 Good afternoon everybody. Good afternoon and welcome to the US Institute of Peace. My name is Nancy Lindborg and I'm the president and I'm delighted to welcome all of you here for Georgetown University Institute for the Study of Diplomacy 2017 Raymond Jitt Trainer Award. And I wanna offer a special welcome to the many ambassadors that we have with us here, which I think is a real tribute to our honored guest, ambassadors from Jordan, Oman, Yemen, Somalia and Nepal. It's very much a testament, I think, to the High Commissioner's influence and regard in the diplomatic community. And I'd also like to specially welcome Tom Hiltz, the acting ISD board chair, ambassador George Moose, who's the vice chair of the USIP board, my fellow ISD board members who had joined us here. And I understand we have a number of very distinguished assistant secretaries of state and other human rights champions who are here. So welcome everybody. As many of you know, USIP was founded about 30 years ago by Congress as an independent federal institute dedicated to the proposition that peace is a very practical undertaking, that it is essential for our national and our international security. And most of all that it is possible. And we pursue a vision of a world without violent conflict by working on the ground with local partners, equipping them with the tools and the very practical ways to build peace. And our experience has told us that without human rights at the core, you will not be able to build and create a sustained peace. That there is a direct relationship between the provision of human rights and peace and that people resort to violence when there is no place to redress their grievances. The government is falling short in its responsibility to provide a safe and just environment for its citizens to live. And that the prohibition and the restriction and abuse of human rights is really at the heart of violent conflict. We recently held an event here called Passing the Baton, which we do between shifts and administrations. And we bring together both incoming and outgoing administration officials, national security, diplomatic and development experts. And over the course of the day that we had just prior to the inauguration, people from across the political spectrum all agreed that critical for the challenges facing us ahead globally is the continued commitment to the fundamental structures that have guided our international order over the last 70 years. And at the heart of that is a commitment to human rights, that that's critical for a stable and prosperous global community. So we're very honored to co-host today's event, especially in the company of so many of you who I know have been champions throughout your careers in the pursuit of a world where human rights are available to everybody around the world. And we're delighted to be able to co-host this with ISD at Georgetown. And we pay tribute today to an important champion of human rights. So I'm delighted to be able to add my welcome to Ambassador Zairad Al Hussein, who has been an extraordinary champion and worked throughout his career on these critical issues. So my colleagues will have much more to say. About that, so it is my honor now to introduce our next speaker who will do the proper introduction, Ambassador Barbara Bodine, who is a distinguished professor in the practice of diplomacy and the director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. And when Barbara called to ask if I would serve on the board of ISD, of course, I immediately said yes. And I'm delighted to do so, along with many of you here. And prior to joining the School of Foreign Service, Barbara taught and directed many task force and policy workshops on US diplomacy at Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. She also spent 30 years in the Foreign Service living and working in many of these tough challenging environments where she had a distinguished career and really showed us what courage and action is like on the ground. So please join me in welcoming Ambassador Barbara Bodine. And Nancy, thank you very much for that very kind introduction. And I think I'm matching my suit right now. I am Barbara Bodine. I am the director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. And I am honored and very pleased to be here today. Excellencies, friends, colleagues, SFS students here in force. On behalf of the Institute and on behalf of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, I wanna add my welcome to all of you this afternoon. The annual Trainer Lecture and Award is the most prestigious award given by Georgetown University. And one of the very few, if only, that is given in recognition for excellence in the conduct of diplomacy. We are deeply honored that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zaid Radha Hussein, who I will introduce more formally a little bit later, has agreed to accept this year's award. I wanna extend a very special thanks to you, Nancy, and to the US Institute of Peace, our co-sponsors for this afternoon. We share a common mission and common goal, which is simply nothing more than a better, more peaceful, and a more just world for everyone. Your graciousness in working with us on this event is very much appreciated and to your staff as well. Before I introduce our speaker, it is my pleasure and honor to introduce our host for today's lecture and award, Mr. Frank Hogan. Frank is a former member of the US Marine Corps and the father and the grandfather of Marines. He has served since 1984 as the chairman of the Overseas Service Corporation, which brings familiar brand products, a touch of home, if you like, to service members and their families worldwide. He is very active in a number of charitable organizations, many of them in support of service members and veterans. He is alumnus of the Georgetown Wall School of Foreign Service and he is a very distinguished member of our Board of Advisors. Importantly for today, Frank is also, in many of these activities that he does, he is the chair of the Board of Trustees of the Trainer Endowment, which generously supports this annual lecture series and the award that recognizes excellence in the conduct of diplomacy. So Mr. Hogan, sir. Thank you so much, Ambassador Bodine. Hi, Commissioner Saidbrad Al Hussein, President Lindborg, Dean Hellman, the Honorable Bethsheba Crocker, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, and certainly students of the School of Foreign Service, good afternoon and warm greetings to all. It is a great honor to speak with you today in behalf of the endowment that makes the Trainer Award possible. The Trainer Award and lecture series celebrates excellence in the conduct of diplomacy. It was established by the alumni of the School of Foreign Service as a living memorial to J. Raymond Jitt Trainer. Today's honoree appropriately joins the list of distinguished award recipients who have been so recognized since 1978. Luminaries all in the pursuit of peace and understanding among nations. The trustees of the Trainer Endowment could not be more delighted to recognize you, High Commissioner Saidbrad Al Hussein, for your relentless and courageous advocacy for human rights, which are very much the fabric of a stable and progressive global community. We also salute your wonderful accomplishments in so many fields, especially the field of international justice and look forward as everyone here does to your remarks today with great anticipation. When Jitt entered