SECRETARY-GENERAL CALLS FOR NEW UNITED NATIONS-NGO PARTNERSHIP AMIDST ONGOING HUMAN RIGHTS REVOLUTION
Press Release
SG/SM/6697
PI/1079
SECRETARY-GENERAL CALLS FOR NEW UNITED NATIONS-NGO PARTNERSHIP AMIDST ONGOING HUMAN RIGHTS REVOLUTION
19980914Addressing Annual DPI-NGO Conference, Credits NGOs with Championing Human Rights
The following is the text of the statement given today by Secretary- General Kofi Annan to the annual DPI-NGO Conference which began at Headquarters:
It gives me great pleasure to see you all here, from all corners of the world and all walks of life. Together you form a robust pageant of diversity that is the United Nations at its very best. Welcome to United Nations Headquarters; welcome home.
I would also like to address a special greeting to the many eminent speakers who have joined us this year, including the First Lady of Egypt, Suzanne Mubarak; and the First Lady of South Africa, Graça Machel.
I myself have just returned from South Africa, from a country and a summit meeting where the document we commemorate today -- the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- was very much at the forefront of our minds.
South Africa was of course the scene of one of the world's most prolonged and pernicious affronts to human dignity. But, from the horror of apartheid came signal achievements for the United Nations and the community of non-governmental organizations alike.
For the United Nations, an important principle was affirmed: that international concern for human rights does not stop at a country's borders. As for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), they -- that is you -- demonstrated again the role you play in raising public awareness, tweaking the world's conscience and shaping policy.
But it was not just South Africa's recent history that made me think of the Declaration. Nearly all the issues raised just 12 days ago at the summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement were linked directly to the ideals and standards set out in 1948.
Conflict in Central Africa? The Declaration's words on equality and non-discrimination can help point the way towards a solution.
Poverty in the developing world? Turmoil in global financial markets? The Declaration was one of the first international instruments to recognize the value of economic and social rights, and their equal and interdependent relationship with civil and political rights.
So Dag Hammarskjöld was right in calling the Declaration a "living document". Not only has it stood the test of time, it takes on greater force -- both ethically and juridically -- with every passing year.
The Declaration was adopted by governments. But non-governmental organizations were every bit its authors as the delegates who cast the final votes. The historical record is clear.
Before the founding of the United Nations, NGOs led the charge in the adoption of some of the Declaration's forerunners. The Geneva Conventions of 1864, multilateral labour conventions adopted in 1906, and the International Slavery Convention of 1926, all stemmed from the work of NGOs, who infused the international community with a spirit of reform.
Such efforts continued at the San Francisco conference at which the United Nations was founded. The NGOs played a key role in securing language in the United Nations Charter, making clear the Organization's fundamental commitment to human rights. Among those activists was Minerva Bernardino of the Dominican Republic, a pioneering feminist who dedicated her life to human rights and who was one of only four women to sign the Charter. I was saddened by her death last month, but gladdened to know that the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women stands as one of her enduring legacies.
That Commission was not mentioned in the Charter. Only one was: a commission on human rights, which promptly took up the task of elaborating a declaration of human rights. Non-governmental actors were again central players, offering their views and even draft texts.
Third Committee Chairman Charles Malik of Lebanon later wrote that there was "hardly an ultimate problem in human life -- from God and the State to children and social security -- that was not brought out and discussed" in the process. Some 1,300 votes later, after an article-by-article tally, NGOs were fully entitled to share pride in the achievement.
Your efforts since then have been equally impressive. You have fought against tyranny, sometimes serving as the de facto opposition. You have braved conflict and natural disaster to protect refugees and provide humanitarian assistance.
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You have raised vast sums for development. Raised global awareness about the environment. Attended United Nations conferences and meetings by the thousands.
The Nobel committee has recognized this work. Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Pugwash Conference, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines are among the many non-governmental groups that have won the Nobel Peace Prize.
But NGOs have also come in for another, less welcome sort of recognition: you have been censored and denied access to meetings and information; harassed, jailed and exiled; tortured and murdered.
Here we see an essential paradox. In adopting the Declaration, governments pledged to achieve universal respect for the full body of human rights and accepted the primary responsibility to do so.
But when governments suppress dissent with violence or sham justice; when they void elections or fail to hold them; when they divert precious resources into excessive military spending; when they are purveyors of discrimination and hatred; when they siphon money intended for the public good into private numbered accounts in financial havens; it is governments themselves who put into doubt our hopes of realizing the Declaration's ideals.
