I am delighted to be here today and to address one of the more profound, existential concerns of our time – the pervasiveness of mass atrocities – and the role of international humanitarian law in preventing and combating mass atrocities and underpinning the struggle for human security.

Indeed, we meet at a critical, historical juncture in this struggle for international justice and human security – where, international humanitarian and criminal law has emerged as the linchpin in this struggle; where the determination that international crimes are a threat to international peace and security inspired the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda; and where the criminalization of international humanitarian law is the cornerstone of the struggle against mass atrocities and armed conflict.

In particular, more has happened in this revolution in international criminal and humanitarian law in the last five years, than happened in the previous fifty, including, the dramatic jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda; where, inter alia, we have witnessed the criminalization of sexual violence in armed conflict, and where rape, for example, was held to be torture in the Celebici case; a crime against humanity in the Foca case; and a war crime in the Furundizi case. And where, for the first time ever, rape was prosecuted as an act of genocide in the Akayesu case, with the Genocide Convention invoked for the first time in fifty years by an International Tribunal to sanction racist gender violence in Rwanda.

And more: for the first time in fifty years, the Nuremberg Principle of non-immunity for international crimes committed by Heads of State was invoked and applied in the Pinochet case; the first post-Nuremberg indictment of a former Head of State was issued in the Milosevic case; where for the first time in fifty years the UN Security Council adopted “human security” resolutions protective of women and children in armed conflict; where the first ever optional protocol for the protection of children in armed conflict has been adopted; and where – in the most dramatic initiative in international criminal law in the last fifty years – the Treaty for an International Criminal Court has become a reality – the implementation of the Nuremberg Legacy.

Nor should it be forgotten that this revolution in international criminal and humanitarian law has been anchored in, and inspired by a revolution in trans-national civil society – in the nongovernmental organizations who have underpinned this international humanitarian law movement; and by a global Internet which has not only revolutionized the access to information, but has revolutionized the mobilization of information – and thereby the “mobilization of shame against the human rights violators,” as John Humphrey put it.

But I suspect that as I have been giving you this snapshot of the revolution in humanitarian law – in the criminalization of mass atrocities – many amongst you, the survivors of massive international human rights violations – the witnesses to mass atrocity – the bearers of the seismographs of history, may have been asking yourselves, “Where does this guy come from? Is this what they teach in the ivory towers of academia? Has he begun to imbibe the platitudes of politicians? Does he not know what is happening to real people – on the ground? Does he not know what is happening to threatened communities, to vilified minorities, to refugees, to targeted civilians in armed conflict, to the victims of mass atrocity, ethnic cleansing and genocide?”

Indeed the refugees of humanity/inhumanity, the assaulted of Africa, the tortured of Asia and the Middle East, the brutalized child, each of them can be forgiven if they believe that this revolution in international humanitarian law has passed them by; while, as this international forum has demonstrated, the ethnic cleansing of the Balkans, the displaced of East Timor, the genocides of Cambodia and Rwanda, the legacy of Apartheid, are metaphor and message of the pervasiveness of mass atrocities in our time.

It is not surprising, then, that this criminal assault on human rights invites the not uncynical rejoinder that international humanitarian and criminal law is – to paraphrase Jeremy Bentham – so much “nonsense on stilts” – of rights without writs, of rhetoric without remedy, of semantics without sanctions. Moreover, this revolution in international humanitarian law and counterrevolution – this struggle for human security amidst human insecurity – is taking place against a backdrop of revolutionary dynamics that impact upon – and must be factored into – a Human Security Foreign Policy in general, and the role of International Humanitarian and Criminal Law in the protection of human security in particular.

First, there is the changing nature of armed conflict characterized by a growing proportion of wars within rather than between states, so that 90% of wars are now matters of internal rather than international armed conflict.

Second, there is the targeting of civilians in armed conflict so that 80% of the victims in armed conflict are now civilian as contrasted with World War I where 5% of casualties were civilian.

