YouSaid · the spoken record

Power

lines on the record: 1,841
first: 2013-08-06
most recent: 2019-07-09
sittings or episodes: 165
sources: un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“We have adopted resolution 2209 (2015) today, a year and a half after the Council adopted a binding resolution in the wake of a horrific, gruesome chemical weapons attack that left more than 1,000 civilians and hundreds of children dead. Resolution 2118 (2013) required the Syrian regime to dismantle and destroy its chemical weapons programme under international supervision. The joint mission of the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), with the assistance of numerous Member States, largely succeeded in that task. Yet significant discrepancies remain with Syria's declaration to the OPCW, and the Al-Assad regime must cooperate, as per its obligations under resolution 2118 (2013), to resolve those.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7401 (2015) · source
“I realize we do this or that "in good faith". That is absurd in this we are taxing the patience of the rest of the Council, context. so I will be very brief. The Russian representative has several times used the expression "good faith" 7 as in, The meeting rose at 123011"”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“The only way that we have a chance of getting to peace in Minsk is if Russia leaves Ukraine and takes its heavy weapons with it.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“The information that the United States has provided over time to the Security Council has, unfortunately, proven accurate. And indeed the facts on the ground regarding what Russia has absorbed into its current territorial claims are the facts that we have described, day in and day out, at every one of these meetings. In contrast, the claims that Russia makes in the Council give way to new claims at subsequent meetings, but the facts on the ground contradict the prior claims, and the same will be true with regard to the claims that have been made today. The facts on the ground - which are really all that matter and all that anyone in this Chamber cares about - show Russian aggression, Russia having lopped off part of someone else's country and trying to keep it.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“Now Russia says that Debaltseve is part of the territory controlled by the separatists, even though it was not during the time that the package of measures was agreed upon. Today, Russia has made the claim that the separatists have complied with the Minsk agreement in withdrawing their heavy weapons. Yet, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe cannot get access to the heavy weapons, so we are told to rely upon Russian claims about what the fate of those heavy weapons is - heavy weapons that Russia has provided to the separatists. These heavy weapons do not just fall from the sky. These are massive weapons systems, used to shoot down planes and bombard civilian centres, such that 500 people are killed, left in their basements to die and be discovered by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“The challenge posed by these back-and-forth statements is that Russia no longer has any credibility whatsoever. None. Russian representatives months ago, at one of the first of the 32 meetings so far on this topic, said that Russia had no soldiers, no heavy weapons and no presence in Crimea. Later, they not only acknowledged having a Russian presence in Crimea but announced the annexation of Crimea - an annexation made possible with the use ofmilitary force, the use ofRussian military forces. The pretence ends; then the facts retrospectively change. Russia said not long ago that it would observe the ceasefire agreed upon in the package of measures to implement the September Minsk agreements. Oops - that was until Debaltseve became a target for Russia and the separatists.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“It is to avoid an Orwellian world like that, where we talk of peace while undermining it, that we must ensure that the Minsk agreements are implemented. The Council members around this table must confront the situation on the ground as it exists, rather than as we wish it were. Peace will not come from more words, and there have been so many words in this Chamber. It will come from the long-awaited and faithful implementation of the many agreements that have been entered into, and renewed respect for the territorial integrity of a State Member of the United Nations.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“Among other violations, she reported that, "Journalists from at least 13 independent media outlets, free lance journalists and bloggers have been threatened, assaulted, physically attacked, banned from entry, interrogated and kidnapped; their equipment confiscated or damaged." The Russian Federation occupies territory, unilaterally attempts to annex it and then retroactively and arbitrarily applies its laws to those who dared to question its take-over as it was occurring. It does not get much more Orwellian than that. As anyone who has read the human rights report knows, that is just one in a long list of repressive tactics, including torture, enforced disappearances and targeted political killings that have defined Russia's occupation.