ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL IN NETHERLANDS, 21-24 NOVEMBER
On the morning of 21 November, the Secretary-General and his wife Nane flew from Zagreb to Amsterdam, and they had a private lunch with Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands at The Hague.
They then drove to Tilburg, in the south of the country, where he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Tilburg. The Queen attended the Tilburg ceremony, the first official function she attended outside The Hague since the death of her husband, Prince Klaus, two-and-a-half months ago.
After receiving the honorary doctorate, the Secretary-General called for a new vision of global security in his acceptance speech. “The vision”, he said, “must simultaneously respect human rights, confront the asymmetric threat of terrorism, and draw as never before upon the resources and legitimacy of multilateral cooperation.”
One significant debate, he said, surrounds the competing claims of sovereignty and intervention, and the balance between the rights of States and the rights of individuals. He recalled the 1999 speech he gave in the Netherlands in which he argued that sovereignty must never be a shield for States to commit human rights abuses. “After Srebrenica, after Rwanda, after genocide”, he said, “all of us need to affirm that sovereignty means responsibilities as well as powers; and that among those responsibilities, none is more important than protecting citizens from violence in war.”
He argued that human rights and the evolving nature of humanitarian law will be unacceptably limited if the principle of state sovereignty is always allowed to trump the protection of citizens within these States.
In the post-11 September environment, he went on, the debate has shifted away from military intervention on behalf of others to intervention in self-defence. Domestically, he observed, the danger is that in pursuit of security, “we end up sacrificing crucial liberties, thereby weakening our common security, not strengthening it”. Internationally, he said, the “T-word”, terrorism, is being used to demonize opponents and delegitimize legitimate political grievances. But just as terrorism must never be excused, he argued, so must genuine grievances never be ignored.
While the United Nations has a clear obligation to deal with the global threat of terror, he concluded, “our unrelenting position must be that any sacrifice of freedom or the rule of law within States .…. is to hand the terrorists a victory that no act of theirs alone could possibly bring”. (See Press Release SG/SM/8518.)
Immediately after the award ceremony finished, the Secretary-General spoke to the press. In response to a question on whether the diplomatic process has a proper chance in the Iraq situation, he said that if the Iraqis cooperate on the disarmament issue and the inspectors are able to effectively complete their work, “then I think the arguments for military action will be considerably diminished”.
In response to another question on his idealistic attitude towards people in general, he said “You have to understand that yes we have evil men and women on earth. …… What is important is we should be careful not to generalize from the particular. And in attempting to get one individual, make a law that will come to haunt everybody”.
The Secretary-General then attended a reception at the university and travelled back to The Hague the same evening.
The following morning he met with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers for one of their periodic discussions and then, together with Mrs. Annan, attended the launch of the Declaration of The Hague.
In accepting the Declaration, the Secretary-General stressed that “immigrants and refugees should not -– and must not -– be seen as a burden”. If the issue of migration is tackled properly, he added, citizens of developed and developing countries alike will come to understand how its benefits far outweigh the problems it may bring. “Politicians have a choice to make”, the Secretary-General said. “They can embrace the potential that migrants and refugees represent, or instead could use them as political scapegoats.” (See Press Release SG/SM/8522.)
He then held a press encounter, in which he reiterated his challenge to world leaders not to scapegoat migrants. The Secretary-General went on to meet with the judges of the International Court of Justice, who reviewed with him their caseload. The Secretary-General briefed them on his meeting with the Presidents of Cameroon and Nigeria on 15 November, following the Court’s ruling last month on their border dispute.
After meeting with the leaders of the United Nations Association of the Netherlands and thanking them for their work, the Secretary-General had a working luncheon with his Special Adviser on Cyprus, Alvaro de Soto.
The Secretary-General left the Netherlands for France on 24 November.