Informal conversation of the Member States of the Human Rights Council and civil society with the Deputy Secretary-General

Excellencies, Distinguished Ambassadors
Mr. Deputy Secretary-General
Madam Deputy High Commissioner
Dear Colleagues and Friends:

A very warm welcome to all of you, and thank you for answering so positively to our invitation.

A very special welcome, of course, to the Deputy Secretary-General. Thank you for being with us today in the Human Rights Council that you were so instrumental in creating. It is often said that success has many fathers, but in the case of the Human Rights Council, there can be no doubt about the key parenting role that you. And this highly effective parenting and champion role is now continued with the committed promotion of the Human Rights Up Front initiative, driven by your deep-seated personal conviction when it comes to human rights.
Deputy Secretary-General: when you as President of the General Assembly formally introduced the resolution that established the Human Rights Council, you said that with this new body we had “reached a decisive moment, both for the promotion and protection of human rights, and for effective multilateralism and the standing of the United Nations as a whole”. That truly captures the centrality of human rights in our collective work. Without effective protection and integration of human rights, we cannot deliver on the overall vision of the United Nations.

Over the past decade, human rights have not just been mainstreamed in our system. They have entered our institutional bloodstream. And the expanding activities of the Human Rights Council have been at the heart of that positive development, supported by the advocacy and dedicated efforts of human rights defenders across the globe. Nine years into its work, the Council is now a strong and relevant body, which makes a difference to the lives of women, men and children worldwide. The active and growing participation of civil society has been a key aspect of this work, and I am pleased that they are also engaged in our discussion today.
Looking ahead, we know that the advancement of human rights will play an absolutely vital role as the underpinning of all the new policy frameworks that we are establishing this year. Particularly here in Geneva, where much of the implementation efforts will be based, we have critical work ahead of us in turning policies into real progress on the ground, with a human rights-based approach at the core.

Ensuring respect for the dignity and worth of every human being, for the equal rights of men and women, is essential to build the trust we need for a better future. We need to make the Council even stronger and use its potential to the full to achieve this aim.

I hope that the informal discussion today can provide inspiration and practical points for this collective work, to put the human being at the centre of all that we do.

Thank you very much.