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“He was charged, under the Russian criminal code, with having participated in a "mass disturbance" for protesting against what was then the imminent Russian occupation, which ended in a clash with pro-Russian demonstrators. On 7 February, another Crimean Tatar was detained on the same charges. Both men are charged with violating Russian law, even though Russian law had not even taken effect at the time that they participated in the protest. Yesterday the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media released a statement saying that media freedom in Crimea was at an all time low.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“Crimea is important not only because it constitutes a continued violation of the territorial integrity of a sovereign nation - a violation orchestrated in Moscow and dressed up in a sham referendum - but also because it offers a preview of the kind of rule we can expect in the other parts of Ukraine seized by those who see themselves as part of Novorossiya. Let me give just one example of what it is like to live in that world, from a long list of repressive practices documented in the aforementioned February human-rights report of the United Nations, part of the relentless persecution of the Crimean Muslim Tatar minority. According to the report, on 29 January 2015, the de facto authorities arrested Ahtem Ciygoz, the Deputy Chairman of the Tatar Mejlis, the Tatars' representative council.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“Weeks into the siege, at the end of January, the self-declared leader of the Russian-backed separatists announced that anybody who left would be in the interlocking field of fire of their artillery. From that day, he said, the road would be under fire. Those inside were therefore left with a choice between risking their lives by staying or risking their lives by leaving. Civilians were killed doing both, and, I repeat, 500 bodies were found in homes and basements where people had taken shelter. The casualties and the displaced are one of the devastating consequences of this conflict. Another, and one we rarely speak about in the Council any more, is the ongoing illegal occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea by a permanent member of the Council.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“The devastating consequences of this conflict have been brought into sharp relief by the most recent report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. More than 1.7 million people have been displaced and more than 5,800 killed - a casualty count that does not include the hundreds of bodies found after Russian-backed separatists finished their deadly siege of Debaltseve. A report from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs at the end of last month stated that 500 bodies had been found in houses and basements at the end of the siege - 500 bodies. Homes and basements where people took shelter from the endless barrage of Russian-made mortars and rockets as they rained down on the city's residents, who could not escape.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“Again, we call on Russia to release Nadiya Savchenko, who has been on hunger strike for more than 80 days, as well as her Ukrainian counterparts. That is something Russia can do today. As we have seen before, the separatists have an established track record of using a lull in the fighting to regroup, re-arm and re-supply. Russia supports that process by providing an unlimited supply of guns and weaponry. The United States, and the rest of the world, hopes that will not be the case this time. We are carefully watching what happens in Shyrokyne, a town just east of the strategic port city of Mariupol, which many fear will be the next target of the separatists and Russian military.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“Two days ago, Russia sent its seventeenth so-called humanitarian convoy into Ukraine, once again denying international observers and Ukrainian border guards the right to conduct a full and complete inspection of its contents. Russian convoys, which should be coming out of Ukraine, are instead going in. If those convoys are carrying humanitarian assistance, why not allow a full inspection? The ceasefire weapons pull-back and OSCE verification, neither ofwhich is complete, are amongjust the immediate steps to be taken in the implementation package. In addition to that, all ofthe Minsk agreements to date have called for the release of all hostages by all sides. Nadiya Savchenko and other Ukrainians being held in Russia are hostages, just as surely as are those being kept in basements in Donetsk and Luhansk.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“Shortly after the package was signed, the OSCE's chief monitor sent a letter to all the signatories requesting that they provide information on what heavy weapons were present in eastern Ukraine, where they were, which routes would be used to withdraw them and where they would be located after being withdrawn. Russia has not replied, as though if it pretends it has no heavy weapons in Ukraine, we will forget all the tanks, GRAD missiles and other heavy weapons we have watched Russia send across the border. All signatories to the Minsk agreements and the implementation package - Ukraine, on the one side, and Russia and the so-called Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic, on the other - are responsible for pulling back heavy weapons. The OSCE must have unfettered, unconditional access in order to verify the withdrawal.