Third, is the advent of globalization – of the globalization of media and markets, of justice and injustice, of technology and trade – including an international flow of trade, capital, information and people that has delivered unprecedented wealth and opportunity and created millions of jobs. But the transnational underside of globalization has also triggered a network of threats to human security including transnational terrorism; transnational networking in hate – such as Hate on Internet; Organized Crime, money laundering and the global financing of international criminality; trafficking in people, weapons and narcotics; the transnational digital divide and the growing gap between rich and poor; transnational corruption and bribery; corporate complicity in international atrocities; and, the transnational displacements of people and the assault on the integrity of aboriginal peoples.

Human Security in this context means, in a word, freedom from fear – freedom from these pervasive threats to people’s rights, safety, or lives.

Fourth, is the transformation of International Human Rights Law in general – and International Humanitarian and Criminal Law in particular – from a State-oriented to a People-oriented dimension – having regard to both the Struggle Against Impunity respecting the perpetrators – and the Duty to Protect respecting the victims.

And so, on the eve of the 56th Anniversary of the Nuremberg Principles – on the eve of the coming into force of the ICC Treaty – on the occasion of this revolution in international humanitarian and criminal law on the one hand – and the pervasiveness of mass atrocities on the other; and bearing in mind also the salience of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions – of reconciliation as both a process and an outcome – and not without its own pain and suffering as we have witnessed in this Forum – we must ask ourselves two questions: “What have we learned?” and “What can we do?”

May I summarize now in the second part of this paper some of the existential lessons of the human condition – the legal paradox of massive violations of human rights – where genocide has emerged as the paradigmatic form of armed conflict in the 90s – and the hopeful capacity of international humanitarian law – as itself part of the process of reconciliation – to protect human rights. I will also seek to draw upon the witness testimony and documentary evidence of the case studies of mass atrocity as experienced in this Stockholm International Forum – be it the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, East Timor, and, of course, Apartheid and its legacy in South Africa.

Lesson 1: The Danger of State-Sponsored Incitement to Hatred and International Crime – the Teaching of Contempt and the Demonizing of the Other – the International Requirement for the Criminalization of Assaultive Hate Speech

One of the enduring lessons of Nazism – the ultimate metaphor for radical evil – is that Nazism almost succeeded not only because of the industry of death and technology of terror, but because of the ideology – the pathology – of hate. Indeed, it is this state-sanctioned teaching of contempt, this demonizing of the other, this standing assault on human security, this is where it all begins.

As the Supreme Court of Canada put it so well in validating and upholding the constitutionality of anti-hate legislation in Canada, “The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers. It began with words.” These, as the Court put it, “are the chilling facts of history – the catastrophic effects of racism.”

Fifty-five years later, these lessons not only remain unlearned, but the tragedy is being repeated. For we have become increasingly witness of late – from Central Asia to Central America – to a growing state-sanctioned trafficking in hate – to a murderous teaching of contempt – to a demonizing of “the other,” – and which in Cambodia, Burundi, Bosnia and Rwanda included state-orchestrated incitement to ethnic cleansing and genocide.
What is required – both to prevent mass atrocity and to provide for justice and reconciliation – is an end to state-sponsored incitement – where states not only cease and desist from government- orchestrated incitement but move to criminalize assaultive hate speech, the whole as mandated not only by the imperatives of international criminal law but the needs of reconciliation. For this state-sanctioned culture of hate is inherently destructive of both the process and outcome of reconciliation.

In brief, what is needed – both as fidelity to international law and fidelity to reconciliation – is a culture of respect in place of a culture of contempt – a culture of human rights in place of a culture of hate – inspired by, and anchored in, a set of foundational jurisprudential principles as set forth in comparative and international human rights jurisprudence in general, and domesticated in decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada in particular, including:

• Respect for the inherent dignity and worth of the human person;
• Respect for the equal dignity and worth of all persons;
• Respect for the underlying values of a free and democratic society targeted by “assaultive” speech;
• Respect for the right of minorities to protection against group vilifying speech;
• Recognition of the substantial harm – as the Supreme Court put it – caused to the individual and group targets of hate speech, as well as to society as a whole;
• Fidelity to our international treaties – such as the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination – which have removed racist hate speech from the ambit of protected speech;
• Respect for our multicultural heritage and the fragility of our multicultural democracy; and,
• The need for an ethic and ethos of tolerance and diversity that respects the vision and voice of “the other.”

