Statement by Mr. Enrique ter Horst, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights to the Conference on Internal Conflicts: The Role of Humanitarian Action organized by the Rights Webster University of Geneva

Geneva, 2 April 1998


Human Rights and Internal Conflicts

I am pleased to be here today and to contribute to your discussions on one of the most important issues currently facing the United Nations, namely the continued prevalence of internal conflicts in all regions of the world, and the enormous human suffering which they cause. It is my firm belief that putting an end to these conflicts -- and before that is done curbing the abuses that take place while the conflicts persist -- can only be accomplished through comprehensive and sustained efforts on the part of the UN and other humanitarian actors. It is also my firm belief that to be effective, such efforts must not only be carefully planned, but also mutually re-inforcing, and this implies the need for a common framework for our action. We do not need to invent that framework -- we already have it in the form of the UN’s human rights standards and principles. Before explaining what I mean by this, let us briefly consider the scale of the problem we confront.

It is by now a truism to note that it is internal-- not inter-State -- conflicts which are the most prevalent. By some estimates, there are currently 19 internal conflicts in the world in which at least 1,000 people are killed each year, and 40 other situations of internal conflict or violence in which between 100 and 1,000 people are killed each year. Taking just the most serious ongoing internal conflicts, estimates suggest that by 1996 they had led to between 6.5 and 8.4 million deaths since their beginning. Of course, the number of deaths is only one indication of the enormous suffering and misery they cause. In 1996, Graca Machel, the Secretary-General’s expert on the impact of armed conflict on children, reported that 2 million children had been killed in conflicts in the previous decade -- the overwhelming majority of these in internal conflicts. Ms Machel spoke of the “desolate moral vacuum” created by modern conflict, a “space devoid of the most basic human values”.

The human rights abuses prevalent in internal conflicts are among the most serious in the world today. Assaults on the right to life are widespread -- massacres, direct and indiscriminate attacks on civilians, killing of prisoners, starvation. Torture is common in internal conflicts as are measures attacking people’s freedom of movement -- forcible relocations, mass expulsions, denial of the right to seek asylum or the right to return to one’s home. Women and girls are raped by soldiers and are abducted into forced prostitution, and children are recruited to be soldiers. Tens of thousands of people detained in connection with conflicts “disappear”, usually killed and buried in secret, leaving their families with the torment of not knowing their fate. Thousands of others are arbitrarily detained, never brought to trial or, if they are, subject to grossly unfair procedures. Civilian homes and property, schools, health centers and crops are deliberately destroyed. Those who try to assist civilians by providing humanitarian aid are attacked.

In an age of global communication, and global media coverage, these abuses are known to us all. Even if some conflicts remain forgotten by the world’s media, we cannot plead ignorance as a few minutes searching on the Internet will bring to light detailed information on such abuses in all of the most serious conflicts in the world today. The problem is not a lack of information, but a lack of action.

What action can and must be taken?

There is no shortage of work to be done, and the scale of the problem speaks of the need for a multiplicity of actors, at the local, national, regional and international levels. It is at this point that I want to return to the common framework for action I referred to in my opening, and to explain why I think that framework can be based on the UN’s human rights standards.

If all the various actors are to work effectively together, it would help if they could locate their specific roles under the umbrella of an overall framework that comprehensively addresses internal conflicts. To be effective, such a framework must address not only the abuses in conflict, but also the roots of the conflict itself and the steps that need to be taken to end the conflict and ensure a just and durable peace. The human rights framework addresses each of these aspects.

But how does the required action fit into the human rights framework? We can answer this question by examining what needs to be done.

First, we must try to prevent the abuses associated with conflict. The key element here is the question of accountability -- actually, the lack of it -- for those who perpetrate these abuses. For so long as the crimes of torture, rape and murder go unpunished, we cannot hope to prevent their recurrence. Those who would wantonly attack civilians, or force them out of their homes simply on account of their ethnicity or religion, must know that there is a price to pay for such behavior. This is why the UN efforts to date to demand accountability -- for example in the establishment of the Ad hoc criminal tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda -- are so important. It is also why it is so important that the Diplomatic Conference being convened this summer in Rome to finalize and adopt the statute for a permanent International Criminal Court is successful. If the statute fails to fully and effectively address the question of accountability for crimes committed in internal -- as well as international -- conflicts, it will be a false promise of justice for the majority of victims of conflicts in the world today.

The International Criminal Court will be of particular importance in addressing the human rights crimes committed by members of armed groups. These groups, who take up arms against existing governments, are also responsible for committing grave human rights abuses and their members too, no less than those who act on behalf of the State, must be held accountable. Ensuring that individuals are criminally responsible, and are punished, for committing grave human rights abuses, is one of the most promising means of tackling these abuses. In countries where there is no government and where armed groups fight among themselves in a contest for political power, ensuring accountability at the international level is crucial.

But there are many other measures short of international criminal sanctions which can also be taken to prevent abuses. The UN human rights programme, though under-funded and far from comprehensive, does include numerous mechanisms and procedures which can be used to cast an official light on patterns of abuses in countries experiencing conflict, and which can bring pressure to bear on those in a position to stop these abuses. The conflict must not become an excuse for abandoning the rule of law. Countries must co-operate with special rapporteurs and representatives appointed by the UN to report on human rights violations. Where technical assistance can be helpful in strengthening the rule of law and ensuring the whole judicial apparatus pays due regard to human rights rules, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights can provide it.

Of course, in preventing abuses a crucial tool is international humanitarian law. Though its rules as regarding internal conflicts might not be as extensive as one might wish, humanitarian law is an essential component in checking the abuses of both State and non-state armed forces. The potential for the progressive development of this law has been dramatically demonstrated with the adoption of the treaty banning anti-personnel land mines. The work of the ICRC, based in humanitarian law, is vital. International humanitarian law’s great advantage is that its rules are detailed and speak directly to the nature of conflict. But these rules generally can be seen as reinforcing the protection of human rights -- by ensuring that even in conflict human dignity is respected.

