Statement by the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the Flower laying ceremony

Four Freedoms Park, 10 December 2015
Human Rights Day 2015

Deputy Secretary-General,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues and friends,

I am honoured to join with you on this appropriately warm and sunny December afternoon to celebrate two figures who, singly and together, had such an extraordinarily positive impact on the world. 

Today we mark Human Rights Day under the long shadow -- or rather the imposing bust - of one of the giants of modern history, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. And of Eleanor, his wife, who -- even if she is less visible here in this park -- also ranks among the most inspiring figures of the 20th century, given her key role in helping draw up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.   

It is hard to think of any couple who have created a legacy so deeply beneficial for so many people.

We stand here today to pay our respects to both of them, and to reassert the message they delivered to us seven decades ago, which – in these troubled and uncertain times – is perhaps more pertinent than ever.

In what was possibly the greatest speech of his career, delivered during one of the darkest periods in world history, FDR stated the following: “In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.”

The freedom of speech. Freedom of worship.  Freedom from want.  And freedom from fear. It was 1941, and the deadly plague of fascism had enveloped almost all of Europe, and was threatening the entire world. FDR’s determination to articulate and fight for those four freedoms, and Eleanor’s subsequent role in codifying them in the Universal Declaration, marked a turning point in human history, and provided a profound inspiration for future generations.

Let us to reflect on the meaning of those words spoken so long ago, and on the meaning of those four freedoms. But first, let us imagine a world without human rights at all:  a world of enslavement, violence and tyranny, ruled by cruelty, deprivation and untimely death.  Unshackled discrimination, hatred and conflict. An appalling world, yet one which to a greater or lesser degree has always existed threatening the lives, safety and happiness of our ancestors, ourselves, and our children. In a very real sense, FDR and Eleanor, created a path to lead us out of that world to a better place.

In the months and years after FDR’s death, States shaped the United Nations, and wrote binding laws and agreed to be governed by them, so that they would form a web of protection from the threats of violence and deprivation. Human rights are the values at the core of that system, and they are what has given it its enduring strength. And at the heart of the three major human rights documents, also known as the International Bill of Rights – comprised of Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its direct offspring, the two great international Covenants – are FDR’s four freedoms.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

As we mark the 2015 Human Rights Day, we are acutely aware of the fact that we are living in a time of growing turmoil. 

When humanity ceases to protect human rights, the system built to ward off chaos and violence begins to crumble; the chain of human security is broken; and selfishness, violence and conflict are unleashed in more and more ways in more and more places.

Across the globe, and particularly in the Middle East and parts of Africa, we are facing massive emergencies, which are generating an exodus of suffering human beings, people who are not free of fear or of want. Nightmarish new violent extremist groups seek to exterminate all those who dissent from their harsh and narrow world view. Paris, Bamako, and Kano bleed. So too do Baghdad, Beirut, Kabul, and many other smaller towns and communities

What would Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt make of our situation today?

I think they might say this current landscape demonstrates the disasters that occur when human rights are ground down by neglect and contempt. They would point out that these crises, all of them, were eminently preventable. And they would tell us that with hard work, patience, intelligence and determination – a great deal of hard work, patience, intelligence and determination – they can be solved.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

Reading FDR’s speech on the four freedoms today, it is striking how true his words still ring. This is particularly the case when he speaks of the freedom from want, which, in his words, “means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants – everywhere in the world.”

In today's context, the need to translate into reality FDR's freedom from want could be linked to what the Secretary-General recently called “the silent crises – grinding poverty, hunger, inequality, discrimination and other threats to people’s lives and dignity.” It can be linked to the economic injustice that holds back development for all of us, and drives so many to leave their homes. 

Today, 11 children die every minute of preventable causes, and one woman dies every two minutes from causes related to pregnancy or childbirth. Such extreme inequalities are unjust, divisive and socially corrosive. They breed economic instability, social unrest and can – and do -- lead to conflict.  This suffering is not inevitable: it is a product of the choices we make. This is precisely why, singly and together, countries must implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to save and improve millions of lives, to free them from want and deprivation.

As Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt taught us, deprivation, along with violence, and the exercise of oppressive and extractive authority threaten peace for us all.  It is by insisting on the dignity and worth of every human being, and securing their rights, and their freedoms, that we will once again turn back to the path they laid out for us, and build an abiding peace.  “An abiding peace.” Three words, so simple, so powerful, and so memorably penned by that incomparable couple we honour here today.

I thank you.