QUOTES
We
know from worldwide experience that very often when you go beyond the numbers
you uncover patterns of sometimes indirect discrimination ... (and) disproportionate
application of the harshest penalties, including often the death penalties, on
minority groups, people suffering from mental illness,”
“Like
many, I deplore the U.S. for their rejection of the International Criminal Court,
... It seems that clearly this debate will carry on.”
“Two
phenomena, in my view, are particularly disturbing: One is the prevalence of the
use of torture to extract confessions and information and the second one is the
intimidation of those who make complaints against public officials.
“There are millions of people
all over the world, right now, who are looking to the United Nations for protection
and redress against the violation of their rights and deprivation of their freedoms.”
this
new era is marked by the dramatic passage from declaring rights to enforcing rights.
This effort is focussed on enforcing the most basic and fundamental human rights:
the right to life, to physical integrity, and to be protected from rape, torture
and extermination. The immense progress in the implementation of international
humanitarian law, "the law of war" as it is better known, stems essentially from
the leading international instruments of the second half of what we must now call
the last century.
Judicial
bodies provide a forum for truth telling
You
should rightly view this new millennium as one in which you can and should leave
your individual and collective marks. Your are, in effect, the beneficiaries of
a mixed and ambivalent inheritance. On the one hand, you must recognize the immense
progress that has been made, for example, in improving the quality of life in
this and other industrialized countries and your duty as guardians of the many
accomplishments and successes of the preceding generations. On the other hand,
I know that you are alive to the enormous challenges that remain to be met and
the responsibility that falls to you and those of your generation to continue
to improve the local, national and international communities of which you are
members.
