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Statement by United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights to the Journalist Forum on Human Rights in Vienna
07 November 2006
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UNITED NATIONS
OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER
FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
“The Role of the United Nations in Protecting Human Rights”
(Vienna, Tuesday, 7 November 2006)
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you for inviting me to join you today at this Journalist Forum on Human Rights. I will be retiring from the United Nations next week after 30 years and it is entirely appropriate that for my last public engagement with the United Nations, I should be speaking at a forum for journalists. I began my professional working life in 1967 as a journalist in Pakistan working for the national news agency, as well as UPI and several other media outlets.
After I joined the United Nations, a large part of my early work was in the area of communication in UNICEF including serving as its Director of Communication. Thus, my affiliation with journalism and with journalists is very deep and personal. This has allowed me to develop a deep respect for the role the media plays in influencing attitudes, and indeed in influencing events. Many of you here today come from environments where a free and independent press has functioned for only a short while. Thus, I am particularly pleased that the United Nations Information Centre has chosen the subject of human rights for our discussion today.
I have been asked to speak on the role of the United Nations in protecting human rights. This is a broad subject and it is hard to do it justice in a few minutes. The promotion and protection of Human rights pervades the entire work of the United Nations. I will speak briefly about its role and then flag only two key current challenges.
The promotion and protection of human rights was established as a central tenet of the work of United Nations from its inception. The preamble to the Charter of the United Nations signed in 1945 encapsulates the commitment of its founders in a short, clear and inspiring statement. Its second paragraph reaffirms faith in “fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small”. And it commits the UN to “establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedoms”. It is a short and powerful statement which I will not attempt to read to you in its entirety here. But you can see from the extracts I have quoted, it puts the fulfillment of human rights at the heart of the UN’s agenda.
The UN then set about establishing institutions, creating mechanisms and developing norms to underpin these objectives. In 1946, the Commission on Human Rights was established as one of the first two “functional” commissions.
Initially, (from 1947 to 1967), the Commission concentrated on promoting human rights and helping states to elaborate human rights treaties but not on investigating or condemning violators. One of its crowning early achievements was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948. The Declaration stated in clear and simple terms the rights which belonged to every person.
In 1967, as the demand grew for a more active UN policy on human rights, the Commission began to investigate and produce reports on human rights violations. It progressively established experts working groups and other mechanisms to investigate violations and to assist states to implement their human rights obligations. The system of special procedures (independent experts) and the treaty bodies which monitor implementation have played a critical role in enhancing respect for rights and through the complaints procedures included in some treaties to the protection of specific individuals.
The establishment of the position of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights which resulted from a major international conference on human rights held here in Vienna was also a significant step forward towards protection and implementation of rights. The Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent human rights instruments, the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, and the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document now provide the mandate for the UN’s work on human rights.
We are now in an era where there is a clear recognition that the normative framework the world needs is largely in place. (This year, we hope that the Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples adopted by the Council in June will be endorsed by the General Assembly and the Convention on the rights of people with disabilities will also be adopted). But implementation is seriously lagging behind. In his report, in Larger Freedom: Towards, Development, Security and Human Rights for All, the Secretary-General points out that the world must advance the causes of security, development and human rights together, otherwise none will succeed. He says “Humanity will not enjoy security without development, it will not enjoy development without security, and it will not enjoy either without respect for human rights.” In the same report, the Secretary-General adds that over the last six decades, an impressive treaty-based normative framework has been advanced. But without implementation, these declarations ring hollow”.
The World Summit at the United Nations in New York in 2005 took important steps to begin to change this. Human rights language permeates the Summit Outcome Document. Among the many important decisions taken at the Summit, was one to replace the Human Rights Commission with a new and more effective Human Rights Council. Another was to strengthen the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Thus, the UN is going through an intense period of reform which we hope must help it to considerably strengthen its role in the implementation of human rights. A stronger role is very much needed particularly in the current environment.
Let me now turn briefly to the two key additional issues I said I would flag.
