Text of Shirin Ebadi's speech - UNITAR

followers of other religions are similarly entitled, for example, to draft a Jewish
Human Rights Declaration, a Buddhist Human Rights Declaration, and thousands
more. This is not the right way to go. The world cannot be run on the basis of
its myriad religions. We have to take the principles that all agree on as our
premise, not the principles in which only we believe.
The surprising point is that it is not only non-democratic Islamic States which
resort to such arguments. Governments which do not believe in God and whose
intellectual basis lies in Communism are often not prepared to accept and apply
the principles of human rights. These States assert that human rights are built
on a set of values established under a capitalist regime and are not
commensurate with socialist values. They therefore allow themselves to trample
on people’s rights and forcefully to stifle any voice of dissidence. Obviously, their
claims too are false. Socialism is not incompatible with freedom of expression.
Communism is not equivalent to despotism; it is dictatorships that interpret and
apply Communism in this way. In fact, both belief in God and atheism are used
as excuses for the oppression of people.
Another obstacle to progress in human rights over the past 60 years has been
the weak performance of the United Nations, and specifically its human rights
mechanism, now known as the Human Rights Council. At the time the United
Nations Charter was drafted, there was excessive optimism that – if not all –
most governments would be supported and elected by their peoples and would
thus, representing their peoples, investigate cases of human rights violations.
However, as we have seen, many governments are not really elected by their
peoples and do not take the decisions sought by the public. How can one expect
countries which continuously and repeatedly violate human rights to condemn
another country for precisely this reason? In this way, the scales of human
rights have lost their balance. The cooperation of NGOs is essential if we are to
overcome this problem, and by this I mean NGOs which are really created and
run by the people, not by governments. When considering complaints or the
case of a particular country, NGOs should be able to participate in meetings,
make recommendations and, where appropriate, also join in voting. It is time
for us to put our trust in the people and for the United Nations to bring in the
real representatives of the people in the form of civil society.
One other reason for lack of progress on human rights is the way they are used
as a tool. Some States have misused the cause of human rights and democracy
to advance their own political aims. This applies to events in the Middle East,
particularly since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war.
Another point is that the United Nations and other international bodies have so
far been focussed more on the promotion of civil and political rights than on
economic rights. This negligence has been one of the reasons for the spread of
poverty throughout the world. In this connection, I propose that an
“International Convention to Combat Poverty” be drawn up and presented to the
United Nations General Assembly for adoption. The most important point to be
addressed in this Convention would be to encourage States to reduce their
military spending. Appropriate means must be devised to ensure that public
funds in every country are spent on welfare rather than the purchase and
stockpiling of weapons. The Convention could provide that any Contracting State
must not spend more on the military than on health and education; if a State’s
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