Statement by President Michael D. Higgins for International Human Rights Day 2024
Date: Tue 10th Dec, 2024 | 00:01
“International Human Rights Day 2024 occurs at a time of crisis for the human rights discourse.
It has been usual in other years for us to be reminded as a global community of our shared responsibilities in relation to commitments to justice, dignity, and equality for all. These principles, and the rights embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, have never needed invoking more urgently than at our present moment. Yet there is a threatening silence on their importance, a silence that confers impunity on the flagrant breaches of the most powerful.
We are witnessing dangerous breaches and challenges to human rights across the globe – be it in the plight of those enduring the horrific consequences of avoidable war and conflict, the reappearance of old hatreds and the arrival of new forms of the scourges of hatred, racism and intolerance. We are living through an alarming rise in discrimination, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.
The erosion of democratic norms and the rule of law is gathering pace. There is an ever-increasing suffering and devastation being made possible for infliction upon millions of innocent lives, by virtue of the fact that too many are operating with impunity in relation to breaches of civilian rights.
Last week, for example, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned us of the appalling and apocalyptic conditions in Gaza, a crucible of suffering which now contains the highest number of children amputees per capita anywhere in the world, with many who having lost limbs had to undergo surgeries without anaesthesia. Malnutrition has escalated as children are literally being starved to death.
The entire region is experiencing starvation being used as a weapon of war. In Sudan, some 25 million people — more than half of the country’s population — are facing acute hunger this year, with reports from the United Nations’ hunger monitoring system indicating that 756,000 people are experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger.
Recent events in Syria are a stark reminder of the value of citizens combining to overthrow a dictatorship – one that had been tolerated by some of the most powerful whose activities in the region historically carried such a negative resonance. The UN Secretary-General should not be ignored in his appeal for an inclusive, peaceful set of arrangements to emerge. There is a global response needed in assisting the reconstruction of Syria.
The response to the challenges which we face, in a world where global military expenditure last year soared to a staggering $2,443 billion, the highest ever level recorded, rather than an urgent set of efforts at the recovery of diplomacy, does not engender hope. Continuing to prioritize inexorable spending on war and armaments rather than on initiatives aimed at promoting peace and human flourishing, or the ending of hunger or addressing the consequences of climate change will be recalled by future generations as a grim indictment of our times and the narrow interests of a plutocracy that remains ever more unaccountable.
As wars and conflicts become accepted or presented as seemingly unending, humanity itself is the loser. War is not the natural condition of humanity. If it were so, it would constitute little less than a species failure for human life.
During these moments in which human rights are ignored and even challenged, times marked by strife, division, and uncertainty, when multilateral institutions are being undermined, it is more important than ever that publics, organisations, and political activists speak out. We must reaffirm our commitments to international law, human rights, and humanitarian principles, and redouble our efforts towards a multilateralism that is rooted in justice, compassion, and solidarity, one that must serve the most vulnerable and marginalized members of our shared global family, as we accept the challenge, demand the space to advocate for and to build a future where justice, equality and dignity are not mere ideals but lived realities for all.
For my part, as President of Ireland, may I suggest that, with significant exceptions such as the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty launched by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, world leaders are not reacting to the appeals of those suffering from conflict, starvation and violence in so many countries across the world and are failing to take the urgent measures that are needed to redress them in respect of the fundamental principles of human rights and international humanitarian law.
It is of the utmost importance that the most powerful states of the world, across the United Nations and the European Union, be made accountable for averting their gaze, remaining silent in our present grave circumstances.
The human rights discourse has served humanity well. We cannot afford to lose it. We must all speak of it, advocate for it, recover its emancipatory power.”