Replacing the law of force with the force of law |
| Kofi A. Annan is secretary general of the
United Nations. These remarks were taken from his recent address at the ABA
Conference Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention, one of a series
of special presidential programs presented during ABA President Jerry J.
Shestack's term. |
| You have come together in celebration: to commemorate the 50th anniversary
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; to mark the 50th anniversary
of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;
and to recall the 50th anniversity of the first General Assembly resolution
calling on Member States to study the possibility of establishing an
international criminal court.
You have also come together in utter solemnity: to remember our obligations to our forefathers, who proclaimed a vision of human rights for all the world's people; and to rededicate ourselves to do better where we have failed or fallen short. The touchstone for this work, the guiding star for this anniversary year, is the inherent dignity and worth of every human being. I believe that the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so quickly after the Holocaust, proves that we have begun to learn those lessons. For if human rights are to have any meaning at all, none of us can remain indifferent when anyone's rights are violated anywhere. In recent years, peacekeeping operations in El Salvador and Mozambique have helped the people of those countries turn their backs on civil strife, and their energies towards the work of democracy and development. Elsewhere, however, — in Rwanda and in Bosnia and Herzegovina — the horrors of the Second World War — the camps, the cruelty, the exterminations — the likes of which we said should never happen again, have recurred. Genocide has become a work of our time, too. So we move both forward and back. Peace spreads in one region as hatred rages in another. Unprecedented wealth coexists with terrible deprivation. Globalization knits us closer together while intolerance keeps up apart. But while much of our progress is fragile, some achievements endure. One such achievement is the Genocide Convention, which was born out of the experience that a person stood a better chance of being tried and judged for killing one human being than for killing 100,000. Another is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The United States takes justifiable pride, and enjoys universal respect, in the fact that its own Declaration of Independence more than 200 years ago was among the affirmations of human rights, freedoms and dignity that led to the Universal Declaration. Yet the roots of the universal declaration exist in all cultures and traditions, and can be found in the teachings of all the world's great religions. The Declaration itself was the product of debates among a uniquely representative group of scholars, a majority of whom came from the non-Western world. The Declaration's universality today is founded on its endorsement by all 185 members of the United Nations. Together, for fifty years, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention have been the anchors of an international human rights regime that sets out the rights of women, children, refugees, minorities, indigenous peoples and others, and which helps protect against torture and racial discrimination. But for the same half century — almost as long as the UN has been existence — the need has remained largely unanswered for a means to prosecute and punish persons responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity. In the absence of an international criminal court, and in the face of grave violations and atrocities in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, the Security Council established two ad hoc tribunals. Those tribunals have made significant progress and are setting important precedents. An International Criminal Court remains the missing link in the international legal system. Such a court could remedy the deficiencies of ad hoc tribunals, such as the risk of selective justice. It could take over when national criminal justice institutions are unwilling or unable to act. We have an opportunity to achieve this when a conference of plenipotentiaries convenes in Rome to adopt a convention on the establishment of an international criminal court. In this anniversary year, as a blood-soaked century draws to a close, I cannot think of a more fitting occasion to complete the vision of the Genocide Convention. We must do all we can to replace the law of force with the force of law. |