Remarks by High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein at the High-Level Event on Human Rights, Peace and security

What Role for the Security Council?

29 September 2015

Excellencies,
Colleagues and friends,

Many of us are familiar with Dag Hammarskjöld's statement that the United Nations was created “to save humanity from hell.” A task not only daunting, but superhuman. So given our natural tendency to break down apparently insuperable undertakings into manageable categories, there swiftly grew up the idea of three distinct pillars, to be built up simultaneously: peace and security, development, and human rights.

But that idea of neat categories was doomed to failure. Peace, development and human rights are built around each other: a triple helix might be a more expressive visual image of the kind of multiply-interlocking structure that I mean.

This much more complex and connected vision of the UN's challenges has recently informed several major shifts within our body of work. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development embodies the recognition that every development programme must have human rights at its core. Human Rights Up Front further drives home the responsibility of every leader and team in the UN to respond in a principled manner to warning signs of human rights violations.

The Security Council’s interest in human rights issues has also risen markedly. The Council increasingly requests briefings by my Office and other human rights mechanisms. It has mandated Commissions of Inquiry into specific situations, and has referred alleged perpetrators of severe human rights violations to the International Criminal Court.

And yet there is Syria, Yemen, Sudan – the list is long, of places where a vicious and accelerating downward spiral has formed, as violations of human rights have not been prevented or combatted and turmoil has metastased into bloodshed, poverty and chaos.

If “saving humanity from hell” is the mandate of the Security Council, then on the evidence of Syria alone, it is failing. Action to protect peace and security in a range of crises has repeatedly been blocked by threats of vetoes by Permanent Members, apparently influenced by their involvement in big-power standoffs and proxy wars.

The Council's inability to act effectively in these and other crises has had a massive cost in human life and has widely shaken confidence in the institutions of the UN. It has, in effect, given the green light to perpetrators to commit more human rights violations. The resulting violence has spilled disorder across entire regions, throwing millions of people into flight.

To correct this, Member States of the Council have proposed a code of conduct that includes voluntary suspension of the veto in situations of gross violations of human rights and mass atrocities. The logic here is clear, for where use of the veto blocks action to stem atrocities, that use clearly contravenes the principles of the UN.

The Security Council could also boost its focus on early warning by building in a more strategic relationship with the Human Rights Council. For example, the Human Rights Council’s Commissions of Inquiry and Special Procedures could regularly brief the Security Council regarding situations on its agenda. Information from these and other human rights mechanisms could be more widely used in designating and implementing targeted sanctions regimes, and for referral to the ICC. The Council could also agree on a menu of potential responses to alerts – such as expedition of flexible and resource-efficient human rights monitoring missions, limited in time and scope.

This emphasis on prevention would dovetail with the strategic vision of Human Rights Up Front, as well as with the recent high-level reports on peace operations and peacebuilding architecture. By protecting human rights, such measures would decrease the threat of war and help to promote development. At very little cost, they would invest in human rights, the biggest dividend of all, which primes the virtuous spiral of sustainable development and peace.