Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge,
Distinguished Faculty Members,
Distinguished Guests,
Dear Students,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning.

Thank you for this recognition you have just bestowed on me. I know it is a sign of your high regard for the organization I am proud to serve and lead. Thank you for this vote of confidence in the United Nations. I accept with humble mind and with great sense of honour this honorary doctorate degree on behalf of its diverse and dedicated staff, who are working day and night for world peace and human dignity of the people.

This is my first visit to the University of Cambridge. But one does not need to see the colleges to feel the Cambridge spirit. Over the centuries, your libraries and laboratories have shaped the world as much as any other institution, anywhere, at any time.

That impact extends to the United Nations. Cambridge alumni were around the table 70 years ago in San Francisco when the United Nations was established. John Maynard Keynes was the leading designer of the Bretton Woods Institutions.

Lord Mark Malloch-Brown of Magdalene College reached the second highest position in the United Nations, serving during the time of my predecessor Kofi Annan as Deputy Secretary-General.

Dame Margaret Anstee of Newnham College was a pioneer – the first ever woman ever to lead a peacekeeping operation as Special Representative of the Secretary-General.

Stephen O’Brien of Emmanuel College serves today as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and ­the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, and spends most of his time on the frontlines of conflict and disaster, helping to ease the suffering of the victims.

He is here in London with me and the delegation to participate in this London conference on Syria tomorrow.

Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, earned a Ph.D. at Christ’s College.

And Jane Goodall -- of Newnham and Darwin Colleges -- is a UN Messenger of Peace, who marched alongside with me in the streets of New York in 2014 demanding climate action.

We are grateful to Cambridge for these and so many other contributions. Your scientists and scholars have explained the law of gravity and the workings of the solar system. Most of all, they have taught us that it is knowledge that makes the world go round.

Distinguished professors, Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

My great predecessor Dag Hammarskjöld spoke here at Cambridge in 1958. He described those days as “a time of peace which is no peace”. Those words can apply even to our time, too.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in conflicts in the past five years alone. At least 60 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes -- the most since the end of the Second World War. Terrorist attacks continue to spread mayhem. Extreme weather is on the rise. Oxfam reported last month that the richest 1 per cent of the world are now as wealthy as the other 99 per cent.

Across the world, there is a strong sense that we are off track and in a deep mess.

We remain oriented towards crisis response, acting only when situations are “red hot” -- after the predictable fires have broken out. The challenge facing the international community is to move from a pattern of reaction to a culture of prevention. That, in turn, must mean a heightened focus on preventing violations of human rights. This has been a priority throughout my time in office -- and will be the focus of my remarks today.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Ours is an intricately globalized world. Political, economic and social waves on one shore create ripples and storms in all regions. There are few safe havens; we sink or swim together. That's what I've been consistently saying to world leaders.

In an era of interdependence, peace and prosperity depend on a global social compact rooted in human dignity for all.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights puts it clearly: Everyone, without any distinction whatsoever, is entitled to human rights.

Ethnicity, gender, skin color, class or nationality must never be used to exploit the vulnerable or fan the flames of hate.

Asserting one’s own rights is only one part of the battle. Recognizing the human rights of others is the true -- and harder -- test of commitment.

Yet today, in many places and in many respects, the human rights compact is under assault or has broken down completely.

We see this in the deliberate starvation of besieged populations in Syria; and in the enslavement of women and girls by Daesh, Boko Haram and other violent extremists.

We see it in many places where governments are retaliating against human rights defenders and restricting media freedoms.

We may also be seeing it in the world’s response to the refugee crisis.

I applaud the countries and citizens that have opened their arms and doors in solidarity. Yet too many Syrians and others fleeing appalling violence are being victimized several times over: at home, where life is impossible; by smugglers and by other perils of their journeys; and by harsh treatment upon arrival in places where they hope to find asylum.

I call for a strong show of solidarity at tomorrow’s humanitarian conference in London. We need to get Syrian children back in school - we have 2 million Syrian children out of school at this time - and get our aid convoys through to people in dire need. We have at least 400,000 people stranded in besieged villages, at least 15 besieged villages. It is very difficult for us, very dangerous. I know that we are very conscious of the criticism of what the United Nations has been doing for these people....Last year we were able, in 2014, to deliver aid to 5% of those people. Last year, much less than 5%, because half the area is controlled by Daesh, and only 2% by Syrian government. The Syrian government should be responsible and of course we have to fight against the ways of Daesh.

As we address the wider challenge of large-scale displacement, I appeal for shared responsibility and compassion. Razor-wire fences, the confiscation of assets, and the vilification of people seeking safety all summon up ghosts of past crises -- the lessons of which we are meant to have learned already.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Despite an elaborate international human rights framework and an increasingly dynamic Human Rights Council, the world faces a crisis of protection.

The human cost is intolerable. The political and economic costs are unsustainable. We must act urgently to restore the human rights compact -- and to build it up where it has never existed. Governments have the primary obligations. But the United Nations must also uphold its responsibilities to meet the standards to which we aspire under the United Nations Charter.

The international community did not do enough to prevent the horrors of Cambodia, Rwanda and Srebrenica. During my own term, an internal review of United Nations action during the final days of crisis in Sri Lanka, we found out that there had been a “systemic failure” to protect thousands of civilians.