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“Just as Russia and Russian-backed separatists prevented the Mission from going to Debaltseve while those forces carried out their vicious attack, recent Mission reports chronicle repeated, persistent obstruction from Russian-backed separatists - obstruction that includes even threatening to kill OSCE monitors. To date, the separatists have granted the monitors sporadic access, limited to certain roads when and where it suits them. As we have asked before, the question bears asking again: who obstructs an objective observer other than someone who has something to hide from an unbiased eye? The Minsk implementation package also calls for a full pull-back of all heavy weapons. That, too, has not happened.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“Since 20 February, Russian separatist attacks such as those have killed 15 Ukrainian military personnel and wounded nearly 100 more. A second condition in the Minsk implementation package is full, unfettered access to the entire conflict zone for monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). While there have been occasional instances when the OSCE's Special Monitoring Mission has been stopped at Ukrainian checkpoints, the restrictions placed on the Mission by Russia and the separatists are documented as widespread.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“Violations started on day one, and violations of the ceasefire continue in a number of places, particularly outside Mariupol, where Russian-backed separatists have engaged in intense fighting, attacking the village of Shyrokyne in recent days. Unfortunately, although the violence has decreased, there has been only partial compliance with the Minsk implementation package. As the members of the Council know, the package calls for "an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire", not a gradual and partial reduction of fire. It does not say that Russian-backed separatists can continue to shell, engage in sniper fire or use barrel and rocket artillery; yet they have carried attacks using all such methods in recent days.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“We continue to believe that compliance with the September Minsk agreements and the February implementation package provides a road map to peace in Ukraine. For the first time since the Minsk implementation package was signed, on 12 February, we have seen a reduction in violence. Of course, no one forgets that Russia and the separatists they have trained, armed, directed and fought alongside started violating their commitments under the package from the first minutes and hours after the deal was signed, by laying siege to Debaltseve, a city dozens of kilometres beyond the contact line, with their deadly and indiscriminate pummelling.”
2015-03-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7400 (2015) · source
“Rape and killing have become rampant, and just a few weeks ago we heard about the kidnapping of hundreds of young boys in Malakal by armed groups intending to use them as child soldiers. Today in South Sudan, a young generation's future is quite literally being held ransom by political actors who, despite all costs, refuse to compromise. This cannot continue, and those who frustrate peace must begin to pay the price. That is why today's action by the Council is so important.”
2015-03-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7396 (2015) · source
“The answer is that the parties need to know not only that they will be held to account if they fail to compromise to reach agreement, but also that they will be held accountable on the back end if they do again as they have done so many times before by failing to implement that to which they have signed. Today, because of this conflict, 2.5 million people urgently need help with food, more than 2 million people have been displaced internally and as refugees by the violence, and the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, which was originally deployed to support the world's newest State, is now itself providing safe shelter to more than 100,000 internally displaced persons seeking refuge from violence perpetrated by the Government and the armed groups that oppose it.”
2015-03-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7396 (2015) · source
“Having the resolution in place, with realistic deadlines based on IGAD's milestones for resolving the crisis, will, we hope, improve IGAD's chances of success in reaching a credible and sustainable peace. We are enhancing IGAD's leverage in the negotiations by sending the very clear signal to those who continue to choose war over peace that they will be held to account now, as we urge them to compromise to reach and agreement, and later, when they are considering whether to follow through on its terms. Some have asked: Why adopt this resolution now, when IGAD is in the midst of another important negotiating round and when an agreement may well be around the corner?”
2015-03-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7396 (2015) · source
“Instead of pursuing the well-being of their people, a variety of individuals have chosen to place their own narrow political interests first, rather than making the compromises necessary to get to peace. Resolution 2206 (2015), adopted today, supports IGAD's mediation efforts by laying the framework for targeted sanctions. Under the terms ofthe resolution, the parties must meet IGAD's deadlines for the resolution of all outstanding issues of the conflict and to begin the process of establishing a transitional Government of national unity. The consequences for not doing so could include the designation of senior individuals for asset freezes and travel bans, or the imposition of an arms embargo.”
