On the morning I left Dublin, just two months ago, to begin my work as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Seamus Heaney gave me a beautifully bound copy of The Golden Bough inscribed with those encouraging words “Take hold of it boldly and duly ... ”

It seems fitting to repeat them here at Oxford and to do so as I avail of this first opportunity to reflect publicly on my new responsibilities. Until now I have been preoccupied with learning and doing, while recognizing that there was insufficient time to step back a little and think. The...

I am proud to be the first recipient of the William J. Butler Human Rights Medal. To receive an award in the name of such an outstanding human rights defender as Bill Butler is especially moving. All the more so when the person concerned is a friend of mine and a friend and supporter of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Bill Butler's commitment to the cause of international human rights is so well known that it does not need to be repeated by me. I would just like to say that whenever I have...

Today, all over the world, women and men are marking International Women’s Day with a particular focus on the women of Afghanistan. What a joy and privilege it is to join so many Afghan women at this special seminar in Kabul.

During decades of civil conflict, the women of Afghanistan demonstrated impressive courage and endurance. You worked hard to look after families and neighbors. You found ways to farm the land and were inventive in the search for income. Many of you had to seek refuge from conflict or drought or from massacres, rapes, abductions, repression, or the bans on...

I am happy to welcome you to Palais Wilson as we launch the book Sacred Rights: Faith Leaders on Tolerance and Respect. I am particularly pleased that Bawa Jain, the Secretary General of the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders, is able to be with us this evening. Thanks are due him for his commitment in ensuring that the book was published. I think that it is a very attractive book, both in appearance and layout and also in its thoughtful and thought-provoking content. The range of spiritual and religious leaders who have contributed is wide, starting...

I am honored to have been invited to address you on the occasion of the international awards ceremony organized by the Kennedy Foundation. Your invitation caused me to reflect again on that part of the Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that “the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person.”

What do we mean by that phrase “the dignity and worth of the human person”?

I think it is encapsulated in the spirit behind the awards to be...

It gives me great pleasure to be here with you at this important seminar on the protection of human rights defenders.

Seven months ago I opened the thirteenth session of the Working Group on Human Rights Defenders of the Commission on Human Rights entrusted with the elaboration of a draft Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. I appealed to the participants to bear in mind the fundamental aim of this exercise: to support and strengthen the protection of human rights defenders around the world, who looked to the United Nations with great hope and expectation. The Declaration is now awaiting final...

It gives me great pleasure to be with you during this visit, which is of high importance for my Office and, I believe, for the people of this country. Yesterday afternoon Mr. Wang Guangya, Vice Foreign Minister, and I signed a Memorandum of Understanding on our mutual agreement to cooperate in the development and implementation of technical cooperation programs. This Memorandum is the fruit of more than two years of discussion and engagement.

One of the four key areas addressed in the Memorandum of Understanding is economic, social, and cultural rights and the right to development. These are key priority...

My purpose in addressing you is to encourage you. I do so from a deep conviction that your work is of central importance.

At the follow-up to the World Conference on Social Development in June 2000,¹ I welcomed a new dialogue between development and human rights specialists, based on the affirmation of the right to development by all states—large and small, north and south. A few months on, the Millennium Assembly promised to make the right to development a reality for everyone. Now, two years on, we should be in a new and positive position in the third session...

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has been awarded the Guinness World Record for having collected, translated, and disseminated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into more than three hundred languages and dialects: from Abkhaz to Zulu. The Universal Declaration is thus the document most translated—indeed, the most “universal”—in the world.

In the words of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson: “This project bears a special symbolism. It immediately brings to us a sense of the world’s diversity; it is a rich tapestry with so many different languages and peoples. But, at the...

I welcome the fact that a Convention concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour is to be adopted by the International Labour Organization. This will at the least represent an important first step in the vital task of protecting children who are at once the most valuable and the most vulnerable members of society.

Child labor and its harmful consequences have been a matter of deep concern to the international community for many years. Children continually find themselves victims of exploitation through labor. One of the worst forms of forced labor is bonded labor,...

