Statement by Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights at Human Rights Day event in New York

Opening of 2022 Photography 4 Humanity Global Prize award photo exhibit

Friday, 9 December 2022, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
General Assembly South visitors lobby

Excellencies,
President of the General Assembly,
Chef de Cabinet,
Dear President of Photography for Humanity, David Rose,

My warm thanks for your support and commitment to our common cause.

Colleagues and friends,

Thank you all for your presence here this evening.

To speak after the powerful testimony we have just seen and heard from award-winning photographer Masood Sarwer is not easy.

But many words are not needed, as the images of Masood and the other photographers on display here have already spoken.

Photography – It is a universal, powerful language that everyone can understand and that speaks directly to our human condition, vulnerability, and strife.

It is arguably the most effective tool of communication to help us achieve a truism captured in the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

“A common understanding of these rights is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge”.

On behalf of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, I am therefore honoured and humbled to partner with Photography 4 Humanity, and these impressive photographers, to celebrate this year’s Human Rights Day.

The theme of climate justice could not be more fitting. As each of these photographs tells us, climate change is a planetary emergency – a human rights emergency.

At a time when, as our High Commissioner said today, the disconnect between human rights standards and realities on the ground is growing, we need an emergency call to act.

This is a time when we need the vision and inspiration of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights. It carries timeless relevance: Everyone, without distinction of any kind, are entitled to equal protection, everywhere, at all times.

Today’s celebration is particularly significant, as we join the High Commissioner in launching a year-long initiative to mark the Declaration’s milestone 75th anniversary in 2023, as well as the 30th anniversary of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, which paved the way for the establishment of OHCHR.

We hope that this anniversary year will rekindle the spirit and vitality that propelled the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into being 75 years ago and rejuvenate a worldwide consensus on human rights — one that unifies us at a time when we need urgently to come together to confront our most pressing challenges.

That is why we are so excited to start our UDHR75 Initiative in New York with Photography 4 Humanity.

No one can look at these photographs and not be compelled to act for climate justice, for social justice, for the dignity and worth of the human person.

I invite you to be seized and inspired to act.

Climate action is imperative. It is our human rights duty.

Thank you.