Louise Arbour Speaks About International Justice

By Talia Whyte
Special To Global Wire

Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, spoke to Boston
students at the JFK Library last week in a special event commemorating
International Human Rights Day. Arbour’s address reflected on the 60th
anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials and discussed what needs to be done
in today’s world to help end human suffering.

“Our efforts to protect life will forever fall short until we develop
that fuller understanding,” Arbour said, “an understanding which
requires us to acknowledge, and act on, the realization that
intervening to halt mass killings will never be as effective as our
aspirations demand without a more nuanced, more holistic understanding
of the ingredients of that right.

Arbour further stated that society needed to have a holistic view of
a ‘right to life.’ She was quick to state that her meaning of the
right to life was not the same as Christian conservatives on such
issues as abortion and euthanasia, but rather an understanding of
humanity’s basic needs. Many of these needs include providing access
to one billion people to safe water, another 2.6 billion to improved
sanitation and medication for 25 million people living with HIV, most
of whom living in the developing world.

“It is becoming increasingly apparent to many that in today’s world it
is not war or arbitrary killing that constitutes the greatest threat to
the right to life,” she said. “Each year, about 53,000 women die in
pregnancy or in childbirth, and more than 10 million children die
before their fifth birthday. The UN Development Programme suggests
that this alarming trend is ‘fast approaching the point that merits
declaration of an international health emergency…Even in the United
States, infant mortality rates are on the rise. These indicators
reveal inequalities linked to access to health care, as well as income,
race and ethnicity.”

Arbour got into trouble recently with the White House when she said to
a group of reporters that reports the US was using secret overseas
sites to interrogate suspects harmed its moral authority and she wanted
to inspect any allegations. "Two phenomena today are having an acutely
corrosive effect on the global ban on torture and cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment,” she said. “There are lots of human rights that
can be set aside temporarily in cases of emergencies, lots of them, but
not the right to life and not the protection against torture.”

US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton said that it is "inappropriate and
illegitimate for an international civil servant to second-guess the
conduct that we're engaged [in] the war on terror, with nothing more as
evidence than what she reads in the newspapers."

She stated at the event that she stands by her statement. “I encourage
Americans to get involved in the political process and hold their
government officials accountable and ask questions. In a democracy you
should be allowed to do that.” she said.

Following Arbour’s remarks a panel including survivors from every major
genocide in the last century – Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and
Sudan - address the many issues surrounding accountability and justice
for genocide survivors and victims.

“I am a Muslim and no one from the Muslim community came to save us,”
said Mohamed Yahya, a Darfur survivor. “We received so much help from
the Jewish people and Christians. It was so painful to see most of
your family die and people who share your religion don’t stop the
killing.”

Mardi Seng survived the Khmer Rouge killings and lost most of his
family. He left Cambodia for America in 1980. “When I came to America
I saw this movie from the 1950s about the Holocaust,” he said. “The
movie said that this wouldn’t happen again. If that was true my mother
would be here today.”

Sonia Weitz, a Holocaust survivor, said the same thing after the
Nuremberg Trials. “There was a time I said never again,” she said. “
But I should have known better. I look at this panel and say we should
have done better.”