Lesson 2: Crimes of Indifference, Conspiracies of Silence – The Duty to Protect

In a word, the Armenian killings fields, the Holocaust of European Jewry, and the genocides from Cambodia to Rwanda, succeeded not only because of a state-sponsored culture of hate, but because of crimes of indifference – because of conspiracies of silence. Indeed, we have been witness to an appalling indifference in our day – in the 1990s – to the unthinkable – ethnic cleansing – and the unspeakable – genocide; and worst of all, to the preventable genocide in Rwanda. No one can say that we did not know.

One has to only read the witness testimony on Rwanda in Philip Gourevitch’s book entitled, “Tomorrow we are going to be killed together with all our families”; Gerry Caplan’s searing indictment in his book on “The Preventable Genocide”; and “Leave None to Tell the Story: The Genocide in Rwanda” published by Human Rights Watch, to understand not only the horror of this genocide – conveyed so movingly in this Forum by Esther Mujawayo-Keiner – a survivor of the Rwandan genocide – but the ultimate horror that this genocide was preventable; that it was the indifference, the silence, the acquiescence – indeed the complicity o the international community – that made this genocide possible, including:

• The United Nations, which was warned of the impeding genocide – as it was in Srbrenica – and did not act;

• Countries like France who helped arm the Genocidaires and facilitated giving them base and sanctuary;

• Countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, who refused to acknowledge, let alone act upon, the massacres that preceded the genocide – and then refused to characterize the genocide as genocide;

• My own country, Canada, which was warned in the late 80s of impending killing fields in both Burundi and Rwanda – but for whom Hutus and

• Tutsis had yet to enter the political lexicon or radar screen; and,

• The range of accomplices that Gerry Caplan painfully and painstakingly documents in his work.

• It is our responsibility, then, to break down the walls of indifference, to shatter the conspiracies of silence wherever they may be.

 

As Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel put it: “neutrality always means coming down on the side of the victimizer – never on the side of the victim;” and as Professor Yehuda Bauer reminded us in the Stockholm International Forum: “Never be a perpetrator. Never allow there to be victims. And never, never allow yourself to be a bystander – to be indifferent.”

In a word, and we must adhere to this ourselves, if we are to convey this to others: neutrality in the face of evil – whether of individuals or states – is acquiescence in, if not complicity with, evil itself. It is not only abandonment of the victim; it is encouraging the victimizer.

And so as the killing fields in the Congo continue unabated; as the scorched earth policy in the Sudan triggers a Genocide warning from the Committee of Conscience; as more trade union workers are killed in Colombia than any other place in the world; as we witness the most persistent and pervasive assault on human rights in China since Tiennamen Square; as Mideast violence escalates amidst a cacophony of hatred and terrorism – what is needed is a people-centred, rather than state-centred foreign policy; a calibrated sanctions policy targeting the human rights violators and not innocent civilians; the protection of civilians in armed conflict; the enforcement of international criminal law; and the provision of humanitarian assistance.

Lesson 3: Protecting Human Security: Protecting Against Mass Atrocities – Towards a Culture of Prevention

It is as trite as it is profound that the best form of peace-building – the best protection against mass atrocities – the best protection for human security – is the prevention of conflict to begin with. Yet, as the Carnegie Commission of Nine Case Studies of War-Affected Countries showed, the international community spent eight times more dealing with the aftermath of war – with the pain and problems of reconciliation – than it invested in the prevention of conflict. That is not only not cost-effective in economic terms, but in human terms – in terms of lives lost and communities destroyed – the human cost is incalculable.