So we need partnerships: partnerships that will allow democratic participation in decision-making; that will enable governments to back down from their mistakes; and that will enable United Nations fact-finding missions and other mechanisms to operate with integrity. We need partnerships that will produce new milestones on a par with the Ottawa Convention banning landmines and the International Criminal Court.
To do so, the United Nations-NGO relationship will need to strike a balance. There will be times for bold actions and uncompromising words, and times for more deliberate approaches. Purism and pragmatism both have their place, as do public and private diplomacy. Our challenge is to know when, and then to calibrate our weapons and coordinate our actions.
So where do we go from here?
The Universal Declaration has given birth to an extensive body of human rights law. This is a great success, on paper. But there are important gaps in coverage. We are far from our goal of universal ratification of all the major conventions. Indigenous peoples have yet to see the adoption of a declaration of their rights, despite many years of drafting. There are other such examples.
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One drawn-out negotiating process with direct relevance for NGOs seems about to reach a conclusion. At long last, 14 years after the idea was first taken up by a United Nations working group, the General Assembly will consider, at its current session, a draft declaration on the protection of human rights defenders. The declaration rests on a basic premise: that when the rights of human rights defenders are violated, all our rights are put in jeopardy and all of us are made less safe.
Accordingly, the draft states that everyone has the right: to meet or assemble peacefully; to form, join and participate in NGOs; to seek and obtain information about human rights; to complain about the policies and actions of officials and government bodies; and to enjoy unhindered access to and communication with international bodies. It obligates States to protect those who exercise these rights from violence, threats, retaliation, discrimination or any other arbitrary action. This official recognition is long overdue, and like you I look forward to the day the declaration is adopted.
So there is more law to make. But we cannot rest easy at the thought that so many laws are in place. Instead, we must respond to one of the central realities of our day: the chasm that exists between laws on the books and situations on the ground, in people's lives. Suffering remains rampant. We see acute emergencies -- from Kosovo to Central Africa -- and chronic poverty and deprivation the world over. We must do better.
I am encouraged that this year, in which we commemorate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, has also been the year of the International Criminal Court. As th1e campaign for ratification of the Rome statute now gets under way, I hope that NGOs will continue to display the interest and commitment that has helped bring us this far. The conviction of Jean-Paul Akayesu, the ex-Mayor of Taba, Rwanda, of genocide and crimes against humanity, including rape, shows the utility of an international tribunal. It also shows that the United Nations can deliver.
Just as heartening is the growth of the NGO community itself. Linked by e-mail and the Worldwide Web into evermore effective national and global networks, civil society groups are changing diplomacy and changing the world.
It stands to reason that the relationship between the United Nations and civil society should also change. We are opening up, training our staff to work with NGOs and providing funding and other assistance to NGOs, particularly in the developing world. The United Nations International Drug Control Programme, for example, is helping NGOs enhance their technical skills to fight against illicit drugs.
We do this because we are convinced that there are no limits to what a strong civil society can achieve in partnership with governments. But that is
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also why I am so troubled when the NGO idea is abused: when NGOs are established to procure funding and nothing more; or when NGOs are used as fronts claiming to be one thing when, in fact, they are another. The proliferation of NGOs reflects your great success. But it has also contributed to this problem and feeds suspicion on the part of governments and others about the whole NGO enterprise.
Indeed, this is one of your main hurdles and it may be time for NGOs to consider ways to protect your own invaluable franchise.
The growing pains felt by NGOs are also being felt in the wider international community. It is here where the debt to NGOs is especially profound. You have helped give life to the very idea of an international community, an idea that is often questioned and mocked. The international community is, admittedly, a work in progress. It has failed many tests. But, it passes many more, if still not enough. It certainly succeeded 50 years ago when, before the eyes of a world still recovering from the Second World War and the near-extinction of human rights, the General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As the representative of the Philippines said at the time, the United Nations had been on trial for its life and justified its existence by producing that text.
The Declaration has now been translated into more than 200 languages. Its tenets have been woven into the fabric of national and international life. It is many things at once: a manifesto; a blueprint; a contract; a roadmap. To me it represents a single voice: the great song of global pluralism and diversity by which an international community intones its hopes for a better world.
Friends, we cannot leave it to governments or institutions to do for us what we ourselves fail to do. Each and every one of us has a responsibility to speak up, to get involved, to be aware and to care. Eleanor Roosevelt knew this. As she said:
"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home -- so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet, they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizens action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."
There is no turning back in the revolution of human rights. There is no turning back from the global NGO revolution. So let us move ahead in partnership. Thank you.
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