We are very pleased with the agreement reached in the World Summit Outcome resolution on the responsibility to protect. The resolution reiterates the responsibility of each individual state to protect its own populations from genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. But it goes on to say that where states fail to do so, the international community has the responsibility to use appropriate means including taking collective action to ensure such protection. This includes prevention and prosecution. It is a major new development. The adoption of the language on the responsibility to protect is a major norm-creating event. It will need to be further clarified and to be implemented. We must begin work on ensuring its appropriate implementation.
The second issue is one which could perhaps be described as the responsibility to respect all rights as interdependent and indivisible. This goes to the heart of human rights protection.
Unfortunately, despite frequent reaffirmation of the interdependence of all human rights, many of our strategies are still based on an unhelpful categorization of rights: between civil and political rights on the one hand and economic social and cultural rights on the other. It has enabled the privileging of some rights over others and has worked against the fulfillment of all rights. By often focusing attention only on the violations of specific rights, we have paid insufficient attention to an analysis of the surrounding conditions leading to violations. This has delayed or negated the implementation of economic, social and cultural rights reducing them to second class rights and vague policy goals rather than accepting them as binding obligations, ensuring minimum standards for a life in dignity.
As the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour stated recently, this categorization has also “fostered the invidious perception that economic, social and cultural rights are luxury goods, to be claimed and enjoyed only by societies that can “afford” them, or that a healthy market economy provides sufficient safeguards against breaches of those rights”. She urges us to move beyond this unhealthy categorization towards an understanding of human rights that focuses on people and their capacity to claim the totality of their rights.
There are many reasons why rights have been categorized in this way: power relationships, politics, ideology and affordability. This must change if all human beings are to live a life of dignity. We must be clear that we will not have security without development and we will not have either without respect for rights, all rights for all. There is more than enough evidence now to show that the root causes of violence and insecurity are often found in violations of economic, social and cultural rights. The death of 10 million children every year from largely preventable causes and the death of 530 million women annually in childbirth cannot be considered as development issues that will be tackled when we can afford to do so but they must be seen as violations of important human rights including the right to life.
The world as a whole and certainly the media is focusing more than ever before in human history on issues of human rights. In our troubled world, this is a good development and one which I believe will continue to get strong
OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER
FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
“The Role of the United Nations in Protecting Human Rights”
(Vienna, Tuesday, 7 November 2006)
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you for inviting me to join you today at this Journalist Forum on Human Rights. I will be retiring from the United Nations next week after 30 years and it is entirely appropriate that for my last public engagement with the United Nations, I should be speaking at a forum for journalists. I began my professional working life in 1967 as a journalist in Pakistan working for the national news agency, as well as UPI and several other media outlets.
After I joined the United Nations, a large part of my early work was in the area of communication in UNICEF including serving as its Director of Communication. Thus, my affiliation with journalism and with journalists is very deep and personal. This has allowed me to develop a deep respect for the role the media plays in influencing attitudes, and indeed in influencing events. Many of you here today come from environments where a free and independent press has functioned for only a short while. Thus, I am particularly pleased that the United Nations Information Centre has chosen the subject of human rights for our discussion today.
I have been asked to speak on the role of the United Nations in protecting human rights. This is a broad subject and it is hard to do it justice in a few minutes. The promotion and protection of Human rights pervades the entire work of the United Nations. I will speak briefly about its role and then flag only two key current challenges.
The promotion and protection of human rights was established as a central tenet of the work of United Nations from its inception. The preamble to the Charter of the United Nations signed in 1945 encapsulates the commitment of its founders in a short, clear and inspiring statement. Its second paragraph reaffirms faith in “fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small”. And it commits the UN to “establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedoms”. It is a short and powerful statement which I will not attempt to read to you in its entirety here. But you can see from the extracts I have quoted, it puts the fulfillment of human rights at the heart of the UN’s agenda.
The UN then set about establishing institutions, creating mechanisms and developing norms to underpin these objectives. In 1946, the Commission on Human Rights was established as one of the first two “functional” commissions.
Initially, (from 1947 to 1967), the Commission concentrated on promoting human rights and helping states to elaborate human rights treaties but not on investigating or condemning violators. One of its crowning early achievements was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948. The Declaration stated in clear and simple terms the rights which belonged to every person.
