months ago full of optimism positive and
I was going to give you a message of
hope and and then brexit happened I live
in London and I went into a period of
depression like many people and was
rethinking my my attitude of my views
but I got over it at my classic optimism
returned and I was looking forward for
the last couple of weeks to celebrating
the election of the first woman
president of the United States you know
she did get the most votes I hope you
realize that if it’s any consolation and
she probably would have got more had it
not been for a number of measures that
were taken in some parts of the United
States to prevent black people and other
minorities from voting but I feel here
today a little bit like someone trying
to tell you the story and sell you on
the idea of global warming in the middle
of a winter storm we are in a difficult
period for human rights what the brexit
and the recent US election and other
events elsewhere in the world have done
is fanned the embers the smoldering
embers of racism and xenophobia and they
are making life very hard particularly
for minorities here in North America and
elsewhere in the world but my message is
ultimately one of optimism because it
involves taking the long view I’m
looking back 50 years and I’m looking
forward 50 years 50 years ago the major
Human Rights treaties the two most
important treaties in the United Nations
were adopted we call them the covenants
they’re related to the Universal
Declaration
Human Rights which is a little older and
that began a very very robust complex
elaborate system that continues to grow
that protects our human rights through
the United Nations and through regional
organizations and and of course here in
Europe we are very fortunate to have
what is perhaps the jewel of the mall
which is the European Court of Human
Rights only a few months ago the
European Court of Human Rights issued an
important judgment against Switzerland
although it wasn’t really directed
against Switzerland it was directed
against the United Nations Security
Council for the first time and it said
that the United Nations Security Council
through its resolutions which had to be
enforced in Switzerland was violating
fundamental rights of due process and of
equality before the law I don’t want to
talk about the institutions and the
structures and the documents I want to
talk about the ideas behind human rights
and how they have evolved until today is
to enable me in a way to project the
future to look forward so I want to go
back 50 years and look at some of the
issues that have I think surprised us in
terms of how they emerge one of them
that I’ve worked on a great deal is the
abolition of capital punishment now 50
years ago most countries in the world
had the death penalty and used most of
them about 90 percent of states in the
world used it when the United Nations
secretary-general was asked is there a
trend towards abolition the
secretary-general said I can’t tell one
way or another there doesn’t appear to
be a trend but trend there is and every
year for the last 30 years or so two to
three countries abolished the death
penalty and we’re now at a situation
where about 160 countries have abolished
the death penalty have stopped using it
have changed their laws some most of
them have actually adopted international
treaties to prevent the restoration of
the death penalty and there are fewer
than 40 states that still use it and in
those 40 states actually fewer than that
more like 37 the numbers are declining
there’s less and less death penalty
being used
in most of them even in the United
States where the death penalty was
once-thriving it has been in quite
dramatic decline for the last decade or
so and the numbers continue to drop and
that’s largely because juries ordinary
people the same people who voted earlier
this week are the ones involved in
taking the decisions and I’m not talking
about the voters in the blue states in
New York and Massachusetts and Vermont
because they don’t have the death
penalty there we’re talking about the
voters in the south and they are
increasingly reluctant to sentence
people to death when I look into the
future 50 years from now I’m convinced
it will be gone
we’re just those states are ticking
themselves knocking themselves off the
list
every year will it take ten years or 20
years or 30 years I’m not sure but 50
years from now it’s over and that could
not have been foreseen or anticipated I
think in 1966 I think if someone said
that in 1966 people would have said you
know what were you smoking this morning
let me turn to another area of rights
that I want to examine and develop and
that’s equality rights actually the
Equality rights go back much further
they go back to the what’s really the
beginnings of modern human rights which
is the revolutionary developments of the
18th century the American Revolution
French Revolution and similar events
those are the two big ones and in the
Declaration of Independence which starts
the American Revolution they say all men
are created equal and we have something
similar it’s like the first article of
the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights is actually based on it says that
all men are born free and equal in
freedom and in rights that’s the French
Declaration the only difference between
that and the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights is we now say all human
beings because the women who were
involved in drafting the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights said you’re
not going to say all men are born free
and equal but those who drafted these
ideas who conceived of them back in the
18th century
have blind spots they understood the
notion of equality and they promoted it
some of them were slave owners and there
was certainly no place for women in
their vision of a free and equal society
they’d understood the principle but they
hadn’t followed through the logic of it
and that’s something that we see and
that I believe will continue to see if I
go back 50 years now to 1966
we still had formally officially racist
states in in the world
South Africa being the most important
one and 1966 there was no end in sight
they just put Nelson Mandela in jail and
he did about 30 years almost 30 years in
prison in the United States they were
just cleaning up their legislation
getting rid of the final remnants of law
that promoted racial discrimination the