Providing humanitarian assistance to the victims of conflict is also a key task. Though the work of providing humanitarian assistance has not traditionally been seen as a human rights function, there is no doubt that the provision of food, medical care, and basic education, for example, is a direct and tangible means of supporting the human rights and dignity of the affected population. The human rights framework can also help to set the parameters and rules which should guide the delivery of humanitarian assistance -- for example, ensuring non-discriminatory treatment of those in need, and paying due regard to the special needs and rights of children. But for the United Nations, preventing abuses and providing humanitarian assistance during conflict is not enough. Bringing an end to the conflict, and taking steps to ensure whatever settlement is reached does not sow or conceal the seeds for future conflict, are equally important. And here again, the importance and relevance of human rights standards becomes apparent.

In recent years, where the UN has been involved in arranging or implementing a peace settlement of an internal conflict, it has sought to include a human rights element. The human rights element concerns not only ensuring that the agreement -- for example, for a new constitutional framework -- is in line with international human rights law, but also trying to ensure any UN operation sent to oversee or implement the agreement includes human rights monitors and experts. These experts can assist in building an independent judiciary, in training police and security personnel in human rights standards for law enforcement, in advising on the drafting of press laws, minority legislation, or laws meant to promote women’s equality, and in monitoring to ensure that a vibrant non-governmental sector can grow and play its crucial role in a democratic society.

In the past, too often the UN and its Member States have taken a narrow interpretation of “peace and security”, where ending or containing an internal conflict is seen as a priority that outweighs other concerns, including human rights issues. In this view, human rights were too “political”, and were perceived as an obstacle to achieving peace. But events in numerous countries have shown us that the protection of human rights is integral to the ending of the conflict, and that, indeed, the abuse of human rights is a key reason for the existence of the conflict in the first place. It is clear that most of the internal conflicts presently underway find their origins at least to some degree in inadequate concern for human rights. This is particularly true where the conflict concerns demands for greater autonomy by minority ethnic or religious groups, or is a rebellion against dictatorship. If human rights abuses lead to conflict, solving conflicts means ensuring these abuses do not reoccur and that means tackling the root causes. Looked at in this way, human rights is not an obstacle to -- but rather a precondition for -- a durable peace.

Moreover, solving conflicts means addressing past abuses. The foundations for a just society cannot be built on an unmarked and unacknowledged grave. Here too, human rights standards provide the only available framework within which truth, justice AND reconciliation can be achieved. A human rights framework requires justice, but it also protects against unjust retribution and establishes the parameters within which democratic societies can legitimately balance the rights of the victims against other concerns.

Finally, our efforts must go towards preventing conflict from beginning in the first place and once again human rights are a crucial element in such efforts. A holistic view of conflict prevention would focus not only on tense ethnic or political disputes, but also on chronic underdevelopment, grinding poverty, mass unemployment, widespread illiteracy and systematic inequalities of income or opportunities.

We must insist on respect for civil and political rights and the building of democratic societies -- so that grievances and disputes can be resolved peacefully, so that a free press and an active civil society can be a check on the corrupt or unlawful exercise of state power, and so the state’s judicial system operates fairly and equally and police or security personnel who abuse their power are brought to justice.

But equally, we must insist that due attention be given to economic, social and cultural rights, that adequate health care, education, and housing are seen not as priveleges of a few, but fundamental needs that must be addressed effectively if justice and stability are to be attained. Human rights law again gives us the framework for understanding and meeting these demands, without prescribing for any one society a preferred model of economic development. Mass illiteracy and poverty are human rights issues no less than freedom of expression, and the wilful disregard of the former is as likely to sow the seeds of conflict as the denial of the latter. Tolerance is built through education.

I realize that in presenting to you the richness and, I believe, appropriateness of the human rights framework as a guide for our efforts to address internal conflicts, I have been guilty of perhaps a little too much salesmanship. I have painted too rosy a picture and honesty requires that I acknowledge also the deficiencies of this framework.

The human rights debate at the international level is still conducted in a politicized atmosphere, accusations are traded as much for political considerations as for the gravity of the situation. The politicization of human rights hampers the effectiveness of the UN’s human rights action.

The UN human rights programme is under-resourced, special rapporteurs mandated to look at torture or religious intolerance world-wide do so on a part-time basis and with minimum staff support. The programme is complex and often slow to respond. Also, it is only in the past few years that UN human rights staff are being posted in the field, and the programme as a whole needs to build its field experience.

The programme also has a checkered record of success in curbing abuses in internal conflicts. As the High Commissioner for Human Rights has pointed out, the celebrations this year of the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights must not lead to too much self-congratulation. We must see in the prevalence of internal conflicts in the world today a measure of our failures in the past. But these difficulties can be overcome. They do not fundamentally call into question the UN’s role as a promoter and protector of human rights, nor the universality and appeal of the UN standards upon which this role is based.

In concluding, let me make one further and important point. In proposing a human rights framework, I am not suggesting that the broad range of UN and humanitarian actors involved should become human rights monitors or should suddenly change their mandates or mission statements. On the contrary, a muddling of mandates might lead to all kinds of problems. There might be good reasons for humanitarian actors to shy away from public reporting of human rights abuses. My point is simply that much of what is already being done in specific areas, be it conflict prevention or giving medical care to the victims, does have a human rights dimension. And further, that locating specific activities within a broad human rights framework could help all of us to see how that specific function contributes to the overall goal of preventing internal conflicts, and ensuring that ongoing conflicts conclude with a just and durable peace.

Thank you.