United Nations – UN Deputy Secretary-General, Jan Eliasson, on Friday, says he is appalled at the alarming disregard for international human rights and humanitarian law by member states.
Eliasson made this known in his remarks at the General Assembly Thematic Panel Discussion entitled: “From Commitment to Implementation: Ten Years of the Responsibility to Protect (R2R)’’ in New York.
He said “impunity is pervasive. Accountability is distant. Too many member states are failing to live up to fundamental rules of international humanitarian and human rights law.
“The solemn commitment that gave birth to the responsibility to protect was not designed to be a comfortable rhetorical restatement of common values.’’
He added that it was a call to move away from the status quo.
“It was a call to action. So, 10 years on, where do we stand. Have we moved from commitment to delivery. `
“Not much, I would say, not sufficient. Looking around the world, we see a number of situations in which populations suffered horrendous abuses.
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“Some of them may well constitute genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.’’
The UN official explained that too many had yet to become parties to the international conventions which set out the framework for preventing and punishing the crimes identified by the principle of the responsibility to protect.
The responsibility to protect, he added, had helped to generate a growing political understanding among member states on how to prevent and respond to atrocity crimes.
Through successive General Assembly dialogues since 2009, he said, member states agreed that prevention was at the core of the UN agenda.
The responsibility to protect had also led to the development of new political commitment and new institutional capacities.
“We see it in other international and regional organisations. We also see it in international networks for the prevention of atrocity crimes. Let us list some of them because it is pretty impressive.
“The Global R2P Focal Point Network, Regional Committee at the International Conference of Great Lakes Region, Latin American Network on Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, Global Action against Mass Atrocity Crimes, all are actively enhancing our understanding of risk factors.
“They all aim to prevent a downward spiral towards systematic violence. They help identify ways to assist states to better protect their populations.
“The measure of our success is the extent to which we have been able to prevent atrocity crimes or the escalation of such crimes.’’
He said developments in Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea and Kenya were counted as successes.
He, however, said that states’ collective response to the Syrian crisis had been a catastrophic failure.
The situation in South Sudan, he added, is deeply troubling.
He called on states to do better at prevention of conflicts.
He said that means a genuine and wider political commitment to early action from all sides.
“We must act early instead of waiting for disaster to occur. Internally, within the UN system, our Human Rights Up Front initiative is an important step in this direction.
“When crimes against humanity occur, we need to respond faster and more decisively,” he told the 193 members of the General Assembly.’’
Eliasson also urged member states to do more in peace-building financially and politically.
When rebuilding was not done or failed, he said, the risk of recurrence grew and gained as we had seen could be quickly and tragically reversed, just look at South Sudan.
“In such cases, we must maintain our engagement and learn from our past failures.
“The Secretary-General has spoken of the need to instill a culture of courage to ensure that respect for human rights and international humanitarian law does not succumb to other considerations.
“At the beginning of the second decade of the responsibility to protect, it is imperative that the international community unequivocally reaffirms the responsibility to protect of 2005.
“We must work collectively to make the protection from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity a living reality.”
This, he said, was an obligation to humanity and to the people we were to serve in the spirit of the Charter. (NAN)