Georgetown in 1923 as an Iggy Young freshman, we can be sure that he had no inkling that he would remain here for the next 33 years and let alone leave such a remarkable legacy. Jitt administered the School of Foreign Service as secretary in that capacity. He guided the school with a steady hand and he enjoyed the total confidence of the renowned father Edman A. Walsh, the founder of the school. However, what made Jitt so special was his unwavering focus on students. They were the family that he and his wife never had. Though he had opportunities to be dean, Jitt declined them for fear that it would lessen his contact with his students. Ready listener, wise counselor, older friend, surrogate parent perhaps, father confessor as well as born educator, probably all describe Jitt's interactions with his charges who included the final remnants of the returning veterans from World War I, later the financially strapped students of the Depression era, and still later returning veterans from World War II in Korea. Jitt was the go-to person when a student needed some extra assistance, some encouragement perhaps, confidential advice, perhaps alone and maybe even a gentle nudge. When Jitt retired a feature article in the Korea, the student magazine of the day, perhaps captured him best with the headline, his door was always open. He was ever approachable and ever giving of himself. On a personal note, I arrived at Georgetown at the very end of Jitt's tenure, but was privileged to get to know him in his retirement years. I shall be eternally grateful for the invaluable counsel he gave me during the early stages of my career. Jitt meant so much to an entire generation of students that there was a groundswell among the alumni when he died in 1976. And they wanted to memorialize him and perpetuate his legacy. And indeed, what better way to do that than to create an annual award and lecture series for distinction in the conduct of diplomacy? By establishing the trainer endowment, the trustees and School of Foreign Service alumni hope that we have contributed to the spirit and traditions that help make up this great university. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Frank. And I think it's important to note that this is an award in the memory of a school administrator. Often the people who keep schools like the School of Foreign Service and others going, but don't often receive the recognition that this endowment has so rightfully provided to him. It is very much my distinct pleasure and honor at this point to introduce an extraordinary individual. An extraordinary individual that we will honor this afternoon and we will learn from as well. Zaid Radal Hussein, formerly Jordan's ambassador to the United Nations twice, and his country's ambassador to the United States, which is where I first met him, is the Seventh United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the first Arab, the first Muslim and the first Asian to hold that position. A former US president nearly 80 years ago called upon Americans to defend the four freedoms that as he said, everyone in the world ought to enjoy. And those were the freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. Too many decades later, the hard work to ensure that all people can in fact enjoy these most basic freedoms continues. A veteran multilateral diplomat, the High Commissioner came to his current position with extensive experience in global institutions and the hard work of diplomacy in advancing these freedoms worldwide. Zaid Radal Hussein was part of the peacekeeping efforts in Yugoslavia, the worst genocide in Europe since World War II. He took a leadership position in the drafting of the Rome Treaty, specifically negotiating on the elements of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. He subsequently served as the first president of the Assembly of State Parties of the Rome Treaty of the International Criminal Court. At that point, little more than great ideas but still on paper. Over the next three years, he oversaw the election of the first 18 judges, the selection of the first president and of the first prosecutor. In 2005, Mr. Al Hussein, as advisor to the UN Secretary General, issued a comprehensive strategy for the elimination of sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping operations. And during the same period, chaired the Consultative Committee for UNIFIM. As High Commissioner, he has brought the same focus to human rights that he brought to all aspects of what we consider the liberal international order, a focus sharpened by high personal integrity and intellectual rigor. In recognizing the commitment and achievements of the High Commissioner, we also recognize the commitment and achievement of the many international diplomats, officials and workers and the institutions that they represent. The people who work to create and sustain a world order that serves all people, the young and the old, women and men, the vulnerable, not just the powerful. In particular, we recognize the criticality of their work in defense of human rights, most broadly defined as political, social, economic and personal rights, and their work to create a stable and prosperous global community. Please welcome the 2017 Raymond Jittrainer Award Lecturer, High Commissioner, Zeidrad Al Hussein. Dear Barbara, Nancy, Frank, thank you for this very warm welcome. I'm deeply honored and privileged to be the recipient of the Jittrainer Award and humbled to be among so many who I consider so such a fine examples of the craft and the art of diplomacy. And I will take this opportunity to air some of my frustrations as well as some of the hopes that I have. It sort of reminds me, a few months ago, I had the distinct privilege of meeting Pope Francis in the Vatican. And I slumped before him and I said to him, your Holiness, normally people come and complain to me and I have no one to complain to. And today I'm coming to complain to you. And he threw up his hands and he said, who do I have to complain to myself? And I looked at him and I said, it's fairly obvious. Excellencies, friends, good afternoon to all of you. A new era is unfolding before us. We find ourselves in a political earthquake zone. To many of us it appears the international system could become dangerously unstable. Fresh shocks are opening up, unsuspected fault lines. Weight bearing pillars are in danger of collapse. Our humanitarian colleagues are being asked to do the impossible as the number and scale of raging conflicts continue to cause immense suffering and force unprecedented numbers of people to flee their homes. Violent groups of inconceivable brutality are still emerging from the furnace of wars and countries in Southern Africa are struggling with catastrophic drought. It is difficult to overstate the gravity of these and other crises which we currently face. Yet rather than dealing with them, we seem to be turning away and looking inwards. These and other emergencies are accompanied by an intensifying breakdown in the basic consensus embedded in key international and regional institutions, a consensus which for decades maintained, supported and regulated the relations between states and their behavior. That system was always flawed, but for more than 70 years, it had the undeniable advantage of staving off the prospect of World War III. Now we are witnessing a sudden and massive erosion of the commitments underpinning it. A few months ago, I gave a short speech in the Netherlands