 

May I identify some of the lessons learned from the assaults on civilians in armed conflict – from Central Asia to Central America – as developed by the Canadian Peacebuilding Initiative and reflecting also my own involvement in “peace work” over the years:
Democracy does not guarantee peace and stability but it seems to be a pre-condition for it; indeed it is the absence of democracy – whether in the Balkans or East Timor – or any other area of armed conflict – that often serves as a standing invitation to the criminal violations of human rights; while, as Spencer Weart, affirms in his book Never at War, Why Democracies will not Fight One Another, it is as an empirical law of international relations (resulting from his analysis of every recorded instance of conflict among democracies) that democratic republics have never gone to war against one another.

• Conflict prevention must address root causes of conflict. For example, it was a Black Apartheid in Burundi – left unaddressed – that exploded in the selected genocides there in 1972; and it was the ethnic apartheid in Bosnia and Kosovo in the eighties that exploded in the killing fields in the Balkans in the nineties.

• Timing is crucial – pre-emptive action is critical.

• There is a need for an early warning system of insipient criminal human rights violations and a commensurate early response – a need for a human insecurity index of systemic assaults on human security such as systemic discrimination as we witnessed in Bosnia and Kosovo, or systemic incitement to hatred and violence as we witnessed in Rwanda; these correspondingly invite early redress of the systemic discrimination or early electronic peace-keeping of the hate propaganda.

• Evidence of massive human rights violations indicate a standing and incipient threat to national and international peace and security which, if all other remedies have been exhausted, may warrant internationally authorized humanitarian intervention.

• A culture of impunity will only licence, if not reward, the commission of atrocities; a culture of accountability – of bringing perpetrators of human rights violations to justice – may serve to deter the violence and safeguard the peace.

Lesson 4: Droit d’ingerence – The Duty to Intervene – The Principle of Humanitarian Intervention

If the duty to prevent and protect against mass atrocity is unavailing and unrequited then a right, indeed, a duty, may arise for the international community to intervene so as to avert a humanitarian catastrophe – what has come to be known as the Doctrine of Humanitarian Intervention. This doctrine trumps the principle of state sovereignty – so that countries, as UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan put it, “cannot hide behind the shield of state sovereignty where they criminally assault their citizens.”
If Bosnia and Rwanda dramatized the consequences of inaction – the killing fields of Kosovo and East Timor dramatized the consequences of delayed action or selective intervention; and all demonstrate the need for prescribed criteria or principles to authorize humanitarian intervention – i.e., when, how, under what circumstances, pursuant to what authority, and according to what criteria, can humanitarian intervention be authorized?

 

May I set forth the criteria that would authorize humanitarian intervention – as find expression in the International Commission on Humanitarian Intervention and State Sovereignty – and which would include the following:

• The Just Cause Criterion: Is there a systematic and widespread criminal violation of human rights – of war crimes and crimes against humanity – the commission of mass atrocities that shock the conscience of humankind and warrant humanitarian intervention?

• Has an appeal been made to the human rightsviolator state to cease and desist from these international crimes, and has this appeal been unavailing and unrequited?

• Have all other remedies short of forceable humanitarian intervention – e.g. diplomatic, economic, juridical remedies – been tried and been found wanting – what is known as the “Exhaustion of Remedies” Principle.

• Has the United Nations Security Council determined, under Chapter 7 of its authority, that the international crimes or mass atrocities constitute a threat to international peace and security, as it did in Kosovo?

• Has the United Nations Security Council specifically authorized the use of force pursuant to this Chapter 7 determination?

• Have the perpetrators been warned that they are personally and criminally responsible for their crimes?

• Is the use of force proportionate to the objectives sought to be secured, i.e., to avert a humanitarian catastrophe?

• Will the intervening forces abide by the “right intention principle” – that they intend only to avert a humanitarian catastrophe, and that the intervention is not a cover for some untoward political or military agenda.

• The Principle of Effectiveness: has the determination been made that the intervention is likely to do more good than not – i.e., that it will avert a humanitarian catastrophe rather than contribute to it.