2015-03-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7396 (2015) · source
“For the past 14 months, the United States has supported the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the region in their efforts to facilitate talks between the warring parties in South Sudan aimed at reaching a comprehensive and inclusive peace agreement and establishing a transitional Government to oversee a process of reform that addresses the root causes of the conflict. While various papers have been signed, partial agreements entered into, promises made and assurances delivered, the situation has only worsened for the people of the United Nations newest country. The aspirations of the South Sudanese people have time and again been thwarted.”
2015-03-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7396 (2015) · source
“We must remember that each of those rising numbers and each one of those millions stands for another person. We must return to the commitments the Council has made, such as those in past resolutions to "take further measures" "in the case of non-compliance" (resolution 2165 (2014)) and to hold accountable those responsible for violations and abuses. The Council's impact will increase only if member States' positions change, and that will happen only if we recognize that there are children just like our own, starving in Yarmouk, and mothers just like our own who die in childbirth in Aleppo, because medical supplies have been stolen off United Nations trucks, or mothers who feel helpless in the face of their children's pleas for food. Ifthat does not motivate us, literally nothing will.”
2015-02-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7394 (2015) · source
“Mazen is still behind bars today, despite a General Assembly resolution adopted in May 2014 (resolution 67/262) that included a demand for his immediate release. Writing fromjail last year, Mazen said, "There is not a single prison in Syria today without one of my friends inside it, nor is there a cemetery in Syria today that doesn't contain the remains of one of them." There is a risk, in our regular meetings on Syria, to get used to the fact that the numbers of individuals detained and killed and disappeared and displaced and denied food - among so many other measures of human suffering - continue to rise. Indeed, there is a perverse dynamic whereby, as those numbers continue to rise, our sensitivity falls. Our nerve endings harden, and a sense of inevitability takes hold. We must not let that happen.”
2015-02-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7394 (2015) · source
“In addition to marking a year since the adoption of resolution 2139 (2014), we also mark other terrible benchmarks today. On 15 March, we will enter the fifth year of the Syrian conflict. It has also been three years since plainclothes security officers raided the office of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression, a Damascus-based group dedicated to promoting freedom of expression, detaining 14 staff members. Many of those detained were tortured, according to staff members who were later released. Among those detained was the group's director, Mazen Darwish, who was charged with so-called crimes such as publishing human rights reports and documenting the names of people tortured, disappeared or killed during the conflict.”
2015-02-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7394 (2015) · source
“To that end, the United States again joins others in commending the efforts of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, to halt - even for a limited time - the use of all aerial bombs and heavy artillery in Aleppo, whose civilians have suffered immensely amid fierce fighting. While it would be a welcome step if the Al-Assad regime were to fulfil the commitments it made to Mr. De Mistura to stop unilaterally its aerial bombardment in Aleppo and allow the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian assistance to civilians for six weeks, the regime has an abysmal track record on honouring its commitments. Indeed, these very commitments are supposed to have been implemented under resolutions adopted by this very Council. So what matters and what we must look to are the regime's actions.”
2015-02-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7394 (2015) · source
“ISIL has also established what they call "cub camps", where they indoctrinate kids, teaching them how to use weapons and to carry out suicide attacks. At the same time we condemn ISIL and unite to confront them, we must remember that the rise of these violent extremist groups in Syria would not have happened without the atrocities perpetrated by the Al-Assad regime. And the regime's ongoing atrocities continue to be the extremists' best recruiting tool. So any plan that would ally the international community with Al-Assad to confront these violent extremist groups would be completely counterproductive, as it would further fuel ISIL's rise. There is only one way out of this horrific crisis, and that is through a comprehensive political solution.”
2015-02-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7394 (2015) · source
“Now, terrorist groups like ISIL have committed horrific abuses against Syrians, and we must be absolutely adamant and united in our condemnation of those horrors, which are on the rise. We condemn in the strongest possible terms ISIL's attacks of 23 February on Assyrian Christian villages in the northeast Syrian province of Al Hasakah, where they kidnapped hundreds of civilians, including women, children and older persons, and we join others in demanding the immediate and unconditional release of these civilians, together with all ofISIL's hostages. In December, four mass graves were discovered in Deir ez-Zor, containing the bodies of some of the hundreds of people abducted by ISIL months before.”
