SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS GLOBAL CONCERN FOR HUMAN RIGHTS MARKS CHANGED NATURE OF WORLD POLITICS IN POST-COLD WAR AGE

13 August 1997

Press Release
SG/SM/6301

SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS GLOBAL CONCERN FOR HUMAN RIGHTS MARKS CHANGED NATURE OF WORLD POLITICS IN POST-COLD WAR AGE

19970813 Audience in Finland Is Told of Current Efforts To Strengthen United Nations Activities To Implement Universal Declaration

This is the text of an address by Secretary-General Kofi Annan today to the Foreign Affairs Institute of the Paasiviki Association in Helsinki, Finland.

The very name of Helsinki is synonymous with human rights. For millions of people, the Helsinki Process was in itself a message of hope. Your country has made important contributions to efforts to ensure that human rights are part of the international agenda. Finland not only is party to the six core human rights instruments. Finnish nationals are actively serving the United Nations in the peace-keeping and human rights fields; and Finland has been a generous contributor to United Nations voluntary funds in the human rights field.

So no subject is more appropriate for a lecture in Helsinki today than the work of the United Nations in human rights. But there is another reason for me to address the subject of human rights today. In human rights as in other fields this is a time for reform and for decision at the United Nations.

Ever since its inception, the United Nations has worked to refine and define international jurisprudence affecting human rights. But only very recently did the United Nations begin to undertake operational activities in human rights. In fact, the 1990s have seen an explosion of United Nations work in the field at the country level. Human rights are now a permanent feature of United Nations work for peace and a crucial factor in international relations. But we have responded to events, rather than building up structures in a coherent fashion. There is, therefore, a need to take stock of the work of the United Nations in the field of human rights.

The United Nations was born out of resistance to fascism and Nazism. It was understood that such evils cannot be combated except by united action by nations. And the appalling experience of the holocaust drove home to the drafters of the Charter the crucial importance of human rights in a new framework of international peace and security. Indeed, modern human rights law grew out of the determination that the monstrous abuses of human rights of the Nazi era should never be repeated.

Sadly, human rights abuses have not ended. But the principles enshrined in the Charter, and in subsequent instruments, provide a standard yardstick, which is universal. The very first article of the Charter states that one of the purposes of the United Nations is "to achieve international cooperation in .... promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion".

But the Charter also makes it clear that all purposes of the United Nations should be blended together in the overall effort to promote peace and security. That, too, was a clear lesson from World War II. A peaceful and secure future would be built on a foundation of human rights, action to promote peace and economic and social development, and the advancement of international justice and democracy.

In two specific ways, the United Nations Charter brought major political changes in international human rights policy. It made clear, without any shadow of a doubt, that human rights are legitimate matters of international concern. And it gave authority to the Organization, and placed an obligation on its Member States, to define and codify those rights.

The foundation of the United Nations coincided with, and was part of, the human rights revolution. Human rights are the expression of universal aspiration towards common standards of behaviour for all governments and individuals. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights whose fiftieth anniversary we celebrate next year developed and described these aspirations and standards.

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights", states the first Article. Article 28 adds that "everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized". Then came the Vienna Declaration of 1993 which went even further: "all human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated"....their "universal nature" is "beyond question".

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During the cold war, the United Nations made little headway in human rights work at the country level. While the Organization made steady progress in establishing norms and standards and in negotiating human rights covenants and conventions, the world political situation put a brake on major change in the human rights field. Several attempts were made, for example, to create the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. They were not successful. On the issue of human rights, there was a good deal of ideological posturing, but little concrete action. And doctrines of national security were often invoked to excuse or justify human rights abuses.

But human rights, and in particular the Helsinki human rights "basket", helped to bring about the end of the cold war. After that, human rights truly came into their own. A plethora of new operational activities by the United Nations in the field of human rights began. Soon, there were further major developments.

In 1993, the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights was the first global conference to address the subject comprehensively. Following a recommendation by the Conference, the General Assembly created the post of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The High Commissioner is -- as stipulated by the General Assembly resolution -- "the United Nations official with principal responsibility for human rights activities under the direction and responsibility of the Secretary-General". This, too, was a major step forward.

In the 1990s, multi-faceted human rights field operations began to be deployed by the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Such operations were mounted in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Burundi, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and Colombia. Their principal purpose was to monitor the human rights situation, and deal with allegations of human rights violations, in the countries concerned.