in which I named a number of political leaders who is discriminatory and alarming rhetoric, seemed based on a vision of a supposedly pure illusory past. Some weeks later, the French presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, responded with an open letter that I think clearly illustrates the differences between our world views. Madame Le Pen's central point is the assertion that within her political positioning, and I quote, there is no resentment against anyone, no desire for nostalgia, but the simple desire democratically expressed serenely and peacefully to protect and amplify our culture and quite simply to continue to exist, end quote. The question is, protect it from what? From whom does her country need protection and how does she propose this protection be accomplished in order for her people to continue to exist? It would appear her intended targets, at least in the letter, are not the terrorists from whom we all need protection, but the international and regional laws, the institutions my colleagues and I promote and represent. She writes that we form, and I quote again, a global hyperclass, a caste which scorns people or scorns peoples and thus human beings, their diversity and specific riches, end quote. There is a curious paradox in this vocal defense of diversity because it is common knowledge that or the immigrant population in France is targeted by Le Pen's National Front Party, which manifests evident intolerance of diverse customs, beliefs and modes of thought. In attempting to understand this apparent contradiction, I cast back to the thinking of the German jurist Carl Schmidt who in the interwar period theorized an ideal world made up of nations of homogenous peoples, sharply demarcated, cleansed of outsiders and deeply bonded with a specific land. Diversity was acceptable between states, but not within them. A sovereign had a duty to identify and eliminate outsiders according to Schmidt's thinking. Madame Le Pen may or may not adhere to this general view of the world, but I do believe it is increasingly widespread today, and it is evident in the growing drive to protectionism, unilateralism, proclamations of national or religious purity and rejection of what some have taken to calling so-called international law. I find it deeply alarming. It is a wanton threat to the balance of human progress achieved over the past 70 years, including the evident and immense benefits brought about by international law. It undermines not only development, but also peace. Today's nationalists seem perhaps deliberately to feed off the threat of terrorism. Terrorist violence is real, and it is also foul, but the nationalists fail to acknowledge that the perpetrators of most recent terrorist attacks are taqfiris who have taken up a militant ideology clearly identified. The vast majority of Muslims are not taqfiris, not in France or here in the United States or anywhere else, nor do they come even close to supporting the taqfiris who have murdered tens of thousands of Muslims and displaced hundreds of thousands of others in the pursuit of their ideology. To thwart the taqfiris would it not be far smarter to tap into the huge number of Muslims who despise them instead of alienating the very group most likely to unmask their operations? Imprecision can be a blunt and terrible instrument. After all, when victims are dishonored by those who exploit their very real suffering for political purpose, is that not imprecision in its most cynical form? Second to absolute power alone, it is fabricated or exaggerated victimhood which corrupts absolutely. Tragically, it also remains very much part of the political seduces art. They then claim, licensed to do whatever is necessary lawfully or otherwise to correct those grievances. An entire community is identified as a source, the enemy, an enemy stripped of individuality, a group which thinks and plots as one. Time and again, humanity has lost its bearings on the back of half truths and lies and the results have been disastrous. And an essential cohesion at the heart of every social fabric once textured and fluid is torn apart and replaced by sharp social divisions. The last speech I delivered in Washington was at the Holocaust Museum in 2015. Our collective historical experience with the lethality of anti-Semitism and producing the colossal crime the Holocaust against the jury of Europe imparts lessons every political leader everywhere should never lose sight of. There are no exact parallels with the modern day, no major political leader is a Nazi, but consider the case of Carl Lueger, the late 19th century mayor of Vienna. Carl Lueger had Jewish friends, and so startling was this fact, a Viennese journalist even asked him about it. I decide who is a Jew was his purported response, that Lueger was one of the most rabid and consequential anti-Semites of the late 19th century was no contradiction to him because his anti-Semitism was most probably never a matter of conviction. Carl Lueger may merely recognized how anti-Semitism framed or fanned in the right circumstances could yield enormous political dividends. Ballots would rain down on whatever political figure most effectively whipped up the winds of hatred. The formula was clear, claimed to represent an anxious group, amplify their grievances and sense of victimhood with slurs and outright lies directed against the community perceived as outsiders on the basis of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin property birth or any other arbitrary status. Persevere until the community is seen as homogenous, somehow collectively perverse in thought and deed. Do it all skillfully and the first lock toward political ascendancy is picked. But at what cost ultimately? And what of the rights of those against whom the persecution is aimed? In Carl Lueger's case, this device inspired shortly before World War I, a young face in the Viennese crowd listening eagerly absorbing Lueger's peddling of hate, a man who in September 1939 plunged the world into an inferno. Today's nationalisms with their hatreds in tow are different, but perhaps not different enough. That millions of people have experienced profound suffering inflicted by this kind of hatred in the past should surely have deterred by now any man or woman from mimicking Lueger's stratagems in however diluted form they may be. That political leaders still do so today in countries where the lessons of two world wars should have been fully absorbed is stupefying. Can we be so reckless, so stupid as to risk the future of humanity simply for the sake of ballots? Are we not being marched back to a Sarajevo? To a Sarajevo of 1914 when the flammable, competitive, bristling of ethnic nationalisms eroded balances of power and any sense of compromise to the point where a relatively obscure event at the margins of European politics triggered global catastrophe. Or maybe to a Sarajevo of the 1990s and the war I was exposed to when I served in the former Yugoslavia. All the grievances and the lies that distorted them. The bitter ethnic nationalisms they reignited and then military aggression, death and destruction revealing above all the thinness of European civilization. And it's easy envelopment or puncture by the most bestial behavior. In Bosnia and Herzegovina we understood if this could happen in Europe in the 1990s it could still given the right stimuli happen anywhere. But those more recent lessons too we seem to be forgetting. A pathogen of divisive