70th Anniversary of the International Law Commission

Statement by UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights

5 July 2018

Mr. Chairperson,
Excellences,
Distinguished delegates,
Distinguished members of the International Law Commission,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honor, on behalf of the HCHR, to welcome you to Geneva on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the International Law Commission.

We come together today to celebrate the Commission, its achievements and its current work and further to examine the challenges it may confront in the future.

The Commission founded seven decades ago on the solemn purpose of progressive development and codification of international law is coincident in genesis with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – which thus also celebrates its 70th anniversary this year.

Conceived in Holocaust – a child of two world wars – threaded together from longings centuries old but unfulfilled longings across cultures and faiths – forged neither in privilege nor in prosperity, but amidst rather, the wrack, rubble and ruin of reckless rancour, 70 years ago our foremothers and fathers gifted us an enduring encapsulation of what makes for a legitimate, humanizing relationship between power and relative powerlessness.

Born of that same era and that same courageous international spirt for the dignity of an inclusive human family, the Commission too manifests those longings – that truth might triumph over prejudice; that justice might serve fairness not fear; that access to justice be universal not a by-product of dumb luck of place of birth, color of skin, gender or any other identity; that wound not only be healed but that those who cause such wound be made to give account and those who should have prevented that wound should give remedy.

Friends, among its many subsequent achievements, the Commission has played a leading role in developing and codified international legal norms that today are at the center of the work to defend the values that the UDHR describes and that UN members states have pledged to uphold.

The Commission has made enormous contributions in developing the international law of state responsibility. These achievements in the codification and promotion of the progress of international law also helped the work undertaken by the Commission to pave the way for the establishment of the International Criminal Court.

For the work of our Office and fulfillment of the panoply of human rights mandates, the Commission has been essential. In all that the human rights system does, -from treaty bodies and independent experts to our direct work with local communities – we call on the law that the Commission has expertly crafted, and we seek to extend the application of those standards as we work to address gaps in human rights protection of, and help State and civil society actors to develop the capacity to provide that protection, as government officials, security forces, and civil society groups including through trainings on for example, how to question people without resort to torture and how to manage public demonstrations without resort to excessive force.

Our Commissions of Inquiry and fact-finding missions for investigation of grave violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, confirm further the importance of the Commission’s current work addressing proposals for a Convention on crimes against humanity - crimes so atrocious and inhumane that they threaten the peace and security of humankind itself. The prohibition of crimes against humanity is a clearly established and widely recognized norm of the international community. Yet in many contexts of conflict, crisis and state collapse, these crimes are a daily reality.

The International Law Commission’s work on the draft Convention on crimes against humanity therefore carries great import and holds deep promise. The Convention will form a vital part of the legal framework our Office’s work in assisting States to comply with their obligation to prevent gross human rights violations that may amount to crimes against humanity, particularly as the Convention sets out in article 4 an obligation to cooperate with intergovernmental and other appropriate organizations.

We also note the Convention’s requirement in article 6 that States harmonize their domestic legal frameworks with international norms and standards regarding crimes against humanity. In view of the importance of international cooperation in preventing, investigating and prosecuting crimes against humanity, we also take note of article 11’s aut dedere aut judiciare obligation of States to extradite or prosecute alleged perpetrators in their jurisdictions. By promoting mutual legal assistance in article 14, the Convention will improve accountability and the efficiency of national and international responses to these crimes.

And we welcome the Convention’s inclusion of related obligations, such as the non-applicability of statutes of limitations for such crimes in article 6, and the universal application and non-derogability of these obligations even under exceptional circumstances, as set out in article 4. Every one of these developments would bolster the work of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Our office also follows with particular interest the Commission’s work on immunity of State officials from foreign criminal jurisdiction as well as on peremptory norms of general international law (jus cogens), in which the Commission examines, among others, the distinction between jus cogens and customary international law as well as the distinction between jus cogens and other possibly related concepts such as non-derogable rights found in international human rights treaties and erga omnes obligations.

We also take note of the Commission’s work on subsequent agreements and subsequent practice in relation to the interpretation of treaties, and its Conclusions 8 and 13 on interpretation of treaty terms as capable of evolving over time and on pronouncements of expert treaty bodies.

Distinguish members of the International Law Commission, the cooperation between our Office, the UN Human Rights Mechanisms and the International Law Commission will is simply essential and the value of its endeavours is felt by all who strive to hold high the banner of rights – so that it may cast far and wide a shade of shelter to those who rights are betrayed.

Excellencies, in a speech made in the final months of his short life, Martin Luther King said: “... it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behaviour can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me ….. while the law may not change hearts …, it does change habits … if it is vigorously enforced, and through changes in habits, pretty soon attitudinal changes will take place and then, even the heart may be changed.”

Today we celebrate the International Law Commission’s determined invaluable contributions to changing hearts too.