Lesson 5: Bringing War Criminals to Justice – The Cycle of Impunity, The Imperative of Accountability – Nuremberg and its Legacy

The struggle against impunity requires that we not only punish international atrocities after the fact – that we bring war criminals to justice – but that we seek to prevent atrocities to begin with; and more, that we seek a culture of accountability to combat racism, xenophobia, anti-semitism and all forms of intolerance, rather than acquiesce in a culture of impunity that licenses such intolerance. In the words of the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance, we must “ensure that criminal prosecution of offences of a racist or xenophobic nature is given a high priority and is actively and consistently undertaken.”

Regrettably, the struggle against impunity has not only failed to sufficiently factor in the importance of combating racism to begin with – of legislating a culture of prevention – but it has failed even in the bringing of war criminals to justice after the fact – the ultimate in a culture of impunity. If there is one enduring lesson from the Holocaust to Cambodia, from Bosnia to Rwanda, it is, tragically enough, the cycle of impunity – the betrayal of Nuremberg.

Indeed, the presence of war criminals amongst the world’s democracies – including Canada – fifty-five years after the Nuremberg principles – is a moral and juridical obscenity, an affront to conscience, a betrayal of everything that people fought for and died for. In effect, the word “war criminal” is itself somewhat of a misnomer. For we are not only talking about the killing of combatants in the course of the prosecution of a war, but the murder of innocents in the course of the persecution of a race.

Fifty-five years after Nuremberg, the lessons of the past not only remain unlearned, but the tragedy is being repeated. Instead of diminishing over time, the “Never Again” assaults have continued – not necessarily against Jews, but against Cambodians, Bosnians, Hutus, Tutsis, Sudanese – and the list goes on. Regrettably, this international criminality has been accompanied by a culture of impunity, which has only encouraged others to commit greater violations. If human security is to be safeguarded, this culture of impunity must be replaced by a culture of accountability.

Indeed, establishing accountability is not only a moral and juridical imperative, but it is also a practical imperative, if not a self-interested one. For, with globalization and porous borders, crimes against humanity are crimes without borders. These massive atrocities create population displacements, assault innocents, and jeopardize regional and international stability. We can no longer afford to wait for disaster before acting. Accountability means bringing human rights violators to justice, deterring future violations, protecting potential victims, and safeguarding international peace and security. The coming into being of the International Criminal Court Treaty – and the establishment of International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda – are a watershed in the fight against impunity – and a break in the culture of impunity.
Accordingly, the struggle against impunity requires that:

• We recognize that states – as part of a culture of prevention – must sanction hate crimes to begin with; and we develop, invoke, and apply, international law respecting the prohibition of racist hate propaganda;

• We recognize that states have an obligation to prosecute or extradite the perpetrators of the most serious international crimes;

• We invoke the full panoply of remedies at our disposal – internationally and nationally – to bring those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity to justice, including:

- Extradition
- Transfer to international tribunals
- Domestic criminal prosecution
- Revocation of citizenship or denaturalisation proceedings
- Deportation
- Exclusion or denial of access for inadmissables
- Preclusion from access to the Refugee Protection process to ineligibles including war criminals
- Exploration of civil remedies

• We continue the campaign for securing as many ratifications of the ICC Treaty as possible;

• We support the principle of non-immunity for former or existing heads of state who have committed international crimes;

• We protect the right to asylum, and at the same time, ensure that refugee law is not abused to provide base and sanctuary to international criminals;

• We develop enforcement mechanisms – as former Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy proposed under the rubric of “human security” – for the protection of civilians in armed conflict, for the protection of refugee camp security, and the integration of human rights into peace keeping missions to protect against intolerance by peacekeepers themselves.

• We take the lead in “engendering justice”, both at the International Criminal Tribunals for Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, as well as with respect to the International Criminal Court;

• We seek to develop and insitutionalize – domestically and internationally – the revolutionary jurisprudential developments in the struggle against impunity, particularly those which have emerged from the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda such as the Akayesu or Tadic cases; the case law from national jurisdictions, such as the Pinochet case in the U.K. or the Belgian jurisprudence; or Canadian case law.

• We invoke model criminal law legislation organized around the principle of universal jurisdiction to bring war criminals to justice.

