UN Secretary-General’s remarks to the Human Rights Council

26 February 2024

[Excerpt, as delivered]

Mr President of the General Assembly,
Mr President of the Human Rights Council,
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.

Human rights are the bedrock of peace.

Today, both are under attack.

We meet at a time of turbulence for our world, for people, and for human rights.

First and foremost, conflicts are taking a terrible toll as parties to war trample on human rights and humanitarian law.

At the local level and online, many communities are riven with violent rhetoric, discrimination and hate speech.

Add to that an information war. A war on the poor. And a war on nature.

All these battles have one thing in common: they are a war on fundamental human rights.

And in every case, the path to peace begins with full respect for all human rights – civil, cultural, economic, political and social, and without double standards.

Because building a culture of human rights is building a world at peace. I commend the critical contributions of the Human Rights Council towards this goal, through its mandates and mechanisms, and its response to evolving situations.

Excellencies,

Our world is becoming less safe by the day.

After decades of stable power relations, we are transitioning into an era of multipolarity.

This creates new opportunities for leadership and justice on the international stage.

But multipolarity without strong multilateral institutions is a recipe for chaos.

As powers compete, tensions rise.

The rule of law, and the rules of war, are being undermined.

From Ukraine to Sudan to Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Gaza, parties to conflict are turning a blind eye to international law, the Geneva Conventions and even the United Nations Charter.

The Security Council is often deadlocked, unable to act on the most significant peace and security issues of our time.

The Council’s lack of unity on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and on Israel’s military operations in Gaza following the horrific terror attacks by Hamas on 7 October, has severely – perhaps fatally – undermined its authority.

The Council needs serious reform to its composition and working methods.

Nothing can justify [Hamas’s] deliberate killing, injuring, torturing and kidnapping of civilians, the use of sexual violence – or the indiscriminate launching of rockets towards Israel.

But nothing justifies the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

I invoked Article 99 for the first time in my mandate, to put the greatest possible pressure on the Council to do everything in its power to end the bloodshed in Gaza and prevent escalation. But it was not enough.

International Humanitarian Law remains under attack.

Tens of thousands of civilians, including women and children, have been killed in Gaza.

Humanitarian aid is still completely insufficient.

Rafah is the core of the humanitarian aid operation, and UNRWA is the backbone of that effort.

n all-out Israeli offensive on the city would not only be terrifying for more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there; it would put the final nail in the coffin of our aid programmes.

I repeat my call for a humanitarian ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.

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