Since 2013, we have pursued a new effort to ensure that we act early to identify -- and speak out about -- violations of human rights. We know that exclusion based on ethnic, religious or other potential dividing lines is especially combustible. Under the “Human Rights up Front”, which I initiated just two years ago we aim to act on these clear warning signs before they escalate. This initiative is done after having a hard lesson from our old action. I thought that all this Srebrenica, Rwanda, had happened during my predecessors term and I am very much committed not to repeat. We have said so many times never again, never again, never again, I wrote it and many people have written it, but it is still happening.

We aim to instill a culture of courage across the United Nations. We want our work to proceed from a clear understanding that human rights are not subservient to other concerns, and are not something to be addressed only once other development benchmarks have been attained. We have three pillars in the Charter. These are peace and security, development, and human rights. I have been stating that development and human rights should go hand in hand. Among the three pillars, the human rights pillar should be given the highest priority, highest priority. Of course, when there is no peace, human rights are apt to be violated but justice and accountability for the violation of human rights should come all the times if not today, tomorrow. If not tomorrow, the day after tomorrow. [inaudible] When there was the Rwandan genocide, we established the Special Tribunal for Rwanda. For Yugoslavia we have also established ICTY. We have established many special tribunals, now Lebanon and Cambodia. That is [inaudible] that justice will prevail.

This approach is helping us to regain lost ground. When fighting erupted in South Sudan more than two years ago, we opened the gates of our peacekeeping bases to provide refuge for people who might otherwise have perished. We learned again hard lessons. The United Nations opened the gate so that these people [inaudible] knowing that we didn’t have a mandate to protect civilian population. They were all killed immediately. That's genocide. This time, I ordered open the gate and let them in. So we are now hosting 200,000 refugees in the United Nations Mission. United Nations Peacekeeping Missions have never been designed, or made, to accommodate that many refugees. There have been very serious difficulties but we have been keeping them safe.

Often, however, efforts to address the human rights situation in a given country run up against the assertion that any such discussion violates article 2.7 of the UN Charter on interference in a country’s domestic affairs.

But sovereignty was never meant to be a barrier behind which a government can freely abuse its own citizens. Human rights violations frequently generate instability, refugee flows and other consequences that go beyond borders. Moreover, human rights abuses eat away at the standing of a state in the eyes of its people, thereby weakening sovereignty.

Sovereignty must be earned, must be protected. The more a state does to uphold human rights, ensure the rule of law, and practice inclusive governance, the more its sovereignty is strengthened. States have a fundamental responsibility to protect their people from genocide and other grave violations of human rights.

Some states have expressed reservations about this principle, this principle of the Responsibility to Protect, which was adopted by world leaders in 2005, on celebrating the 60th anniversary of the United Nations. Some see it as a license for military intervention by big powers against smaller countries. But that is only a last resort. The intervention needed most of all is the one that comes early on, and that helps states to build up their capacity to identify and address the precursors of atrocities.

Sovereignty remains part of the bedrock of international order. But the less sovereignty is viewed as a wall or a shield, the better our prospects will be for protecting people and solving our shared problems.

Impunity only breeds even more violence. Indifference only makes our world far less secure. Inaction remains the greatest threat. We have to get away from this impunity, indifference, and inaction.

It is time to do more to stop the brazen and brutal erosion of respect for human rights and international humanitarian law in the world's conflict areas. It is time to strengthen the way we prepare for and respond to the mega-crises of the 21st century.

On May 23rd and 24th, I will convene the first-ever in the history of development issues a World Humanitarian Summit meeting, [inaudible] in Turkey. Our goal is to reaffirm global commitment to protecting people, and to restore the common humanity that is so grievously under assault.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Human rights figure prominently in the two landmark achievements of the year just past 2015: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement last year, which was adopted last year.

Success in reaching the 17 Sustainable Development Goals will depend crucially on empowering women and young people, and on building trustworthy governance and institutions. The new goals are also universal -- and apply to all countries, not just the poorest, since even the richest countries have yet to conquer inequality and injustice.

Climate change also raises questions of justice and human rights. The impacts of a warming world will fall most heavily on the world’s least developed countries, which have done little to cause the problem. The consequences could compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs. I am encouraged that with the Paris Agreement, world leaders appear to have finally stopped deferring the difficult decisions. Rigorous monitoring will be crucial in holding states to their commitments.

These two milestones are rooted in a pledge to leave no one left behind. They can help us break cycles of deprivation, frustration and violence. Our shared challenge now is to realize their great potential -- and to use these roadmaps to build a world of dignity for all.

Distinguished Vice-Chancellor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Distinguished Faculty, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Since taking office almost a decade ago, this is my 10th year, my last year as Secretary-General, I have tried to stand with the vulnerable. I have been working as defender of defenseless, and I have been working as the voice of the voiceless. I have sought to connect the dots between peace, development and human rights.

We live at a time when the distinctions between the national and the international are falling away. Leaders cannot govern as if the world stops at their borders, or as if internal challenges are insulated from what goes on beyond. Our vision must be a global one.

I ask all the students particularly present here today to look up and look out beyond your communities and countries. This world may be small, small planet, but still a lot of things to do, a lot of people who need your support and your passion and compassionate leadership. The world needs you to be global citizens who act with compassion, and in solidarity with the world’s most vulnerable people.

The human family is more connected than ever before. Our challenge is to be united, too. At a time when the forces of division are visible and loud, human rights are the bonds that can keep us together.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let's work together, with a global vision, to make this better for all, where nobody is left in the end.

I thank you for this honour recognized for the United Nations. I thank you very much, thank you.