Lesson 6: The International Criminal Court – Cornerstone of International Humanitarian and Criminal Law

The struggle against impunity must be seen also as part of a culture or strategy of conflict prevention, conflict resolution and peace-building – of establishing a system of global justice – of serving as a cornerstone for the protection of human security and the implementation of international humanitarian law.

In that sense, the Treaty for an International Criminal Court is one of the most dramatic developments in the struggle against impunity – in the development international criminal law – in a culture of prevention – since the end of World War II. Indeed, the 20th century might well have been labelled the Century of Atrocity – where we witnessed some of the worst atrocities in the history of humankind; but it might also have been called the Age of Impunity, as few perpetrators were ever brought to justice.

Initially, the Nuremberg/Tokyo Tribunals inspired the hope that a Permanent International Tribunal with global jurisdiction would be established – and indeed an ICC was first proposed some 55 years ago; however, it took the globalized horror of the killing fields of the nineties – the horror of Bosnia; the agony of Rwanda; the brutalized women and children of Sierra Leone and Sudan; and the emergence of the unthinkable, ethnic cleansing, and the unspeakable genocide – as paradigmatic forms of armed conflict in the nineties – to give the idea of an international criminal court the moral compellability and sense of urgency that it warrants.

The establishment of an International Criminal Court was an idea whose time had come, indeed, was long overdue. What distinguishes the International Criminal Court from the ad hoc tribunals is that the ICC is the first permanent international tribunal with a global jurisdiction to try individuals for criminal violations of international humanitarian law.
Accordingly, unlike the International Court of Justice, whose contentious jurisdiction is restricted to states, the ICC will have juridical authority to indict individuals from any global killing field; and unlike the ad hoc character of the Yugoslavian and Rwandan war crimes tribunals, the jurisdiction of the ICC will not be chronologically or geographically limited.

The ICC Treaty and corresponding implementing legislation will serve to institutionalize and internationalize the Nuremberg Legacy; work to end the culture of impunity; help deter international crimes while protecting international peace and security; counter the failure of national systems to bring war criminals to justice; provide enforcement mechanisms and thereby overcome one of the main failings of international law; underpin state responsibility to prosecute, or to extradite for purposes of prosecution, any individuals in their territory who are accused of international crimes of genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity; and will help protect the most vulnerable of persons in armed conflict – women, children, refugees and the like.

In a word, the ICC Treaty is a wake-up call and a warning to criminal human rights violators everywhere: there will be no safe havens, no base or sanctuary for the enemies of humankind.

Lesson 7: The Rights of Children and the Protection of Children in Armed Conflict: the Linchpin of Human Security

If there is an atrocity that belies understanding, it is the wilful exploitation, maiming, and killing of a child – the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.

The protection of children, then, must be a priority on our national and international agenda as a matter of both principle and policy. As my daughter Gila put it, at 15 years of age: “Daddy, if you want to know what the test of human rights is, always ask yourself at any time, in any situation, in any part of the world, is it good for children? Is what is happening good for children?”

Indeed, nowhere is the double entendre of the revolution in international humanitarian law – and counter revolution – more dramatized than in the protection of children’s rights, particularly as regarding the protection of children in armed conflict.

On the one hand, more countries have ratified the International Convention on Childrens’ Rights more quickly than any other treaty; indeed, more have ratified it than any other treaty. Yet many of the 190 states that have ratified the treaty continue to violate the rights of children in a massive way. As a result, millions of children – the statistics are simply numbing – find themselves in alarming situations where they are as much hostages as they are victims. Witness the following:

• 14 million children under the age of five die every year as victims of hunger, sickness, war, or the inhuman treatment of adults;

• 5 million children have been injured or disabled by war;

• children make up more than half of the world’s 19 million refugees;

• 200 million children under the age of 13 are forced to work with untold millions sold into slavery;

• 20,000 children die of preventable diseases every day.

What is true regarding the violations of children’s rights generally, is even more compelling as regards the violations of the rights of children in armed conflicts in particular. For example, it is estimated that in the decade between 1986 and 1996, two million children were killed, six million were injured, over 10 million were traumatized, and more than one million were orphaned.