In 1967, as the demand grew for a more active UN policy on human rights, the Commission began to investigate and produce reports on human rights violations. It progressively established experts working groups and other mechanisms to investigate violations and to assist states to implement their human rights obligations. The system of special procedures (independent experts) and the treaty bodies which monitor implementation have played a critical role in enhancing respect for rights and through the complaints procedures included in some treaties to the protection of specific individuals.
The establishment of the position of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights which resulted from a major international conference on human rights held here in Vienna was also a significant step forward towards protection and implementation of rights. The Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent human rights instruments, the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, and the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document now provide the mandate for the UN’s work on human rights.
We are now in an era where there is a clear recognition that the normative framework the world needs is largely in place. (This year, we hope that the Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples adopted by the Council in June will be endorsed by the General Assembly and the Convention on the rights of people with disabilities will also be adopted). But implementation is seriously lagging behind. In his report, in Larger Freedom: Towards, Development, Security and Human Rights for All, the Secretary-General points out that the world must advance the causes of security, development and human rights together, otherwise none will succeed. He says “Humanity will not enjoy security without development, it will not enjoy development without security, and it will not enjoy either without respect for human rights.” In the same report, the Secretary-General adds that over the last six decades, an impressive treaty-based normative framework has been advanced. But without implementation, these declarations ring hollow”.
The World Summit at the United Nations in New York in 2005 took important steps to begin to change this. Human rights language permeates the Summit Outcome Document. Among the many important decisions taken at the Summit, was one to replace the Human Rights Commission with a new and more effective Human Rights Council. Another was to strengthen the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Thus, the UN is going through an intense period of reform which we hope must help it to considerably strengthen its role in the implementation of human rights. A stronger role is very much needed particularly in the current environment.
Let me now turn briefly to the two key additional issues I said I would flag.
We are very pleased with the agreement reached in the World Summit Outcome resolution on the responsibility to protect. The resolution reiterates the responsibility of each individual state to protect its own populations from genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. But it goes on to say that where states fail to do so, the international community has the responsibility to use appropriate means including taking collective action to ensure such protection. This includes prevention and prosecution. It is a major new development. The adoption of the language on the responsibility to protect is a major norm-creating event. It will need to be further clarified and to be implemented. We must begin work on ensuring its appropriate implementation.
The second issue is one which could perhaps be described as the responsibility to respect all rights as interdependent and indivisible. This goes to the heart of human rights protection.
Unfortunately, despite frequent reaffirmation of the interdependence of all human rights, many of our strategies are still based on an unhelpful categorization of rights: between civil and political rights on the one hand and economic social and cultural rights on the other. It has enabled the privileging of some rights over others and has worked against the fulfillment of all rights. By often focusing attention only on the violations of specific rights, we have paid insufficient attention to an analysis of the surrounding conditions leading to violations. This has delayed or negated the implementation of economic, social and cultural rights reducing them to second class rights and vague policy goals rather than accepting them as binding obligations, ensuring minimum standards for a life in dignity.
As the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour stated recently, this categorization has also “fostered the invidious perception that economic, social and cultural rights are luxury goods, to be claimed and enjoyed only by societies that can “afford” them, or that a healthy market economy provides sufficient safeguards against breaches of those rights”. She urges us to move beyond this unhealthy categorization towards an understanding of human rights that focuses on people and their capacity to claim the totality of their rights.
There are many reasons why rights have been categorized in this way: power relationships, politics, ideology and affordability. This must change if all human beings are to live a life of dignity. We must be clear that we will not have security without development and we will not have either without respect for rights, all rights for all. There is more than enough evidence now to show that the root causes of violence and insecurity are often found in violations of economic, social and cultural rights. The death of 10 million children every year from largely preventable causes and the death of 530 million women annually in childbirth cannot be considered as development issues that will be tackled when we can afford to do so but they must be seen as violations of important human rights including the right to life.
The world as a whole and certainly the media is focusing more than ever before in human history on issues of human rights. In our troubled world, this is a good development and one which I believe will continue to get strong