It is a great honor for me to have this opportunity to send you a message on the occasion of Minorities’ Rights Day, in celebration of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities.¹

As we turn back the pages of history and remember the atrocities committed in the past, often against innocent people whose only fault lay in belonging to the wrong religious, cultural, or linguistic groups, we have learned the importance of building bridges between different groups, and of promoting better understanding and mutual tolerance...

It is a privilege for me to have the opportunity to address this Conference dedicated to the role of the rule of law in postconflict situations. Allow me to congratulate the organizers on the convening of this important meeting. I see it as an example of mainstreaming human rights by the United Nations Office at Vienna, a process that is currently developing throughout the United Nations system.

We have gathered here five years after the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, a Conference that charted a course of action for the international community and that continues to serve as our...

It is a pleasure to return to San Francisco to address the annual conference of Business for Social Responsibility. At an early stage in my term as High Commissioner, I began to appreciate both the role business could play in respect of human rights and that business was increasingly interested in the subject. In the summer of 1998 I accepted an invitation to visit the Business for Social Responsibility office in San Francisco just to check them out. They passed with honors. I was impressed by small details: the concern for an environmentally friendly office; the multicultural and gender-balanced staff,...

I am happy to have the opportunity to address this gathering and to speak about the state of human rights today and the role that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights can play.

The position which I hold, that of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, was established on the recommendation of the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights of 1993 and following a subsequent resolution of the General Assembly. The mandate of the Office has four essential components:

building global partnerships for human rights;

preventing human rights violations and responding to emergencies;

promoting...

This session of the Commission on Human Rights will call for deep reflection by all of us. I am convinced that everyone in this room wishes the human rights idea to triumph nationally, regionally, and internationally. How we are to achieve this is a topic that excites great passions and gives rise to agreement as well as divisions among us. Surely we agree that every effort must be made to spread a universal culture of human rights and to act to protect the victims of violations in any part of the world. That has been the policy of this Commission...

It is a pleasure and honor for me to be here today to talk about the activities that my Office is undertaking with a view to promoting and protecting human rights and to listen to ideas you may have which might help us better achieve our goal.

This is the second time I have visited Iran. I was here in February 1998 for a Workshop on Regional Arrangements for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the Asia Pacific region. On this occasion I am delighted to have the opportunity to come to the University and speak openly to...

I welcome the invitation to address this important gathering. My first contact with the Inter-Parliamentary Union was in 1971, when I attended the annual meeting in Paris as a young Irish Parliamentarian. Since then the IPU has been developing its influence on the role of Parliaments worldwide.

It is fitting that parliamentarians should meet in Berlin, the new capital city which, ten years ago, witnessed one of the most remarkable democratic achievements of recent times. The unification of the German people and nation was a historic event in many respects. From a human rights perspective it represented a victory for...

When I was invited to give a Presidential Fellows’ Lecture, I accepted readily. Months ago the date was put firmly in my diary. It fitted the closer links that had been developing at many levels between the World Bank and my Office. The Bank has been an active participant in workshops and seminars we have organized. It has supported the work of the human rights treaty bodies and working groups, such as the Working Group on the right to development, and has been a resource for us. It was a timely invitation to try to bring all this together and...

I warmly welcome this opportunity to address members of the Security Council. I wish to express my appreciation to the Council for having commissioned this report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict and thank the Secretary General for an excellent, clear, and concise document.

I am pleased to be here with you today as the report raises issues close to my heart. The report accurately reflects the innumerable challenges which the United Nations faces in its work and so many of the human rights issues which my staff and I address on a daily basis. My Office is...

The invitation to give the second Global Ethic Lecture at the University of Tiibingen was irresistible. Linking human rights with ethics and globalization represents, I believe, a connection whose time has come. And yet, the task is daunting. Every day brings further evidence of the unacceptable divide in our world, the harsh statistics of millions living in extreme poverty and enduring conflict. The increasing frustration and disillusionment with market-led globalization is evidenced by the protests at the G8, WTO, EU, and other Summits.

We are at the edge of a big idea: the shaping of ethical globalization. But how? What...