Admittedly, since the groundbreaking report by Graça Machel to the UN General Assembly on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, there has been a range of protective initiatives including:

• the creation by the General Assembly in 1997 of the Office of a Special Representative to the Secretary General on Children in Armed Conflict;

• an increased advocacy and awareness, with the issue of children affected by armed conflict becoming a priority on the international political agenda, while major regional organizations have adopted this issue as part of their own agendas;

• the adoption by the U.N. Security Council of the landmark Resolution 1261 affirming the protection of children in armed conflict as “a peace and security concern”;

• the strengthening of international standards, for example, the adoption of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict – and the classification of war crimes against children in the ICC Treaty – are particularly significant;

• the integration of children’s concerns into U.N. peace operations.

Yet, in this same four-year period – notwithstanding these initiatives – armed conflict killed close to a million children; injured some three million more; traumatized even millions more; and left hundreds of thousands of children orphaned.
In a word, the plight of war-affected children is clearly one of the most devastating tragedies of our time. The statistics of the millions of children caught up and scarred by the brutality of war and conflict, not only numb the pain; they also obscure the tragedy. We are speaking about children who have lost their parents, their homes, their schools, their neighbourhoods – all the components of human security.

It also includes an estimated 300,000 children who have served fighting factions – whether as soldiers, sexual slaves, or water carriers. Still others have witnessed inhuman acts against their families and carry horrific memories with them. The human security agenda, then, challenges us to examine the issue of war-affected children from the perspective of those children. The problem is multi-faceted and so should be the solutions, including:

• The implementation of existing international standards, including the ratification and implementation of the Optional Protocol Respecting the Protection of Children in Armed Conflict, and the Optional Protocol to the ILO Convention No.182, which defines the use of children in armed conflict as one of the worst forms of child labour;

• Calibrated and selectively targeted sanctions respecting regimes that violate the rights of children in armed conflict, including the recruitment and deployment of child soldiers;

• The prioritization of education in humanitarian assistance; • The placing of children at the centre of the peace-building and reconstruction process;

• The effective engagement of youth in policy processes;

• Commitment to the protection of internally displaced children;

• Increased monitoring and reporting of child rights abuses;

• The end of a culture of impunity: those responsible for war crimes against children should be brought to justice;

• The training of peacekeepers in child rights and child protection;

• Working to suffocate the supply of small arms, to release abducted children and to protect children from HIV/AIDS;

• Ratification and implementation of the Land Mines Treaty through effective national legislation;

• Human rights treaty bodies should enhance their focus on children’s rights and conflict situations in reviewing government reports;

• The establishment of a peace and security agenda based on the concept of children as “zones of peace.” For example, ceasefires have been negotiated for “days of tranquillity” and “corridors of peace” to bring food and vaccines to children
trapped in wars, ground-breaking efforts that have saved millions of children from malnutrition.

As the 1996 Machel report documented, war puts at risk every right of the child – the foundational core of human security – including: the right to life; the right to a family environment; the right to essential care and assistance; the right to health, to food, and to education. How we respond to the human security of children will define the integrity of the international humanitarian law revolution.

Lesson 8: International Women’s Rights and Gender Security

The genocide of World War II and the genocides and ethnic cleansing since – as in the Balkans and Rwanda – have included horrific crimes against women. Moreover, these crimes not only attended the genocide or have been in consequences of it, but have in fact been in pursuit of it.

