Speech at the UN Human Rights Council – High Level Segment

Mr President, Madame Pillay, distinguished delegates, I am honoured to address you again on behalf of the Commonwealth.

11 of our member countries are currently among your number, but the remaining 43 – whether they have sat on this Council in the past, or will do so in the future – share fully in its work and its aspiration.

In the Commonwealth, we share the vision of a world in which (and here I quote from our most treasured, stated Commonwealth values....) human rights are “universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated”.

Again I quote: “Equality and respect for protection and promotion of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights for all – without discrimination on any grounds – ... are foundations of peaceful, just and stable societies”, (end quote).

Words are important because they signify intent, but they have to be accompanied by deeds.

Our shared task is to give these words life.

In doing so, we strike a balance, in recognising individual countries’ sovereignty – but in stressing that they belong to an international community of shared values.

We have a mechanism for finding and knowing the moment for censure, but our natural inclination is to encourage and engage, and secure advances in the human rights aspirations to which we have committed ourselves.

We in the Commonwealth see ourselves as globalists in a compacting world.

Across continents and oceans, our hopes – and our challenges – are those of the wider world.

We may be 54-strong but, as an exceptionally representative organisation, we hear – we share – we pledge – we project – far beyond our own borders.

I like to think that we can be a well-spring of wisdom for the world, pooling our own experiences of both the triumphs and the tribulations of realising human rights.

We journey constantly on the road to human rights – all advance; all occasionally falter.

Many of you will be familiar with the work of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (or CMAG) – a group of nine Foreign Ministers, with its focus on peer review and guardianship of the Commonwealth’s values and principles.

It has taken stands on what we term the ‘serious or persistent violation’ of those values and principles.

In CMAG’s 15 years, seven countries have been on its agenda, of which four have been suspended.

Fiji has – so sadly for us – been fully suspended since September 2009, and we watch the continuing human rights situation there, with concern.

We stand ready to re-engage meaningfully.

Our Heads of Government have asked CMAG to go further – and beyond the unconstitutional overthrow of governments – into what they termed ‘the full range’, of possible violations.

In 2011, CMAG is indeed aiming to move in that direction, and also to strengthen its scope to engage: being critical where it has to be, but also engaging positively with offers of assistance, in keeping with the Commonwealth culture of seeking to secure advancement, to which I referred earlier.

It will do so in the cause not just of defending - but also of promoting - the political values which we cherish.

CMAG will present its recommendations to our Heads of Government when they next meet in Australia in October of this year.

I also alluded to the complex terrain that the field of human rights represents.

Let me share another current and delicate example.

Many of our Commonwealth member countries currently criminalise homosexual acts, from legislation deriving from a colonial penal code.

Practice and law is uneven across the Commonwealth.

The issue, of course, is sensitive, and there is no unanimity: sovereign countries have their own individual, national positions.

But we have also reached our own collective position that we are a Commonwealth of Values and a Commonwealth of Human Rights, and a Commonwealth whose first constituency is its most vulnerable people, involving issues of inequality, criminalisation, persecution and discrimination.

We know that all member states have their own challenge on how these issues are to be addressed.

Meanwhile it is the need - and the inclination - for reform and evolution which have kept our association nimble for 60 years.

So, also on the table at our leaders summit in Australia will be the recommendations of the independent Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group which is giving new thinking on sharpening our impact, strengthening our networks, and raising our profile.

The EPG has already consulted far and wide, and central to its concerns has been the issue of human rights and the rule of law.

Mr President, let me briefly pose two questions.

The Commonwealth accounts for around one quarter of the UN membership, and one third of all humanity.

How does it fare as an organisation which espouses and advances human rights?

And what, practically, do we do to help our member countries in this cause?

Since I last addressed you a year ago, I am happy to advise that our members have undertaken 48 new ratifications of human rights treaties and protocols.

All of our members embrace the core charter of human dignity that is the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

Yet only six of them have ratified eight of the main treaties which come from it.

In a Commonwealth embracing people of every colour and creed – and with a pioneering record in the fight against racist rule in southern Africa – subscription to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination is not universal.

In a Commonwealth, where the female half of whose population bears considerably more than half of its problems, subscription to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women is not universal, either.

Our Secretariat support for ratifications of human rights treaties – indeed, all our human rights work – is delivered unobtrusively and constructively , and with the focus on practical detail and results.

Our Human Rights Unit has an outstanding record in this respect.

The Commonwealth also convenes a network of some 31 national human rights bodies, including 21 independent National Human Rights Institutions, or NHRIs.

Indeed we have helped to establish these in such places as Bangladesh, Cameroon, Maldives and Seychelles.

We have published guidelines on best practice for these bodies, and - through a partnership approach - have given training to NHRI, government and NGO staff.

Strengthening the NHRIs is central to our work of building up the practical engagement with our member states, and their intrinsic strength and resilience.

Sustainable capacity building is at the heart of Commonwealth culture.

It sits alongside the work we are doing all over the Commonwealth, strengthening bodies such as electoral commissions, judiciaries, civil services, ombudsmen, and more, in entrenching the rule of law as our member states would wish.

We find that best practice can be shared in many and novel ways.

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, for instance, is a new and growing area of Commonwealth focus, and last year we issued a publication on the Convention, in Braille and large text.

Indeed, this is being reprinted.

For several years now, we have supported our members in meeting the practical obligations that come with ratifying the two first – and foremost – UN human rights instruments: the 1966 Covenants on Social, Cultural and Economic Rights, and on Civil and Political Rights.

Perhaps more importantly for this Council, we have helped - at their request - most of our member countries to prepare for and respond to the process of ‘Universal Periodic Review’.

In this and in so many other ways, we are pleased at how well and how closely we have often worked with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

We believe that our UPR approach is as unique as our network: as far as we are aware, the Commonwealth is the one organisation which has distinguished itself in speaking systemically to state bodies, to national human rights institutions and also to national NGOs, in preparing countries for UPR.

And this brings about UPR results.

We have only just organised a follow-up UPR seminar in Bangladesh, with the support of the Government, for all nine Commonwealth Asian and European states which underwent UPR in 2008 and 2009.

Further such regional seminars will follow.

We recognise that the quest to establish human rights is a journey, not a destination.

This is the Commonwealth at work on human rights – quietly but solidly offering the helping hand of the trusted partner.

Some of our work unfolds right here in Geneva.

Our new Commonwealth Small States Office in this city – in Chemin Louis-Dunant – will soon employ human rights experts to supplement the work of our team in London, in advising member countries.

Small states are especially challenged by capacity constraints, and we constantly seek ways – such as these new experts in this new office – to support them.

I acknowledge with appreciation the support of the Swiss authorities – and, so far, of Australia, India and Singapore from among our member countries – in making this a reality.

The Office will be a magnet for small states which are seeking help in their human rights work.

So human rights, as we see them, should not only be the stuff of headlines, but of both hard-wiring and hard work.

We will always be true to the belief that human rights should be fundamentally woven into our values, and everything we do.

That commitment to human rights is embodied in words, but it is expressed in deeds.

We will continue to strive to match aspiration with delivery, and to achieve a balance between public pronouncement and constructive engagement.

Thank you.