populism has infected a portion of the world so swiftly much of our work or much of what we work for now seems threatened. In such circumstances when the deep long-term work of prevention and investment in a common future risk being swept away what can human rights diplomacy possibly hope to achieve? Is this impossibly complex job becoming futile? Emphatically not. Rather than buckling under the load or under that load I am convinced the current state of the world reinforces the importance of the work we do. Our guidance monitoring advocacy and expertise are essential tools for repelling assaults on human rights. They provide a robust framework within which to stand up for those whose rights are threatened or violated. Our work changes not just laws but lives. It protects the most vulnerable and inspires and supports activists struggling in dangerous conditions for the rights of the people to have a voice. To have a voice in their own affairs. These activists are the true forces of stability. We have no choice. There is simply no alternative. We must work if human life and well-being are to be maintained. So much is at stake and we can do it. Consider what was achieved by our predecessors. The giants of the rights movement. They ended slavery, colonialism, segregation, apartheid, and more. The struggle which falls to our generation particularly to the students here therefore is far from helpless or hopeless. We need all of us to defend international law, international refugee law, international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international criminal law for they and the institutions that uphold them are the very distillation and some of human experience. They are not as some would have you believe the outcome of post-war bureaucratic doodling. They were woven together from the screams of millions who died violently or suffered horribly over many centuries and we know very well what will happen should they be dissolved. I work in Geneva in the building that once housed the League of Nations. Every day I'm reminded of what we have to lose. Human progress is never perfect. We make mistakes, we stumble, we forget core truths such as that laid down by the unanimously endorsed Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all human beings being the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. So yes, sometimes we do falter. The political and economic elites in particular. But if we lash out blindly at each other and bring the whole house down crashing around us so expensive will be the price paid by humanity we could place ourselves well beyond recovery. I want ladies and gentlemen to belong to a rights based movement of human beings. One that cares for everyone stands up for everyone and will march whenever and wherever it is needed. And surely what we saw on the 21st of January was the clearest expression of a common human faith. I want to be one of those who speaks up on every occasion, stands up to defend the rights of everyone peacefully and especially those most vulnerable. I want to believe the human impulse toward a greater good will always eclipse those menacing instincts lying deep within all of us that make us vulnerable to suggestion. I want to be part of a movement beyond my affiliations to family, to tribe or nationality beyond my ethnicity, race, religion or gender, my professional affiliation, my sexual orientation or the like. To put it another way, ladies and gentlemen, eclipsing all the other identities I may have. I want to feel human first. Human first. And I want you to feel this too. Please join me and I thank you so much. I think we all have our marching orders. And I'll call the action that, and humanity, that is very deeply moving. And one of the most eloquent speeches I have heard in a very long time. And if I can figure out how to get it on Twitter, I will. If, excuse me, I am, for those who know, for me to be speechless is really quite something. I would like to introduce as former assistant secretary of state for international organizations, Vashiva Crocker. The program does say we have assistant secretary Crocker to moderate the conversation. We just have the other one. The first father daughter team in diplomacy. So assistant secretary Crocker, if you could join us. There will be a brief moderated conversation and then we will open it up to, I'm sure the many questions and comments that you have. So please. Well, I think I too might be rendered a bit speechless. So I will do my best to keep us on that plane, but also maybe bring it down to a bit more down to ground because I probably will not be successful at staying up on that plane. I was reminded when you were speaking about the first time that we met when I was in my office. And it was in your early, it was an early swing through Washington, I think, and you sort of sat down. And it was at the end of a long day, I think we had sort of trailed you all around the State Department to every possible office. And you sat down and you said, I'm beginning to wonder why I've taken this job. And it struck me that you may be wondering that even more these days. But I have to tell you that I think I and many others in this room are so pleased that you have stuck with it. And I think we saw today why we need you still so almost desperately right now in that role. So I think the pressure will continue. And I thought I might bring it a little bit back to sort of your personal background because I think we've talked from time to time and you've noted how occasionally you do face questions about sort of how you came to this role and how your background either makes you very well suited or not suited for the role, right? So I think there are some who sort of take the view what right do you have coming from the background that you have to be talking to us about human rights. And then others who might actually over read your background to think that it's almost sort of like as we like to say around here in Washington, Nixon going to China, right? That you will be able to speak, especially maybe to those in your region, speak truth to power maybe in a different kind of way or with a different kind of effectiveness than somebody else might. And I expect the truth lies somewhere in between those two but I'd be curious if you just wanna speak a little bit to that. Yeah, no, thank you, Shivan. It is a good question. You almost sound like Marine Le Pen because she asked that question. She said. I'm just picking up on your lead. She said, basically she said, who are you to talk about these issues? You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. You weren't democratically elected by people and so to come and lecture to us. And it's a question I frequently have to answer because it's precisely the point that we try to make. You should not base your judgment on others, on what color they are, what gender they are, what ethnicity they are, what nationality they are, but focus really on the balance of their conduct over a lifetime, what they have said and fought for. And on that basis, we can form judgments or we should be able to form judgments. The point you raised about suitability to this position, I think it's worth thinking about how it is and it's a sort of wonderful mystery of life that even though you dedicate your life early on to a particular path, so often it's interrupted by these incidental moments, the person you meet and decide to form a partnership, a lifelong partnership with, is often an incidental