Regrettably, the lessons of violence against women in armed conflict – indeed, of systemic discrimination against women – remain to be learned – and acted upon. The notion that women’s rights are human rights – that there are no human rights without women’s rights – must be not only a statement of principle, but an instrument of policy. As UNICEF recently reported, “discrimination against women is an injustice greater than South Africa’s Apartheid.” Charlotte Bunch dramatically summed up the raison d’être for women’s rights as a priority on the International Human Rights agenda as follows: “Significant numbers of the world’s population are routinely subject to torture, starvation, terrorism, humiliation, mutilation and even murder simply because they are female.”
I recently sought to frame the urgent instances of systemic discrimination and violence against women that must be addressed – and redressed – around an eight-point human insecurity index for women, including the following:

1. Exclusion or under representation of women in the political and economic decision-making processes;

2. Discrimination against – or denial of – the social and economic rights of women as a matter of law and/or policy;

3. Institutionalized violence against women – in the family, custodial institutions, or community;

4. Violence against women in armed conflict, including, in particular, horrific acts of sexual violence;

5. The discrimination against, or denial of, women’s rights to bodily integrity and reproductive rights;

6. The discrimination against, or denial of, the rights of the most vulnerable of women – aboriginal, visible minorities, disabled, lesbian, and refugee women;

7. Exclusion of or discrimination against women in peace operations;

8. The differential and discriminatory incidence of poverty amongst women. Therefore, advocates for women’s human rights must call upon governments and inter-governmental bodies to do the following:

1. Implement fully international humanitarian and human rights law that protects the rights of women during armed conflict;

2. Implement the landmark Security Council Resolution 1325 respecting women and gender security, particularly as respecting the security of women in armed conflict;

3. Implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for action including the recommendation to fully integrate the human rights of women throughout all policies and programmes;

4.Work towards ratification and implementation of the Declaration on the Rights of Human Rights Defenders (officially called the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms);

5. Outlaw all forms of discrimination against women by ensuring ratification and implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (the Women’s Convention) immediately. This should also include the removal of reservations to the Women’s Convention; the bringing of national laws and policies into compliance with the Convention; and the implementation of the Optional Protocol to the Women’s Convention establishing a right to petition;

6. Ensure women’s right to live free from violence by:

• taking concerted and systematic action to end violence against women in the home and family through all necessary means;

• recognizing that gender-based violence and discrimination, and the reprisals women experience when they resist such oppression, can constitute persecution; and that such persecution should therefore be considered as grounds for a “wellfounded fear of persecution” in refugee and asylum claims;

• eliminating gender-based persecution in situations of war and armed conflict, while providing justice and reparations to victims of such persecution;

• institutionalizing a gender perspective in the application and enforcement of the Treaty for an International Criminal Court;

7.Take steps to realize women’s health, including their reproductive and sexual rights by:

• Ensuring the realization of women’s right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health;

• Securing women’s access to reproductive and sexual health and rights;

8. Securing women’s economic, social and cultural rights. This should include, inter alia:
• Guaranteeing women’s right to development, by providing women with equal access to economic resources, and protecting their rights in law, policy, and practice to own property, to equal inheritance, and to land tenure, credit and training;

• Securing literacy for every woman and girl by ensuring equal access to education, including human rights education and legal literacy;

• Enforcing women workers’ rights on the basis of equality, non-discrimination and due process, including the right to organize, to bargain collectively, to health and safety protection and to a living wage.

Lesson 9: Raoul Wallenberg and the Revolution in International Humanitarian Law

Recently the Canadian Government established a Raoul Wallenberg Commemorative Day to recognize annually – on the anniversary of his disappearance on January 17th – this lost hero of the Holocaust, this Saint-Just of the nations, whom the UN characterized as the greatest humanitarian of the 20th century for having saved more people in the Second World War than almost any government.

It is an historic initiative that will have enduring resonance. We will be recognizing, teaching and inspiring Canadians about the unparalleled and unprecedented heroism of Canada’s only honorary citizen who, in his singular protection of civilians in armed conflict, signified the best of international humanitarian law; who, in his singular organization of humanitarian relief, exemplified the best of humanitarian intervention; who, in his warning to Nazi generals that they would be held accountable for their crimes, foreshadowed the Nuremberg principles; who, in saving 100,000 Jews, personified the Talmudic idiom that if a person saves a single life it is as if he saved an entire universe; and who, in having the courage to care and the commitment to act, showed that one person can make a difference, that one person can confront radical evil, prevail and transform history.

And so each one of us has an indispensable role to play in the indivisible struggle for human rights and human dignity. Each one can and does make a difference.