'WE ASSUME SOLEMN BURDEN OF MAKING THIS HOUSE A HOME AND A HAVEN FOR HUMAN RIGHTS', DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL STATES AT OPENING OF PALAIS WILSON

5 June 1998

Press Release
DSG/SM/8
HR/4365

'WE ASSUME SOLEMN BURDEN OF MAKING THIS HOUSE A HOME AND A HAVEN FOR HUMAN RIGHTS', DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL STATES AT OPENING OF PALAIS WILSON

19980605 If Human Rights Are to Play Constructive Role for Peace, They Must Protect Promise of Pluralism, Louise Fréchette Emphasizes

Following is the text of the address by Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette at the opening of Palais Wilson, in Geneva today:

Allow me to begin by conveying the Secretary-General's most profound gratitude to the people of Switzerland for this visionary and magnanimous gift to the United Nations. As we enter a structure that is itself a symbol of transparency and of tolerance, we assume the solemn burden of making this house a home and a haven for human rights.

This moment, this fiftieth anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, demands nothing less. Allow me, therefore, to thank also Gérard Ramseyer, President of the Council of State of the Republic and Canton of Geneva, and André Hédiger, Mayor of Geneva, for their vital part in granting the United Nations the use of this magnificent building. By assuming responsibility for the renovation of the Palais, you have ensured that all our resources devoted to human rights will indeed reach those who need them most.

You have, once again, raised the emblem of Switzerland alongside that of the United Nations. We are in your debt.

The establishment of a new home for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights could not have happened at a better or more promising time. At the United Nations, a revolutionizing reform process is placing human rights as a central cross-cutting concern with relevance to all aspects of our Organization's mission.

And beyond our walls, throughout the world, human rights are enjoying a genuine renaissance. They are recognized today -- as never before in human

history -- as rights that are as universal as they are essential to the achievement of human dignity.

It is, nevertheless, impossible to stand here today without hearing the whispers of history remind us of the flights and the follies of the human endeavour; of solemn protestations of peace even more solemnly ignored; of the hopes of the many foiled by the evil of the few; and by the need for vigilance, in every hour of every day, in the cause of peace as the ultimate protector of human rights.

I refer not only to the dark days after the Second World War which saw the early beginnings of the cold war and formed the stark and ominous backdrop for the creation of the courageous document of human dignity that we call the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I refer also to the fact that within these very walls of Palais Wilson, one of the noblest of collective endeavours -- the League of Nations -- was headquartered until its slow, but inevitable, demise in the twilight years leading to the Second World War.

Our presence here today testifies, however, to the very vibrancy of the idea of our United Nations -- the second, and perhaps last, chance for peace around the world. And it reflects even more the human propensity for hope -- even after war, even after holocaust -- and to our ability to learn, if only fitfully and inadequately, from our history.

I conjure these echoes of the past not to cast a pall over the present, but to remind us all of what failure in our mission can mean, not only for this generation, but also for those that follow. I do so also as a way of reflecting the centrality of human rights in our age -- a centrality that can perhaps best be compared to the need for collective security in the inter-war years.

The theme for today's discussion is human rights as an instrument for peace. Before remarking on this theme, I wish to recall the extraordinary progress that we have witnessed in the global culture of human rights over the past century -- progress that if sustained and expanded can make human rights and peace inextricably and universally linked in the century to come.

In 1905, a leading textbook in international law concluded that the "so-called rights of man" enjoyed no protection under international law, because it was concerned exclusively with the relations between States. Until 1945, international protection of individual human rights was confined to treaties abolishing the slave trade, the laws of war and the minority rights treaties concluded after Versailles. It is only since 1945 that the rights of all human beings have come under the protection of international law.

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While these developments undoubtedly constitute a catalogue of progress in principle, the reality of human rights abuses in the past half century tell a different story.

Our mission is quite simply to see the progress in principle reflected where that progress is most needed -- in the lives of the tortured, the abused and the victims of war and conflict.

In every part of the world, the United Nations is engaged in securing the basic conditions for human existence: peace, development, a safe environment, food, adequate shelter, enhanced opportunities. We seek to provide these goods because we believe all humans deserve the same opportunities to find food, freedom, and a sustainable future. These are basic human rights.

The history of human rights is the history of the United Nations. The principles and precepts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guide and inform every act of the United Nations. They inspire us to do more for greater numbers. They embolden us to believe that our cause is just and its fate the measure of man. They are as central to our mission for peace as peace is for the viability of human rights.

That is why the theme of today's discussion is as important as it is to human rights and to our work in human rights around the world. Since the end of the cold war, there has been a growing recognition of the importance of human rights not only to development but to peace itself.

We have learned in lesson after lesson that democracy enables development and sustains its success by empowering the individual and distributing its fruits equitably. We have learned that respect for human rights ensures peace between groups and peoples, both within and between States. We have learned, finally -- from Latin America to South Africa -- that telling the truth about human rights abuses is a precondition for national healing and reconciliation.

What is needed now is for us to draw the right lessons for the future of human rights. As we embark on that journey, we need look no further than to the past decade's conflicts and uncivil wars to know that the human right of groups and ethnicities to live with their identities is critical to peace itself.

We know that the fate of pluralism -- the belief and the reality that a variety of cultures and beliefs can coexist and indeed flourish in concert -- will determine the fate of human rights. In every society where human rights are abused or ignored, it is pluralism that is abused. Whenever the dissident voice or the different view is punished or excluded, it is pluralism that

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suffers and its promise that is denied. I suggest, therefore, that if human rights are to play the constructive role for peace that we desire, they must protect the promise of pluralism.

This is the larger task and responsibility of every development programme, every diplomatic mission and every human rights assistance programme that the United Nations pursues.

It means doing better and doing more to advance constitutional arrangements that allow for the will of all groups to be expressed; to promote equitable development between groups within nations; to help instil a culture of human rights and mutual respect that will deny even the thought of violence as a means of resolving inter-groups disputes.

It means helping societies recover from fratricidal warfare by helping them believe in each other again and to end the cycle of violence by helping them enter the path to prosperity which can ensure that every individual gains a stake in his or her society -- socially, economically and politically.

None of these challenges can be met swiftly or in one fell swoop. The enemies of pluralism -- the deniers and violators of human rights -- have for too long met too little resistance from too few corners of the human conscience. Still, we stand at a point in history when no nation and no State will openly deny the validity of those human rights set down in the Universal Declaration 50 years ago.

This is true, genuine and irrevocable progress. But it is only the beginning. Until we reach the point where every one of those rights accepted in principle is allowed in practice, our work is not over.

What is required from us is nothing less than the kind of universal commitment and hardened determination that our founders exhibited not once, but twice -- with the United Nations and with the Universal Declaration. We owe it to them to do our best today.

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