problems aren’t solved but they were
they were just in the course of doing
that in 1966 when we turned to women’s
equality
I looked at the number of women heads of
government in the 1960s you know from
1960 to 1970 in the world there were
three women who were heads of government
and it improved in the next decade from
1970 to 1980 there were four and you
know how many there were in the last
decade from 2007 to 2016
37 women heads of government so there
been dramatic changes I probably don’t
need to tell that to anybody in the room
I think you understand it if you have
any doubts talk to your grandmother’s
and they’ll tell you how it changed but
the other thing about equality is that
groups that were not contemplated in
1966 that were not discussed that people
didn’t consider were part of the
conversation about equality have emerged
more recently sexual minorities for one
in 1966 most countries in the world
including many of them in Europe
criminalized gay sexual activity now
that’s all gone that’s the thing of the
past certainly in this part of the world
and now we have same-sex marriage but
you know in 1966 there were laws in the
United States preventing marriage not
between people of the same sex
between people of different races there
were laws still enforce fifty years ago
so who could have foreseen this it’s a
bit like the death penalty what person
in 1966 would have said fifty years from
now we’ll have gay marriage
we’ll have equality recognized for
sexual minorities another area where
there was huge development was in the
area of disability rights and again in
1966 disability rights were not really
on the radar and now we have a very very
strong system we have an international
treaty we have a great deal of attention
being devoted to making sure that people
who are disabled are in a position to
play a full and equal role in our
society in our social life and that’s a
great change that could not have been I
think really foreseen in 1966 so the
question is what happens in the next 50
years where do we go in the next 50
years I think in the area of equality
rights to remain with that very
important core issue in human rights
the new frontier the area that we have
not addressed is equality in economic
and social rights economic and social
status
we have huge inequalities on this planet
even here in this country they appear to
have grown in many ways and very
unfortunately these economic and social
inequalities are also nourishing things
like the populist movements that seem to
be arising in different parts of the
world and that are threatening human
rights and yet they seem to be what what
the victims of these of these violations
turn to as a hope in order to enhance
their desire for equal treatment how
this will come about in the next 50
years I’m not in a position to say we
will have to find creative solutions the
fact is that the wealth has never been
more unequally distributed in the world
Stephen Piketty wrote a great book about
this a few years ago and I’m sure many
of you have read this I think that on
the planet Earth there’s enough wealth
to ensure that every single person on
the planet is fed and housed and
educated and
medical care but so much of it is hidden
away in tax shelters in Panama and we
have to solve that problem and I’m
confident that we will the other area
and this is something that is in a way a
newer right is the right to freedom of
movement
now the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the Covenant of 1966 says
everyone shall have freedom of movement
within their country within the borders
of their country that was a political
concession it’s like the slaveholders
recognizing equality rights because if
you think of the notion of freedom of
movement we should have freedom of
movement throughout the earth without
having to worry about borders for most
of us actually we probably assume we
have it already as as prosperous
European professionals we are in a
position to go up to the airport and fly
anywhere in the world all we need is a
passport and a credit card and we can do
it we assume we have these mobility
rights but there are people watching
this elsewhere in the world and they’re
saying well I don’t have that and that’s
the problem we have to correct we have
gone through this terrible crisis in
Europe that people sometimes called the
refugee crisis with a million people
trying to enter the continent some
countries have been very welcoming some
have been not so nice what is it it’s
people trying to exercise their right to
freedom of movement and another
important right their fundamental right
this is also secured in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights to seek
asylum and to enjoy asylum from
persecution and it’s to our shame as
Europeans that thousands of them have
died in recent years drowned in the
Mediterranean Sea doing nothing more
than trying to exercise their
fundamental rights some think the
solution is to build walls that was an
issue in the recent election campaign in
the United States build a wall that’s
going to advance humanity you know we
had a wall in Europe once not that long
ago just over 50 years ago somebody in
East Germany thought it to be a good
idea to build a wall and that wall came
crumbling down we celebrated the
anniversary again this week that wall
came crumbling down and with it the
people who had built it okay humanity
doesn’t need more walls we need bridges
not walls now some of you are sitting
there thinking oh he’s a utopian and
he’s naive these things will never come
to pass but imagine someone in 1966
talking about near-universal of
abolition of the death penalty equality
for sexual minorities the rights of the
disabled and so on these two seemed
unimaginable if you call me a dreamer
let me cite another dreamer Martin
Luther King who said that the moral arc
of the universe is long but it tends
towards justice I won’t be around in 50
years to see whether my predictions come
true most of you would be pretty old
I dare say you’ll be sitting there
thinking that guy I heard answered 50
years ago did he underestimate things
was he conservative he never imagined
how much things would change the fact is
these ideas freedom equality justice
they don’t explain everything about the
progress of humanity about our ability
to live together but they explain a
great deal and they provide us with a
guide to what our future is going to
look like thank you [Applause]