collision almost of variables that you can't account for at the time or indeed what sets you on your path into the future. And for me it was the former Yugoslavia and what I together with so many who were there at the time experience. And this has largely shaped the rest of my career from that point on as I was at the honor of representing my country diplomatically and then afterwards at the UN. But it is, if I can just offer one final thought, it is a very difficult job and I called it impossible diplomacy because on the one hand, all of us in our office are exposed to the tremendous suffering of so many people. When I was in the South Kivu is only six to seven months ago and I was sitting with a group of women who had been repeatedly the subjects of sexual and gender-based violence, I mean the most horrific violence. And I was listening to their painful testimonies and one said to me, she said, High Commissioner, do you know what it means to be repeatedly raped? And I looked at her and I said, of course I can't imagine how horrific it is. She said, you know what it's like to leave your home and be leaking? And then you go to the marketplace and you're leaking still and you go to pick up your children from the neighbors and you're leaking still and the whole neighborhood knows, the whole community knows. And you sit there and you listen to this and you think, you know, what can I do? I can make speeches and I can, you know, give interviews. But how can I possibly help an entire community that's subjected to this form of cruel violence continuously? And then we have this feeling that there are victims who are in such desperate need of help and we can't help them more. And then on the other hand, you have governments who think we are far too aggressive, far too critical. We're saying far too much. And we sort of caught in the space and it's not just us but yourself who was leading the I.O., the International Organizations Department and the State Department and many colleagues here who are representing Tom Malinowski, Keith Harper representing the U.S. government on these issues. It's very painful, but it's very inspiring also to see that there's so many human rights defenders who have a courage that few of us can really fathom. I mean, it is phenomenal to sit with a journalist who will tell you that next day they're going to file a story which could land them in jail and they may not see their children for a very long time in their families, their friends and you would think, you know, would I do the same thing? Because they go and do it. They do it. It's terribly inspiring and that's what keeps us moving. So I don't know if I answered your question. You did, of course. And maybe I'll just pick up on another point that you just alluded to which is the role of the U.S. government in all of this. I think we've come off a time, I think it's safe to say under the previous administration where there was a decision taken, as you know, to join the Human Rights Council as the United States and a real effort to engage robustly in the council and in the multilateral human rights system and to play a leadership role. And I think we're now entering a period where, at least as of now, it's safe to say it's a little unknown how the U.S. is going to operate in this space but I think we can anticipate that at the very least our engagement is probably going to be more transactional, right, in the sense that it's going to be about what are we getting out of this engagement or at the very least there's going to be an effort made to be able to talk about that in some sort of specific way. It's very hard to quantify in the space in which you work. And you alluded, both in what you just said in that response to the vast number of rights that are under threat all the time around the world. And I think we experienced very clearly and I think my colleagues would say the same that it was very important for the U.S. to be at the table in the way that we were during the past, you know, since 2009 at the Human Rights Council. And I wonder both if you could talk, if you have a sense of how you might describe, right, for those who will be needing to do this in a more specific way some of the benefits that the U.S. gets out of engaging in the multilateral human rights system and whether that's because of sort of results on the ground when OHCHR is out on the ground operating and doing some of the capacity building and protection work that it does around the world or because of work that comes out of the council itself. But also if you might speak a bit to sort of what will be lost if the U.S. really pulls back on its leadership role. Who fills that space and who picks up the slack, if anybody. Yeah. I mean, it almost goes without saying that if you're exposed to human rights work the U.S. engagement in so many of the country-specific situations we deal with but not just that, some of the critical thematic files is indisputable. The importance of it is indisputable. And I can't tell you the numbers of conversations that one would have to recall with you and many of the colleagues who are here in respect of so many of the extremely difficult and intricate problems we had to try and solve. And the U.S. would always be in the lead with many other countries from the region or from beyond in trying to sort out this puzzle, this riddle that we had to deal with and one can look at the number of countries from Sri Lanka the DRC, Burundi and so forth and I mentioned Ambassador Keith Harper and he's here and he was my interlocutor in Geneva. It would be, I think, a gaping home if the U.S. were to disengage from the human rights machinery. We heard very clearly from President Xi Jinping in Geneva that the Chinese government is willing to step up and take a leadership role at the U.N., clearly on peace and security and on the development file. But then what of the human rights pillar at the U.N.? How would China engage with this? It has been a difficult relationship between us and the Chinese government. I don't see it going away. The Russian government also takes a very sort of caustic view when it comes to some of these human rights issues and Europe could well be embroiled in its own the own separate crises when it comes to some of these issues of whether the European Union remains as one or is slowly dissolved. I mean maybe not so slowly. And so one hopes that the administration would take a very careful look at this and realize that human rights are not some tangential boutique sort of issue on the side, like some garnish on a plate, but are absolutely fundamental to the maintenance of peace and security and some sort of world order. I was asked today, could you give an example of that? It's so obvious, you know, one doesn't really need to say anything, but I said Dar'a 2011 if those young children who scrolled on a blackboard had not been tortured by the security service in Syria, then maybe it wouldn't have set in chain the sort of actions that we saw. It doesn't need any further elucidation than that. And if you can't understand that, then clearly you don't understand what international relations are all about. The security architecture we have in place and the rights-based architecture that is all on the threat now. Everything we have put into place after the Second World War is on the threat. It's as serious as that and we feel it. We feel it and we need the young people in this audience to join us, to understand what is at stake here and