 Ladies and gentlemen, a good day to all of you, all the friends who are watching this particular webcast. I am Z. R. Al-Hussain, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, now almost the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. And I'll be moderating a discussion for the next hour, possibly an hour and a half, with two very distinguished colleagues, the current president of the International Court of Justice, Abdul Qawee Ahmed Yousaf, and Hina Jelani, a former special representative of the Secretary General, an advocate before the Supreme Court in Pakistan, and a champion, a worldwide recognized champion of the universal human rights agenda. And I welcome both of them to this discussion. Since it is the first time I'm actually moderating a discussion and not moderated by someone else, I see this as a dry run to a future career. I hope they will bear with me as I work through the scene setting and then the discussion to ensue. So a welcome, a warm welcome to both of you. Could I begin, first of all, by commenting on the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as we mark, in December, its 70th anniversary, a document which essentially set the stage for the codification of human rights law in the way that we know it, and an inspiration to millions and upon millions of people around the world still, the most translated document in the history of the world, written in, with simplicity and accessibility that has made it enduring, not just as a legal text, but as a work of literature in itself. The scene setting I'd like to pose before you begins with a comment that President Trump made after departing the G7 meeting, where he said the U.S. would not be bound in the final communique to anything or any comment referring to a rules-based system. And all of us, the three of us, are working in that very context. When we look at everything else that's happening across the globe, the attacks on international humanitarian law, on the protected persons, protected installations under international humanitarian law on a regular basis, whether we speak about Syria, about Yemen, or Afghanistan. When we look at the return of authoritarianism, indeed, we can see oppression making a comeback in many countries, these pressures on civil society organizations, civil society space. And we juxtapose that against machinery, legal machinery, which is working. The ICJ, the docket of the ICJ, is often filled with submissions. We have the mechanisms here in Geneva that deal with human rights, the committees that interpret the various treaties, the human rights treaties, centered here in the building that I'm in at the moment. And then the mechanisms, such as the working group on arbitrary detention, are constantly being approached by those who are seeking a settlement to the problems relating to individual rights. And ultimately, ultimately, the pressures on the rules-based system, if it were to succeed, the effect would be to reduce the scope for the individual to exercise her or his rights in their country. Ultimately, they're the ones that are going to pay the price for a collapsed system if we see that happening. So the question is this, do we have enough faith in the resilience of what we've created over the last 70 years to believe that we can withstand these sorts of pressures, whether they are from authoritarian leaderships, whether they are from extremist and violent extremists around the world, or whether they are from indeed, sometimes you feel the academic community is very cynical about the sort of work that we do. And are we resilient enough to withstand these pressures? And if not, what do you think we would need to begin to think about? And perhaps the second part of the interview will focus more on that. But if I can start with both of you. Maybe if I could start with President Yusuf first, and then I will go to Hina. But Abdul Khabib, please. Thank you, Zahid. I don't want to comment on specific political declarations or statements by government officials or by head of state. But with respect to the rule-based system and the rule of law at the international level, we have to recognize that it is fragility. It's not something that's new, that we don't have and we have never had a rule of law, a solid, I should say, rule of law at the international level. We have been engaged in building up and in consolidating a rule of law at the international level for the past 50 years. And I think that it all started with the charter of the United Nations and with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and with the establishment of international courts as the potential kind of judiciary of a rule-based system or other dispute settlement mechanisms. But you can't have a rule of law unless you have courts or dispute settlement mechanisms which can be triggered immediately after the violation of those rules. And you know that international dispute settlement mechanisms are based on consent of the state. We don't have a compulsory jurisdiction as the international court of justice. We have what we call optional jurisdiction and therefore state is to make declarations accepting the jurisdiction of the court or they have to accept to come before the court through a compromising clause in a multilateral or a bilateral convention. So the system is not yet a system which can be compared to the rule of law or the rule-based system that we can have at the domestic level. It has always been a system which was under construction. And of course, when the system is under construction, it is much more fragile than a solid system. And one of the missions of our court has actually