutions and your resolution provides welcome encouragement for this work.

As you are aware, my mandate places a particular emphasis on ensuring the right to development, a right which I see as a synthesis of civil and political and economic, social and cultural rights. I thank those delegates whose tenacity and flexibility resulted in the adoption by consensus of a resolution to enhance our work on this important right.

I welcome also the creation of new mandates to report on the economic, social and cultural rights. While welcoming this more balanced approach by the Commission I am faced with the impossible task of meeting mounting demands with dwindling resources. As you put it so eloquently yourself, Chairman, my Office receives just 1.67 per cent of the United Nations regular budget - and I thus welcome the Chairman's resolution you adopted today appealing to the Secretary-General, the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly to take steps to secure sufficient resources to enable my Office to discharge the responsibilities and mandates established by member states.

This year, the Commission adopted a resolution on the composition of the staff of my office. While I believe that the issue of equitable geographic distribution should apply across the Secretariat, I recognise a need to respond to some of the concerns in that resolution, and I would urge member States and observers to work towards a common understanding on these questions. I would like to take the opportunity to inform the Commission that Mr Bacre Ndiaye has been nominated to fill the D2 post in the New York office with effect from 1 June. You are already familiar with his work as Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary executions and as a long time human rights activist in the NGO world. I am confident he will play a key role in the further development of our work - in particular through the Executive Committees which are an important avenue of mainstreaming human rights throughout the work of the United Nations.

Mr Chairman,

Permit me to congratulate you on obtaining agreement from the Commission on a reformed agenda and also for a thorough review of the Commission's mechanisms with a view to enhancing their effectiveness. My Office looks forward to close cooperation with this review which will complement my own responsibility to streamline and improve the efficiency of the human rights programme.

In conclusion, Mr Chairman, on behalf of myself and all the members of my Office, I wish you every success in the future. You, Mr. Chairman, have made a remarkable personal commitment to this Commission as you had done previously to the Oslo Conference which drew up the convention prohibiting the use of anti-personnel mines. I have valued your wisdom and support over these weeks, as you and your colleagues initiated me into the mysteries of the Commission on Human Rights.

In keeping with your view that the Commission is a process and not an event I will not offer farewells - our work continues. I have said often that this human rights year is a time not for celebration but for recommitment to redress many of the wrongs and inequities in the world. I would argue that this Commission through its work over the past weeks and its commitment to enhancing its mechanisms has honoured the Universal Declaration.

Thank you Mr Chairman.