to help us maintain some sort of barrier or barrier between the insanity of what we see happening now and the other really frightening prospects that await us if we don't have a course correction. Your job really I think is one of impossible diplomacy and you manage to hold a very difficult perch in the UN system and to do it while maintaining an integrity and a credibility and a reputation that I think from where I just most recently said I can say is really unmatched and it's probably harder for you even now and you alluded to that with the direct comments about the Marine Le Pen letter in your remarks and I think some others other comments maybe a little bit more veiled that you made but I wonder what you feel now about sort of how you will tackle the United States right? There's one question how we engage in the multilateral human rights system. I'm going to try not to get you in trouble and because we really do desperately need you so it's one question sort of how we engage in the system and whether we continue to play the robust role but then I think you and the new secretary general and others in the system are also going to face this very delicate balance of having to stand on principle and stand up for the values and the system that you clearly so deeply believe in but also recognizing the outsize role that the United States plays as an actor in the multilateral system you know whether we're fully engaged in the human rights council in Geneva or not right just in terms of the amount of the budget that we pay and whatever so I expect that you all are doing a bit of soul searching about that and I wonder again without making you cross any lines that would be uncomfortable if you want to talk a little bit about how you're thinking about trying to navigate that space now and it won't just be the United States right there are other countries that traditionally may have been more sort of like-minded and onside with the views that you've espoused today and you may find yourself in a different kind of relationship with them now I don't perceive any real change in the way that we have approached these issues in the past I mean I spoke of the US being indispensable to the work that we do on the human rights side but that does not mean to say that the US has been spared by my office any criticism when it came to the excessive use of force by the Ferguson police force for instance the discrimination that many young African-Americans feel in the country the way that the prison or penitentiary system has run Guantanamo we've raised time and again with the administration that you represented we raised the issue the issue of torture that at the time when the report the Feinstein report was released and we've explained or expressed our misgivings over some of the policies previously when it came to Israel, Palestine or it came to Yemen and so forth so the US hasn't been given a free ride by us but what I deeply appreciated is that the US under the previous administration would engage with us on all these issues, would talk to us, would explain to us, wouldn't bridle and bristle and deny and reject which is what we see happen with many many other countries and we felt this is the mature way in which the United States need to deal with us the point I always try to make is we are far from perfect too we are an organization that makes some horrendous mistakes violations which are horrendous for which we need to apologize and take corrective action and so we have to be careful not to be too sanctimonious and so this is a dialogue between an organization and its member states where I think it's going to be different is whether this new administration is willing to accept criticism from an international organization or from my office and that's the change here which we will await the outcome of and so if I'm dragged off to the local sort of police station after this discussion we'll know what the feeling may be I have to tell you I was pulled over on my way over here for rolling through a stop sign so I was a little bit afraid that I was going to be late but I was treated very nice by the neighborhood police so I mean I think I was going to ask you a question about sort of how fundamentally you are worried about the threat to the liberal world order that we are facing but I think you've covered that both in your remarks and what you've said here so I might just pivot to one more question and then I think we're going to have a long line of folks who want to ask you questions from the floor here so we'll turn to that I know that the next session of the Human Rights Council was about to open up and as usual it's a very heavy agenda for the March session and you haven't talked too much about specific situations that are sort of on your mind and I'm sure there are many but I wonder if you want to just touch on a few that are sort of top of mind as you go into this next session that you feel are either particularly important for the member states to get right or where you're worried about where the membership might get in terms of its treatment of those issues and or separate and apart from the upcoming session just sort of what's top of mind for you right now in terms of specific situations you're watching. It's easy to actually go through these points I mean we are concerned obviously by the threat of violent extremism around the world we're concerned by the overreactions on the part of many governments to the threat and therefore we're concerned about the pressures that civil society are experiencing around the world on the back of these so called counter-terrorist policies we're extremely concerned about of course the demagogues populace, deceivers however you want to call some of them we're concerned that we have failed to as I mentioned that we will recognize this to access or to to understand properly the grievances of those who are really hurting post and most especially post the banking crisis of 2008 but most of all I would say we're concerned about the continuation of these conflicts that just are the most brutal expression of human conduct and the pressures that are exerted on regions and institutions beyond and then the access that we are denied when we make a request to visit Northern Rakhine and that request is denied when we make a request to visit the Oromo or the Oromia region and Amhara region in Ethiopia and that's denied we make a request to visit parts of Mozambique and that's denied we make a request to visit Venezuela and that's denied and we can go on and on and the point that we make so frequently is what exactly are you hiding from us if you claim that there is no there are no violations of human rights then why don't you let us in and we can attest to it or we can say no there are violations in Jammu, Kashmir, neither Pakistan nor India are giving us unconditional access there or Azerbaijan and Armenia are giving us unconditional access to Nagorno-Karabakh and we can go on and on about this these are the sort of issues that preoccupy us most but there again to inject this sense of hope you know we know that there is a huge market out there for human rights when I speak to those in the traditional media they say to me most young people are really turned off by politics possibly now more so than ever before but not so when it comes to rights and rights amazing have this amazing quality you take them for granted until they're stripped from you and then it's too late it's almost like oxygen you need