UN Secretary-General’s Address to Human Rights Council Launch
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: June 19, 2006
Launching
Council
Organizations
protecting human rights, at the national, regional and international levels.
That is why the General Assembly has required you to build on the practices of
the Commission to ensure that — along with States that are not members of the
Council, the specialized agencies, other intergovernmental organizations, and
national human rights institutions — NGOs can contribute to your work in the
most effective way.”
Geneva,
Switzerland, 19 June 2006 – The Secretary-General’s address to
the Human Rights Council
Mr. President [Luis Alfonso de Alba], let me first congratulate you — or
rather, let me congratulate the Council on choosing you as its first President.
This choice augurs well indeed for the Council’s future work. We at United
Nations in New York know you well, from your time in the Permanent Mission of
Mexico there. We know you as a most accomplished diplomat and a resolute
champion of human rights — in fact, definitely the right person for this
crucial task.
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the eyes of the world — especially
the eyes of those whose human rights are denied, threatened or infringed — are
upon you, they are turned towards this chamber and this Council.
A great effort has been made, by Member States and by civil society
worldwide, to bring us to this point.
And a new era in the human rights work of the United Nations has been
proclaimed.
I trust that all members of the Council are fully aware of the hopes that
have thus been raised, and are determined not to disappoint them.
They certainly should be aware, because all of them, in seeking election to
this Council, have made pledges both to respect human rights at home and to
uphold them abroad. Moreover, the General Assembly has required them to uphold
the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights, fully
cooperate with the Council, and submit themselves to the universal periodic
review mechanism during their term of membership.
Their peoples — and the peoples of the world — will be watching to see
whether those standards are indeed upheld.
Dear friends,
Let us briefly recall the journey that has brought us here. Last year, in my
report “In Larger Freedom”, I stressed that human rights form the third of the
three pillars, with economic and social development and peace and security, on
which all the work of the United Nations must be based.
I argued that these three are interlinked and mutually reinforcing, and are
the pre-requisites for our collective well-being. No society can develop without
peace and security. No State can be secure if its people are condemned to
poverty without hope. And no nation can be secure or prosperous for long, if the
basic rights of its citizens are not protected.
In short, lack of respect for human rights and human dignity is the
fundamental reason why the peace of the world today is so precarious, and why
prosperity is so unequally shared.
I am glad to say that world leaders, at the Summit last September, endorsed
this vision.
They resolved to integrate the promotion and protection of human rights into
national policies, and to support the further mainstreaming of human rights
throughout the United Nations system.
And they accepted my suggestion that, in order to establish human rights at
its proper level within the system, they should create this Council, directly
elected by the General Assembly, to work alongside the Security Council and the
Economic and Social Council.
They also resolved to strengthen the Office of the High Commissioner, and the
General Assembly has since decided that this Council should assume the former
role and responsibilities of the Commission on Human Rights relating to the work
of that Office. I too wish to congratulate and thank the High Commissioner for
the outstanding leadership she is giving in the expansion and transformation of
our human rights work. And I urge all members of the Council to give her their
utmost support.
Let me also congratulate the President of the General Assembly on the
consummate skill with which he managed the negotiations leading to the
establishment of this Council, which will — I am sure — be remembered as a
historic achievement.
For the moment it is a subsidiary organ of the Assembly. But within five
years the Assembly will review its status. I venture to hope — and I suggest it
should be your ambition — that within five years your work will have so clearly
established the Human Rights Council’s authority that there will be a general
will to amend the Charter, and to elevate it to the status of a Principal Organ
of the United Nations.
If that ambition is to be realised, the Council’s work must mark a clean
break from the past. That must be apparent in the way you develop and apply the
universal periodic review mechanism; in your willingness to confront hard issues
and engage in difficult discussions, where these are necessary to remedy — or,
even better, to prevent — human rights violations; and in your readiness to
make good use of your ability to meet more frequently than the Commission did,
and to call special sessions.
What must be apparent, above all, is a change in culture — I repeat — a
change in culture. In place of the culture of confrontation and distrust, which
pervaded the Commission in its final years, we must see a culture of cooperation
and commitment, inspired by mature leadership ? which cannot rest only on the
shoulders of your President, but must be collective. The General Assembly has
given you a good set of rules to start from, but ultimately your success or
failure will be determined by your working methods, and by the aspirations and
attitudes that inform them.
