The most important way to prevent atrocity crimes, including genocide, is for all governments and all parties to conflict fully to respect international law, because these grave crimes do not arise out of nowhere, Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in an address to the participants of the 5th Global Forum Against the Crime of Genocide in Yerevan.
“They are preceded by patterns of systematic discrimination, exclusion and incitement to hatred based on race, ethnicity, religion or other characteristics, as well as other gross violations of human rights. States have the primary duty and legal obligation to prevent violations when risks are present. Today, many states are failing to live up to that responsibility,” the High Commissioner said.
“From this important platform in Armenia, I urge all countries to abide by promote and enforce the rules of war. I also urge governments to cooperate in the investigation and prosecution of human rights violations or abuses amounting to international crimes. That means consistently supporting international accountability mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court, and fully respecting and implementing their decisions, and it means that assessing all policies, including the provision of support to parties to conflicts with a view to ending such support if it presents clear risks of facilitating serious violations of international law, we are far from powerless to prevent and reduce the risk of genocide and other atrocity crimes, national and regional strategies on hate speech, education on previous genocides, measures to counter incitement to racial, religious and other forms of hatred,” Volker Türk stated.
“These are all proactive steps that governments and societies at large are taking, supported by my office and the broader United Nations as individuals, we must all commit to building a culture of peace based on human rights and human dignity. I urge participants in this forum to promote and engage in all these efforts, and at this critical time, I wish you a successful gathering,” the UN Commissioner emphasized.