2015-02-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7394 (2015) · source
“In 2014, the United Nations was only able to provide the equivalent of 400 calories per day for each inhabitant of Yarmouk - the equivalent of two cups of rice - due to the extremely limited access provided by the Syrian regime. If members have not seen the photos of the kids inside Yarmouk, they should force themselves to stare at their sunken, hollow faces and glossed eyes. This is what Al-Assad's regime has done to children, and he is under insufficient pressure from his backers to do something as simple as let food through. And Yarmouk is not an outlier: of the 212,000 Syrians living in besieged areas, 185,000 of them, or 87 per cent, live in areas being besieged by Syrian Government forces.”
2015-02-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7394 (2015) · source
“The Council was clear in its demand that all parties allow delivery of medical assistance and cease depriving civilians of food and medicine indispensable for their survival in resolution 2139 (2014). The Physicians for Human Rights report that Assistant Secretary-General Kang mentioned documents 228 attacks on 179 separate medical facilities. Ofthese, Physicians for Human Rights found, 90 per cent were carried out by regime forces. To date, according to Physicians for Human Rights, 145 medical personnel have been executed or tortured to death in Syria; 139 of those individual killings were carried out by Syrian Government forces or by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). In Yarmouk, 18,000 civilians - most of them Palestinians refugees - are virtually cut off from assistance and surrounded by fighting.”
2015-02-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7394 (2015) · source
“Some of the wounded later died in field hospitals, according to the report, due to the lack of necessary medical supplies. The lack of medical supplies is no accident; it is the result of the Al-Assad regime's routine confiscation of medical and surgical supplies transported by United Nations convoys. The United Nations and its implementing partners have tried to be maximally transparent with the Syrian regime by allowing the Government to inspect cross-line shipments, going beyond the provisions in resolutions 2165 (2014) and 2191 (2014). Yet, even when these regime approvals for cross-line operations are granted, the regime seizes medical supplies, such as surgical items, midwifery kits and rehydration kits, which could save the lives of mothers, small children and babies.”
2015-02-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7394 (2015) · source
“Yet in spite of this clear evidence, Assad cheerfully denied that his forces used barrel bombs and called any such claims, "a childish story" - a particularly grotesque choice of words, given that well over 10,000 children have been killed in the conflict so far. The recently released report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (A/HRC/28/69) documents many attacks on civilians. One of them occurred on Aleppo's al-Shaar neighbourhood on 6 November. The first barrel bomb reportedly killed civilians in its area of impact and buried more in rubble. When others rushed to the area to dig out the people buried and assist the wounded, the Government dropped a second barrel bomb. At least 15 people were killed in all, most of them women and children.”
2015-02-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7394 (2015) · source
“Yet in the year since the resolution was adopted, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the Assad regime has dropped at least 1,950 barrel bombs, which have killed at least 6,480 people, 95 per cent of whom were civilians. According to the Human Rights Watch report released earlier this week, satellite imagery identified at least 450 distinct major damage sites in 10 opposition-held towns and villages in the Dara'a governorate, and more than 1,000 major damage sites in the Aleppo governorate, between February 2014 and January of this year. The Human Rights Watch report shows that many impact sites have damage signatures consistent with the detonation of large, air- dropped munitions, including improvised barrel and conventional bombs dropped by helicopters.”
2015-02-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7394 (2015) · source
“That is what the United States plans to do. While the international community absolutely must meet the immediate and dire needs of the Syrian people, we must also face the fact that humanitarian assistance is a band-aid: it must be accompanied by more intense political pressure to stop the violence and widespread abuses that are fuelling the crisis. Although more people in Syria need humanitarian aid than ever before, the Al-Assad regime also seems more intent on denying aid and causing civilian harm than ever before. Resolution 2139 (2014) called on the Syrian parties to immediately cease the indiscriminate use of weapons in populated areas, including through aerial bombardment using barrel bombs.”