Yet, whatever its recent shortcomings, the Commission did create many useful
mechanisms. These should be retained and strengthened.
I would mention in particular the system of special procedures, through which
the Commission made itself not only the promoter but also the protector of human
rights. These include independent experts, special rapporteurs, my own special
representatives and those of the High Commissioner, and of course the Working
Groups.
Together, these mechanisms — most of which take the form of individual
people, chosen for their expertise and serving without pay — constitute the
frontline troops to whom we look to protect human rights, and to give us early
warning of violations. By raising the alarm and then investigating, they keep
the spotlight of world attention focused on many of our most pressing human
rights dilemmas.
They give a voice to the voiceless victims of abuses, and their reports
provide a starting-point for discussion on the concrete measures that
governments need to take to put a stop to violations, and to ensure that human
rights are protected in future.
The Commission also created the first ever human rights complaints mechanism
in the United Nations system — the confidential, so-called “1503 procedure”,
which allows complaints from non-governmental organizations, other groups and
even individuals.
I trust that this, or a similar confidential complaint procedure, will be
retained, to ensure that you do not overlook allegations of gross and widespread
abuses in any country. And I hope you will be able also to reach agreement on an
additional protocol establishing avenues for lodging complaints under the
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Non-governmental organizations play an important role in promoting and
protecting human rights, at the national, regional and international levels.
That is why the General Assembly has required you to build on the practices of
the Commission to ensure that — along with States that are not members of the
Council, the specialized agencies, other intergovernmental organizations, and
national human rights institutions — NGOs can contribute to your work in the
most effective way.
The Commission has also bequeathed to you two vital documents — the draft
Convention on Enforced Disappearances and the draft Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples. You have a chance, by considering and approving those
instruments at the earliest possible opportunity, to start your work with a
tangible achievement — one that will bring hope to large groups of people who
have lived in a dark shadow of fear.
And there are other urgent tasks that you inherit — notably that of reaching
agreement on issues where the Commission found consensus elusive, such as that
of making the “right to development” clear and specific enough to be effectively
enforced and upheld.
My dear friends,
As you know, the negotiations leading to the creation of this Council were
tough. Not every delegation got all it wanted, as we heard earlier from our
brilliant [General Assembly] President Jan Eliassnon. Compromise was necessary,
though in the end principles were not sacrificed.
These disagreements and difficulties should not surprise us. If there were no
disagreement about human rights we should not need this council!
Indeed, human rights are an inherently sensitive topic. But that does not
mean they are inherently intrusive, or antithetical to state interests. Nor
should we accept the widely parroted notion that there is a built-in tension, or
a necessary trade-off, between freedom and security.
On the contrary, the strongest States are those that most resolutely defend
the human rights of all their citizens. And human beings are never truly secure
unless their rights and freedom are protected from assault, whether perpetrated
by enemies of the State or by those who act in its name.
It follows that those who have sought and won election to this Council must
be prepared for debate and disagreement, but must also be united in their
determination to uphold and implement human rights without fear or favour. They
must recognize, as the General Assembly did when it established this Council,
the importance of universality and objectivity — let me repeat — universality
and objectivity, and the need to eliminate double standards.
Excellencies, dear friends:
You have much hard work before you. In the weeks and months ahead, as you
descend into detail and wrestle with issues at the heart of the Council’s
mandate, I urge you to keep constantly in mind the noble aims that brought you
here.
Never allow this Council to become caught up in political point-scoring or
petty manoeuvre. Think always of those whose rights are denied — whether those
rights are civil and political, or economic, social and cultural; whether those
people are perishing from brutal treatment by arbitrary rulers, or from
ignorance, hunger and disease.
The truth is that those denials go together. All too often, it is those who
seek to improve the welfare of their communities who become the victims of
oppression; and it is the lack of freedom and of legal safeguards that inhibits
economic and social development.
On both those essential fronts, this Council represents a great new chance
for the United Nations, and for humanity, to renew the struggle for human
rights. I implore you, do not let the opportunity be squandered.
Thank you very much
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