STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS REQUIRES UNCEASING VIGILANCE SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS AT RIGHTS FORUM

Press Release
SG/SM/5797
HR/4199

STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS REQUIRES UNCEASING VIGILANCE SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS AT RIGHTS FORUM

Following is the text of Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's statement to the human rights forum at Headquarters today:

I am delighted to join you today. I congratulate the organizers of this forum on this initiative.

This week, when world leaders have gathered to mark the United Nations fiftieth anniversary, no theme is of greater importance than the rights of the human person. They are the founding purpose and ultimate goal of the United Nations. And the history of human rights law and practice is also the history of the world Organization itself.

Building on the Universal Declaration of 1948, the General Assembly has consistently worked to broaden and deepen its action for human rights -- not only civil and political rights, but also economic, social and cultural rights.

Beyond this, the United Nations has pushed forward the frontiers of human rights to encompass new fields: genocide, slavery, torture, the elimination of discrimination based on race, sex, religious beliefs or personal convictions.

And the United Nations has extended its concern to refugees and stateless persons, women and children, the physically and mentally handicapped, political prisoners and indigenous peoples.

Today this body of law and practice is our common property. All States, all peoples, and all cultures can draw upon it. It is a manifestation of universality which the United Nations represents.

More recently, the General Assembly has begun to define what I call rights of solidarity -- these are the right to the environment, the right to peace, the right to food security, and, above all, the right to development.

- 2 - Press Release SG/SM/5797 HR/4199 25 October 1995

We can and must go even further. Democracy, both within and among States, is ultimately the sole true guarantor of human rights. Much of what we do can be termed diplomacy for democracy.

And development must now centre on the rights of the human person.

In Rio, we debated the human person in the environment. At Vienna we reflected upon the human person as the beneficiary of universal rights. The human person as a collective being was at the centre of the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development. It was the social development of the human person which brought world leaders together, last March, in Copenhagen. And the human person -- the rights and status of women -- which was the theme of last month's great conference in Beijing.

But we must never forget that the struggle for human rights requires unceasing vigilance. Without the commitment of each and every individual human being, that battle cannot be won.

So the mobilization of public opinion is vital.

As we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of our Organization, let us work to strengthen the whole world's commitment to the cause of human rights.

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