2015-02-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7394 (2015) · source
“I thank Assistant Secretary-General Kang and High Commissioner Guterres for theirpowerfulpresentations. One year ago, the Security Council adopted resolution 2139 (2014), aimed at addressing the humanitarian and human rights catastrophe in Syria. As today's briefings made clear, the humanitarian crises have only deepened. There are multiple crises. It is estimated that 12.2 million people need humanitarian assistance in Syria. At this time last year, 9.3 million people were said to need humanitarian assistance. That is nearly 3 million more people who need aid to survive, in just a year. Let us think about that. That is why it is absolutely crucial that all donors make generous commitments at the humanitarian pledging conference in Kuwait in March; commitments that are commensurate with the magnitude of Syria's crisis.”
2015-02-26 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7394 (2015) · source
“If we keep such people at the heart of our efforts, we will more effectively live up to our shared responsibilities and the shared vision that the drafters embodied in the purposes and principles of the Charter.”
2015-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7389 (2015) · source
“If we, the people of the United Nations, are to recommit ourselves to the purposes and principles of the Charter, we must see them as the drafters intended them: as a blueprint to unite us in advancing the safety, security and human rights of people across the world, and not as an instrument to divide us and obstruct that crucial effort - people like the Syrians in East Ghouta, more than 200 of whom have been killed in the past two weeks by bombs dropped by the Al-Assad regime; people like the democracy and human rights activists whose efforts to promote freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly have been stifled by the growing global crackdown on civil society, with over 50 countries proposing restrictive measures on civil society efforts in just the past two years; and people like the Ukrainian children and elderly who were trapped in Debaltseve, left to cower in basements while separatists, with Russia's weapons, training and blessing, pummeled the city with rockets and mortars after having agreed to a ceasefire.”
2015-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7389 (2015) · source
“Sovereignty did not give the Nazis licence to massacre Jews 75 years ago. It did not give a Hutu extremist regime licence to slaughter Tutsis two decades ago. And it does not and cannot be allowed to shield Governments that commit atrocities today.”
2015-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7389 (2015) · source
“As we strive to enhance the effectiveness of the United Nations, we must guard against attempts to manipulate the purposes and principles of the Charter in an effort to prevent the United Nations from tackling the global challenges it was designed to confront and defending the rights of individuals it was meant to champion. Yet some seek to distort the purposes and principles by asserting, for instance, that human rights violations have no relation to international peace and security, or that the sovereignty of nations precludes United Nations engagement on those issues. But as President Obama said before the General Assembly a few years ago, "sovereignty cannot be a shield for tyrants to commit wanton murder or an excuse for the international community to turn a blind eye" (A/68/PV5, p. 16).”
2015-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7389 (2015) · source
“Moreover, the violence in Syria has led nearly 4 million people to take refuge in neighbouring countries, placing a massive and destabilizing strain on those Governments. Whether in Syria or elsewhere in the world, when a country locks up its political opponents instead of resolving differences through dialogue, or when it attempts to silence its critics, as some Council members are doing, it both violates its Charter commitment to human rights and fundamental freedoms, and it will not bring about the stability that is so important to the lasting economic and social progress we all wish to see. Rather than locking up one's opponents, making ridiculous allegations and pointing fingers at foreign Powers, respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms, as the Charter provides, is the foundation for peace, security and prosperity.”
2015-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7389 (2015) · source
“The situation in North Korea reveals a fundamental lesson learned many times over since the Charter was adopted. Widespread human rights violations can themselves pose a threat to international peace and security. We must not ignore connections between the way Governments treat their own citizens and the way they interact with other States and the norms of our shared international system. North Korea, for example, has repeatedly threatened nuclear attacks against States that criticize the way it treats its own people. In Syria, violations perpetrated by the Al-Assad regime were instrumental in the dramatic rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and other terrorist groups, which are now wreaking havoc far beyond that country's borders.”