it if someone puts their hands around your throat and that's what rights are like and that's I think what concerns young people and they should be concerned but at the same time with this energy they can inject into the rights discussions we have hope and we have hope for the future I think let's open it up now to questions from the floor are you going to give us the I know we've got lots of questions I also have some there as an overflow room by the way and so I've been handed notes we'll talk about your handwriting a little bit later I will try to use some of the questions that I can actually read but why don't we take a couple of questions from the audience and then we'll go to some from the overflow so if anyone has questions I would ask that it also be in the form of a question and that you be sensitive to the fact that there are many people who will want to ask questions so briefly and a question would be appreciated so gentlemen wait turn around there you go good evening everyone my name is Titus Oyayemi I'm in Nigeria I think I was able to attend a US IP program last in 2014 for different reasons I couldn't come because I'm busy in Nigeria now in the 1919 there was this magazine a journal called the continent I was I happened to be reviewing some of the pages and I come across a statement which says that except people begin to have social minds as opposed to personal minds they will never be able to handle diversity and I could hear from Honorable Said also talking about diversity so I know diversity is not discrete can you bring it to a question please but the question is how do we challenge the issue of diversity can we challenge it as a system or as a process is the problem we are having with diversity is it coming from the fact that it is evolving or emerging or it is an insurgence okay let's give the high commissioner a chance to answer your question so is it a matter of that is evolving or a matter that is emerging or that is an insurgence okay I think we have the question I am not sure we have the answer it is subjecting me to a difficult question at the end of the day you know we can go into a great deal of theorizing about this but you often see just these little pearls of wisdom drip from a speech which so clearly encapsulates what we are talking about now and the king of Norway about 6-7 months ago issued a speech which talked about what Norway is all about it sort of evoked a similar sort of commentary from Pierre Trudeau when he was prime minister of Canada and I think it is a question of process it is a question of love really and open minds and what you see happening throughout the world is that people who are not politicians many of them are reacting in the right way when it comes to issues of diversity others who are fearful for reasons unconnected almost to the immigration issue take a very hard line because they feel their condition is going to change it is not directed in the sense that there is any meaningful impact but the perception that there will be impact is what is deeply worrisome to them I often recall a discussion I had with a German gentleman in Bayreuth many years ago around the time of the festival and we were talking about the Turkish community in Germany and he said to me you know they simply cannot win if they don't speak German well enough we resent them if they speak German too well we resent them and as has been said recently if they are out of work then they are living on the welfare state at the expense of others and if they have jobs then they are taking jobs from others who are more ethnically pure and basically what it is that if you have a train of bigotry running through your mind it doesn't matter how many immigrants are living in your community one will be enough for you to push back and if you don't and you have a more accepting view than the world we live in can be of course a more meaningful place there is also a need on the other side the immigrant communities to be sensitive of the local cultures of countries and what is hoped for and expected by them and that is also the work of government to ensure that that takes place that actually segues into one of the questions from the overflow so I'm going to go ahead with that and that has to do with the question of which states have the moral obligation or should have the sense of moral obligation to take in refugees in many cases there is the sense that it is the neighbor's problem but as a Jordanian you know that there is a limit to how much any neighbor state can take others would say that if you if you cause the crisis if you cause the refugee problem then you have an obligation to take in the refugees this is a problem both for neighboring states and for broader states so how does refugees how does that fit into basic human rights the right to move the right to to structure your community yeah one of my colleagues at the UN was trying to describe the mixed flows of migrants and refugees mainly from Asia and Africa to Europe when we describe these mixed flows we should refer to desperation migration the fact that so many families are willing to place their children at risk to cross over from Libya to Europe knowing that the chances of death are quite high and they still do it it's quite amazing and yet when we think about it the overall numbers going to Europe are still not that high when we looked at a report issued by the Special Rapporteur the UN Special Rapporteur of Francois Cappoll who is the Rapporteur of the human rights and migrants or human rights of migrants he said that the rate at which migration is increasing is quite interesting because the intra-Asian migration will soon be larger than anything moving from Europe moving from Asia or Africa to Europe I think part of the problem is and this is something which was also seen in Avion in July 1938 when the Avion conference took place is that you work yourself up into almost a psychosis looking at hypotheticals and here we have to be careful I mean if one of us were to go to a physician and say and there are many physicians I guess here and you say please tell me and I'm this age what are all the sort of chronic conditions that I can develop the infectious illnesses the different ailments between where I am now and 75 years old they can give you such a long list the first thing you need is strong medication to sort of cope with it because you would be in such a state and so we have to be careful about not driving ourselves into some sort of psychosis this is what the demagogues do so successfully if they have a highly anxious individual come to see them and all of us have been there I've been there and instead of calming them down and finding a way out for them they whip them up into an ever more extreme state of fright it's not simply a case where they are then transmitting the views but they're actively creating this and I think this is what we worry about these problems are we can't solve them we can't solve them in a mood of hysteria the threats of terrorism are real governments have to protect their peoples but they have to do it intelligently they have to do it properly you know for every person detained there's no extra screening in Kennedy or Dallas or any of the airports who is manifestly not a terrorist and I don't think the prime minister of Norway the ex-prime minister would have been one then every dollar spent on that officer who's screening for the time devoted to that or the time lost because the screening is taking place