Keynote address by Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Today 10 December, marks the date in 1948 when the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration, which set out ideals and targets calling for recognition and respect for all human rights - civil, political,economic,social and cultural, for all human beings in the world, can claim to be the most influential text ever adopted by the United N...read more
Keynote address by Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Today 10 December, marks the date in 1948 when the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration, which set out ideals and targets calling for recognition and respect for all human rights - civil, political,economic,social and cultural, for all human beings in the world, can claim to be the most influential text ever adopted by the United Nations.
It is true that most of Africa was not represented in the United Nations at that time. But I recall Nelson Mandela's account during his trial of first hearing of the proclamation of the Universal Declaration in 1948. It filled him with hope at a dark time for his people when the Nationalist government of South Africa was consolidating Apartheid. When African peoples achieved self -determination and joined the United Nations they embraced the Universal Declaration. They went on to reflect its principles in their own African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. They also ratified the main international human rights instruments. African countries have helped shape many of those instruments.
Indeed, it is not very well known history that it is to newly independent Africa, and more broadly the developing world, that we owe a number of the major innovations in the international legal protection of human rights of the 20thcentury.
It was the determination of the new African and Asian nations of the United Nations in the 1960's to end Apartheid in South Africa that shaped the long UN campaign against racism. When you view the struggle for equality as underscoring the entire human rights movement - as I do - this critical role assumes yet more importance. It led to the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, of 1965, one of the cornerstones of all international human rights treaties. The struggle against Apartheid at the international level also laid the foundations for the current capacity of the UN machinery to intervene and intercede over many other human rights violations across the world. This is a debt the world owes to Africa but which is not often recognised.
We also owe our thinking on the relationship between development and human rights largely to countries of the South and their determination to make the ideals of human rights relevant to their situation. When the newly independent countries of the 1960s and 1970s joined the United Nations, they took the promise of universal human rights principles and insisted that they were applied to the conditions of their peoples. Despite serious problems of governance, and often of corruption, the belief was there. In 1981, Africa recognized the right to development as a basic human right in the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. From their efforts came the UN Declaration of the Right to Development of 1986. From that deeply influential statement - adopted in Cold War conditions - has come the current thinking of a rights-based approach to development that seeks to bring about the promise of universal human rights and dignity.
But turning to the contemporary world I had a sober message for Human Rights Day. This has been a difficult year for human rights. After so many high hopes that the turn of the Millennium would herald a new era of respect for fundamental freedoms, we are faced with the sobering realisation that there is as much, if not more, work to do now to make human rights a reality for all.
The World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in Durban concluded three days before 11 September. The World Conference was the latest event in a long campaign by the world community to rid itself of the scourge of racism and discrimination. The terrorist attacks of 11 September shock the world. All people who cherish life and abhor violence motivated by hatred condemn those attacks unreservedly. I understand that in 1999 the OAU adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism. Let us hope that the Convention will be ratified soon and implemented.
It has been suggested in some quarters that human rights considerations must take a back-seat in the struggle against terrorism. I can not share in that line of thinking. Human rights must be observed, especially in times of crises. We can, and must, fight terrorism while observing human rights. However, the long-term antidote to terrorism is a world where the ideals of the Universal Declaration of equal human dignity for all without any discrimination have been achieved.
