Dear friend,

“Human rights are the only meaningful rampart against barbarity.”

With these words, the new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, called for a renewed focus on protecting human rights during a speech he gave last week at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Essentially, if I may boil down a massive topic into one sentence, states must be willing to protect the human rights of their people, and people must be able to hold the state responsible.”

Watch a short video about the High Commissioner’s visit to the Museum.

Zeid delivered the speech at the Museum during his first official visit to the United States as High Commissioner—a role he assumed in September 2014—and at a time of expanding violence and extremism. He urged the international community not to give in to the “dark allure of hatred” but rather to “strengthen our ethics, our clarity and openness of thought, and our moral courage.”

The High Commissioner’s emphasis on education, on early warning to prevent crises from escalating, and on learning from the past to improve the future aligns with many aspects of our work at the Center for the Prevention of Genocide.

We were honored to host him for this major policy address, which serves as a call to action—when the world desperately needs to hear it—to prevent genocide and promote human dignity.

Sincerely,

Cameron Hudson
Director, Center for the Prevention of Genocide