for three or four hours is a dollar the time given to the terrorist movements are just only too happy to see resources devoted to this sort of thing it has to be done smartly and intelligently let's see if I can get some students there's a number of Nathaniel thank you so much I'm a Georgetown student and it's an honor to be able to come here and hear you speak and also to be able to ask you a question so as a student we've been examining concepts like the responsibility to protect the role of the international community and the role of powerful states to intervene to help protect human life and to protect human rights in many situations and I'd like to ask you what do you think is the future of the concept of responsibility to protect and more generally the role of the international community and international organizations and the UN more broadly when we have states who are denying access to the UN or human rights organizations when we have traditionally active or powerful states shirking these responsibilities or failing to act in many situations and when we have bizarre situations where the UN itself has actually possibly participated in things like population swabs and forced displacement or fulfillment in many situations to in a bizarre sense protect human rights when in any other situations in and of themselves we consider crimes because the local states are kind of pressuring them and saying we're going to do this anyway we do want to do it in a way that we can minimize the image thank you that's a great question Nathaniel sitting right in the middle of that so I knew you were going to ask just position yourself look there's an official response and there's an unofficial response official response is my office is very much a supporter of the responsibility to protect doctrine and it is the right thing to do when we perceive a deterioration of the human rights condition in a country and we feel that the human rights indicators are the most sensitive barometer and then if we see certain things happening like we saw in Burundi for instance when they sent out a survey and they were asking civil servants I wanted to ask civil servants who was a who to and who was a tootsie I mean clearly the warning bells immediately began to strike the unofficial response and I see cameras here so I shouldn't be my own personal view I don't know what I should say this my own personal view is that I was never comfortable with a rhetoric you know pushing the normative boundary I'd much rather see practice you know push it forward I was always concerned that if we were making promises and then couldn't deliver on them that it would just excite the bitterness of victims who expected you know a rescue that never materialized and so I was always wary about pushing the declaratory part well ahead of what it is in the states we're willing to do and I still to some extent have that view thank you in the blue right back there the young woman in blue you had to get some gender balance in here hi I'm Elizabeth Bowen I'm a junior in the School of Foreign Service thank you so much for taking the time to speak this morning I was hoping you could talk a little bit about a little about a serious topic, about this genocide there's a lot of legal debate over whether or not there should be a clear framework allowing for countries to go into a case of genocide so I was wondering what do you think of a potentially legal framework for this and do you think that if there was a legal framework in place that it could be something that would just be taken by a larger and a larger nation there is the genocide convention and and it requires states to take action should a genocide be unfolding and identified as so and it's part of superior law and so there is already a framework in place to address these issues and sometimes it's difficult to make clear determinations when we received the input of the investigative team that went into Bangladesh along the border, the Cox Bazaar area alongside Myanmar and they reported back to us that the most horrific crimes had been committed I mean this report really shook us and the testimonies really were astonishing there seemed to us to be very probable cause for crimes against humanity for genocide you have to establish a higher threshold but that is not beyond the realm of possibility either but it takes deeper investigative work to arrive at that conclusion but it does require for neighboring states to take action as clearly it states parties to the genocide convention and so it's just many adhering to your legal obligations to do so when the situation arises thank you okay I'll take one more question and Mark go ahead and then this is the last question I know we could all stay here for many hours asking you questions but that would probably be a violation Mr. High Commissioner thank you for elegant and powerful remarks Mark Lagan with the School of Foreign Service among those that you've been asked what do you make of in the General Assembly in the last elections for the members of the UN Human Rights Council Russia losing the wake of its actions of bombing in Aleppo it's the first time that Russia as a P5 member has been denied a bid to the main human rights body that it sought what does that tell you does that give you any hope for the Council and the will of the Member States it's an excellent question I mean I think to be honest we were caught by surprise because you very much become used to the fact that the permanent members are voted regularly on and I don't really I wasn't in New York and I don't understand the dynamics exactly of what happened there I see the distinguished Ambassador of Jordan sitting in front of me I'm almost going to ask her to explain so I suspect that there was something like that happening and I see the former Assistant Secretary Nisha Biswold at the back there who we worked with I think it's Nisha Biswold in my glasses but I suspect that you're right there must have been some sort of connection between what was being reported out of Syria and the decision by the representation in the General Assembly to not give Russia all the votes needed to join the Council can I have a question you may, yes I've been sitting here for an hour and I haven't received any awards so where is it this is a bum deal with no you will get your just reward over dinner so we wanted to maximize the amount of time for your lecture, your remarks, and the questions so you will get your little chotch cake you're going to get something all of this I promise but you have certainly given us a tremendous gift your remarks your lecture, your call to action is something that I am quite sure is going to stay with everybody for a very long time the candor with which you have answered all of the questions and I know there's many more the wonderful use of historical context to put this in some sort of frame so that we and particularly students who have a much shorter time frame than the rest of us I think has really made what our human rights and how have we been dealing with them for decades and again your candor in talking about the threats to the international order and the rule of law that we have worked so hard so this has been a tremendous gift that you have given to everybody here, the people in the overflow room and those who will have the benefit of watching this online so thank you for your gift to us and yes, don't worry thank you and for the students the buses are outside and for everyone else, we have