From 1990, operational activities in the human rights field began to feature in United Nations peace-keeping operations. In 1990, the El Salvador mission became the first United Nations human rights operation in the field. In El Salvador, Cambodia, Haiti, and Guatemala, major human rights field presences were part of peace processes. In each case, establishing a framework of respect for human rights was seen as part and parcel of the work of establishing an atmosphere of trust in a post-conflict situation. Following up allegations of human rights violations was an important part of this process.

In Guatemala, as in neighbouring El Salvador, the Human Rights Verification Mission -- MINUGUA -- was deployed in advance of the final peace agreement. MINUGUA's mandate now includes verification of the peace agreement as a whole, even though it started by monitoring human rights. But between

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1994 and March 1997, MINUGUA, with 245 international staff, was -- and remains -- the largest United Nations human rights verification mission ever mounted.

MINUGUA was established in 1994 to verify compliance by the parties, the Government and the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG), with the human rights agreement signed by both of them. With 13 regional and subregional offices, MINUGUA's field presence was more extensive than that of many national institutions in Guatemala. It enabled individuals, even in the remotest parts of Guatemala, to bring forward, for verification, complaints of alleged human rights abuses by the parties.

As the public developed trust in the impartiality and effectiveness of the United Nations, so the peace process advanced. Individuals saw that there was effective redress. The parties -- and especially the Government's security forces -- also responded. The Mission reported a dramatic decline, in 1996 and 1997, in verified complaints of torture, forced disappearances, and arbitrary detention.

The experience of the United Nations in El Salvador and in Guatemala, has demonstrated beyond doubt the crucial role of human rights -- including an impartial international presence -- in rebuilding trust and fostering a climate of reconciliation after armed conflict. This has been a vital lesson of United Nations peace-keeping in the 1990s. Now we must apply the lessons in the present and future work for peace.

One month ago, I presented a package of reforms to the General Assembly of the United Nations. Its aim was to give the work of the Organization greater coherence, clarity of focus, and greater capacity to respond. I said at the time that it was the most comprehensive reform package ever. In that reform report, I said: "The connection between human rights and peace and security is laid out in the Charter and has been amply demonstrated by recent experience. An analysis of developments and trends in the area of human rights should be incorporated in the early warning activities of the Organization. Human rights are a key element in peacemaking and peace- building efforts and should be addressed in the context of humanitarian operations." I also made it clear that I saw a re-organized human rights secretariat as contributing to these objectives.

I therefore recommended that the High Commissioner's office should undertake a re-organization of the human rights secretariat in Geneva (at present consisting of the Human Rights Centre and, separately, the Office of the High Commissioner) consolidating them into a single unit. My aim, when I appointed President Mary Robinson of Ireland to the post, was to make it crystal clear that I give high priority to human rights. I am delighted that she has agreed to take up the appointment next month, the first of September. It is yet another sign of the prominence of human rights on the international agenda.

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These measures, taken together, will, I believe, begin to introduce greater clarity of purpose and consistency of effort into the work of the United Nations in the human rights field.

This is the age of human rights. The new emphasis on human rights symbolizes and expresses the changed nature of international politics in the post-cold war age -- much as the expression "the iron curtain" came to symbolize the previous international order. Resistance by states to the application of international human rights standards has greatly declined. But some new manifestations of political intolerance in the world mean that we must stick more than ever to universal human rights principles. As the world economy becomes global, the demand for a common yardstick, for shared standards of governance, acquires even greater urgency than before.

The need for the protection of the victims of human rights violations has not diminished. We have seen, across the world, an upsurge in political movements based on the assertion of ethnic, religious or linguistic identity. In some manifestations such movements can give rise to intolerance of cultural, ethnic, religious, linguistic, and political differences. Discrimination, and violations of human rights, can easily follow. Recent conflicts in Europe and Africa have been marked by massive human rights abuses.

Those situations have demonstrated clearly that there is no one set of European rights, and another of African rights. Human rights assert the dignity of each and every individual human being, and the inviolability of the individual's rights. They belong inherently to each person, each individual, and are not conferred by, or subject to, any governmental authority. There is not one law for one continent, and one for another. And there should be only one single standard -- a universal standard -- for judging human rights violations.

For all of these reasons, new and heightened responsibilities fall on the shoulders of the United Nations. It is essential that the United Nations system should include effective, coherent, and well-resourced machinery for the upholding and promotion of human rights; and that human rights should be fully integrated into all of the work of the United Nations, and coordinated with regional organizations and non-governmental organizations. Our founders showed the way. We must be true to their vision. The struggle for peace is the struggle for human rights, and against racism, genocide and repression. We have a lot to do, so let's get with it.

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