2015-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7389 (2015) · source
“Based on the Commission's findings, the General Assembly adopted resolution 67/181, roundly condemning the regime's systematic abuses and encouraging the Security Council to consider appropriate action to ensure accountability. When the Security Council met in December to discuss North Korea's human rights crisis for the very first time (see S/PV.7353), many members, including the United States, echoed the General Assembly's call. It is true that the regime's prison camps continue to hold between 80,000 and 120,000 people in ghastly conditions. Nonetheless, by shining a light on the unspeakable violations being perpetrated every day in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, United Nations action is helping to galvanize broader pressure on the regime to end abuses that were ignored for far too long.”
2015-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7389 (2015) · source
“Thirdly, in dealing with States that flout the United Nations principles, and their international obligations more generally, the United Nations must come up with more effective ways to pressure them. That includes States that brutally repress their own people, behaviour that in and of itself can threaten international peace and security. Consider the recent actions of the United Nations with respect to North Korea. In March 2013, the United Nations Human Rights Council established the Commission of Inquiry on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which not only thoroughly documented the regime's horrors, but also brought them into public view by holding open hearings with victims and experts.”
2015-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7389 (2015) · source
“Instead, the only time the peacekeepers were permitted to reach Thabit, Sudanese military and intelligence officials refused to let them interview alleged rape victims in private and, in some cases, recorded the interviews. Ensuring respect for the work of the United Nations entails acting in good faith in accordance with the principles of the Charter. Yet notwithstanding the foundational obligations of Member States to respect sovereignty and territorial integrity, Russia today is training, arming, supporting and fighting alongside separatists who have brutally seized Ukrainian territory - a blatant violation of the Charter of the United Nations and an assault on its neighbour's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity - one that has already cost some 5,700 lives and forced the displacement of more than 1.7 million Ukrainians.”
2015-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7389 (2015) · source
“But it is not enough for us to adopt mandates and resolutions, we must be willing to exercise the political will and take the action needed to actually preserve international peace and security. Today, we empower United Nations peacekeeping missions with more robust mandates than ever before to protect civilians and monitor human rights. When those mandates are contested, however, we must take appropriate action to defend them. Unfortunately, the Council was silent when the Sudanese Government denied United Nations peacekeepers unhindered access to the town of Thabit, North Darfur, thereby preventing the United Nations from properly investigating possible human rights violations following allegations that Sudanese soldiers had raped more than 200 women and girls in October.”
2015-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7389 (2015) · source
“Secondly, Member States shall "fulfil in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the Charter", including the obligation to accept and carry out the decisions of the Council and must "give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the Charter". We have shown the ability to leverage those obligations to good effect as arms embargoes in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are making it harder for armed actors to get the weapons they have used to commit atrocities. Other measures, like the ban on the trade in illicit charcoal from Somalia, are limiting the funds that violent extremist groups like Al-Shabaab are using to fuel their campaigns of terror.”
2015-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7389 (2015) · source
“Yet, too often the Council has not lived up to that primary responsibility. Consider Syria. When the Al-Assad regime launches deadly attacks on peaceful protesters, when it tortures tens of thousands of detainees in its prisons, when it employs openly starve-or-surrender tactics that inflict a devastating toll on civilians, amid all of that, divisions among Member States continue to prevent the Council from taking action to stop the regime from attacking civilians or even speaking in one voice to condemn the violence and call for meaningful accountability. As a result, we have let down the people at the heart of the Charter.”
2015-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7389 (2015) · source
“It is all too easy in our debates in the Council and across the United Nations to lose sight of the people whose rights and welfare are dramatically affected by the degree to which we fulfil the Charter's ambitious mandate. To recommit ourselves to the purposes and principles is to recommit ourselves to the people, individuals in every one of our States, whose basic dignity the Charter is meant to defend and uphold. I should like to highlight three ways the United Nations and its Member States can and must improve our effectiveness in working together towards that noble and necessary aspiration. First, the Security Council must play the robust role set out for it by the Charter to maintain or restore international peace and security, and it must take actions when circumstances demand it.”
2015-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7389 (2015) · source