Your Majesties, Your Royal Highness, Secretary-General, Excellencies, Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me begin by telling you a story.
It is a wintry day in Stockholm.
In a warm library there sits a man.
A lawyer. A Jew.
A refugee from Poland.
The year is 1940.
In his light luggage, the heaviest of burdens: the experience of living through a genocide day by day, the ongoing Holocaust.
He recalls his last reunion with his family, just a few months ago.

These are his words:

“I tried to live a year in this one day, to borrow time from the future, to absorb the whole soul of my home. When their eyes became sad with understanding, I laughed away our agonizing thoughts; but I felt I would never see them again. It was like going to their funerals while they were still alive. The best of me was dying with the full cruelty of consciousness.”

At this time, this man was already dealing with the aftermath.Aware of what would come.Aware of what the world was so blind to.

Later he wrote:

“In the peaceful library of Stockholm, I saw an entire race being imprisoned and condemned to death (i.e. Jews). Central and Western Europe were occupied almost entirely.A New European Order was proclaimed. The dehumanization and disintegration had already begun; when would the hour of execution come?”
The man was Raphael Lemkin.

Today he is known as the father of what we call genocide studies, and the father of the Genocide Convention.

In 1940, while still just a young lawyer and a fugitive, he had already formulated our quest. As he writes: “Killing an individual is a domestic crime /…/ But murder of a whole people must be recognized as an international crime, which should be condemned not just by one nation, but by the entire world. Nations will have to cooperate in punishing such criminals to prevent future mass murders. Should such a thing start again, the nations would have to act.”

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today, a wintry Stockholm is our scene.
Failure is our starting point.
The Holocaust occurred. No failure has been greater.
Former Yugoslavia exploded. Reactions were weak, and late.
The Rwanda genocide happened, only ten years ago.
The world stood paralyzed.
And, we can offer no guarantees.
It can happen again.
“Never again” was the deeply felt pledge after the Holocaust. As time has passed it has almost become a cliché.
Do we still believe in it?
I say, we must.
The task is ours.
There is no one else.
We – together – must take action.
We are here to discuss what action.
How do we prevent future genocides?

We live in an age where film stars and brand names are recognised by people everywhere, and economic news spreads instantly around the world via mobile phones and the Internet.

And so do eye-witness accounts of atrocities and violations, from victims and the media.We do not lack information, horrendous stories, facts. But we have to improve our ability to believe them, to believe the unbelievable.

Economic resources are unequally distributed around the globe, as well as within our countries. It is only a small step from powerlessness and lack of hope for the future to hatred and belief in shallow, simplistic solutions. The failure of governments to break unemployment, to reduce poverty and social gaps, to stop corruption and organised crime, make people turn their back on democracy. Democratic forces must be prepared to address this despair.

In the long term, genocide prevention also has to do with this. In the short term it raises other questions. Whether we lack economic resources or not, when priorities are set, genocide prevention has to be on the list.

We do not lack political means: legal tools such as legislation and courts, sanctions, humanitarian aid, diplomatic channels, international arenas for political decision-making, or – as a last resort – military forces. For more than half a century we have had the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
More recently, the ad hoc international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda have passed judgments of historic importance. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court has entered into force. The United Nations has increased its focus on prevention as a leading vision.

Following the decisions taken in Gothenburg during the Swedish EU presidency, the European Union now has a clear agenda for prevention, which it puts into practice in its day-to-day work. The international community has better early warning systems, and greater capacity for long-term preventive efforts. It has new mechanisms to ensure that military instruments can be deployed rapidly and more effectively in crisis management and peace support operations.

We have the means.
We must refine and improve them.
And we must use them.

It is every nation’s responsibility to respect human rights and to protect its citizens from violations.

But reality sometimes reveals a different picture.

Governments sometimes lack the means to protect the individual. Governments sometimes lack the will.

Sometimes, abuse is part of their strategy.
How do we determine when international intervention is needed to protect human lives? We must not leave this question unanswered.We need a better balance between state sovereignty and the protection of the individual.

The time must finally come when we commit ourselves to an agenda of active genocide prevention.

What is under threat could not be more fundamental.
Children, women, men.
Courage, knowledge, ambitions.
Freedom, dreams, love.
Uniqueness.
Human dignity.
You and me.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Take a look around in this hall.
Take a look at yourselves, representatives from fifty countries.
Not since 1948 have so many political leaders, researchers, people who have experienced the “killing fields” and other representatives from so many countries come together to address this issue.

We have a great opportunity today, of this I am convinced.
In her excellent book “A problem from hell”, Samantha Power concludes by citing George Bernard Shaw.

I quote:

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
I could add, men like Raphael Lemkin.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let us also be unreasonable!
During this gathering, and in this quest.
Let us go beyond the “never agains”.
Let us go beyond the differing positions and interpretations of today's conflicts.
Let us go beyond discussing definitions before further mass atrocities are added to the record.

Welcome all of you.
Welcome to the Stockholm International Forum on Preventing Genocide.
A warm welcome to our senior academic advisor to the conference, Professor Yehuda Bauer.

And a warm welcome to our friend, the greatly admired Nobel Prize laureate Mr Elie Wiesel, we look forward to your speech in the City Hall tonight.
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my great honour to introduce, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr Kofi Annan.

Thank you.