been to contribute to this construction in more than one way, particularly to clarify and interpret the rules underlying the system, to develop those rules, to make sure that there is a common understanding of the principles, the rationale underlying those rules, the values on which those rules are based. So I think it is through this work of clarification, interpretation and development of the law that we have contributed mostly to the building of a rule-based system at the international level, but much remains to be done. And I think that the work has to continue. We are having now, for the first time in the history of the court, an extremely heavy workload. And for us, actually this signal is an increased trust in the judicial settlement of disputes, not a lack of confidence. You know, when I first came here as a student in the 1970s to study international law in the Hague, the court had only one case before it. For the past nine years, since I was elected to the court, the court's pending cases have constantly been between 15, 17, 19 cases. And although we try our best to deal with all these cases as quickly as possible, they keep building up again. And I think that actually signals an interest on the part of the state to try to settle their disputes through judicial means of dispute settlement, something which did not exist before in the past. No, I completely agree with you, Abdel Khaoui, but I'm going to stretch you a little bit after first hearing from Hina and come back to the points that you raised. I don't disagree with what you're saying, because what you're saying is a matter of fact, but I think in trying to anticipate, and here you might be uncomfortable, so as, of course, the president of the ICJ, the senior judicial body of the UN, you may not feel comfortable, so you tell me, and I will deal with the question myself. But if I can go to Hina and say to you, from where you have worked in Pakistan, but globally, do you sense that this resilience is able to cope with the pressures that we're seeing and potentially the pressures to come? Thank you, High Commissioner, and good day to you, Mr. President. I feel extremely honored to be sharing this conversation with both you and the High Commissioner. Mr. High Commissioner, you said in the beginning whether we do have faith in this rule-based system, and would that faith help us to be resilient enough to overcome the current challenges? Let me say very categorically that on the side of a human rights defender and a lawyer, I do have faith in this, and my faith in this system is because I know that while we were complying with that system, things were moving well. It is only when we have started deviating that the problems are arising and the field is becoming more and more murky now. This is making it difficult for lawyers on the one hand to be able to assert the respect for human rights, the respect for international humanitarian law in the way that we used to be able to do without any fear that the very norms are going to be challenged or that the very norms, the violation of these norms, is going to be justified. Even if it's not just those who are the perpetrators of policies or actions that violate the norms, it is also now become very difficult to persuade the arbiters or the courts of justice, especially at the national level, to maintain that respect for the rule-based system. The result is that we are unable now to put our faith in the system of acts to justice. So while we do believe that these norms and the rule-based system has always helped us make our case of violations before the courts of justice previously without having to justify or to in any way defend the rules. The rules were always there. Now we are in a position where we first have to defend the rules, rather than use these rules to measure the act or conduct of states. This is I think the point I was trying to drive at. There's this wonderful tale about how Albert Einstein used to take it upon himself when driving with a friend through a countryside to always test his own powers of perception and that of his friend by trying to guess what's on the other side of a hill as they were approaching it and trying to anticipate whether there would be a lake, whether there'd be a ford, a valley, whether there'd be trees or not. And I think in part what we're looking at now is we see a resurgence of a chauvinistic nationalism that is the very antithesis of what universal norms are, what multilateral system is. And so we have this oddity which I think Mr. President, you set out magnificently that you have the machinery is working. So the various working groups here in New York and Geneva are working. The treaty bodies, the committees that are interpreting the human rights treaties are operating. General comments are being issued, concluding observations issued. That is working. But when we look at the threats, I think Hina does seem to have a point that we are now making the defense for universal rights which we thought or we thought that this is a discussion already won. And it was one years ago and now we're going back to it. But we also see pressure on international refugee law, not just international humanitarian law and international human rights law. And as we noticed yesterday, there is a lot of attention on the World Trade Organization and the question mark as to whether it can survive pressures on it. And there's now a connection being drawn between trade and security. So all of this puts, from my perspective, our system in jeopardy. And I think, Mr. President, you're right in saying that we have labored painstakingly to construct it. It reminds me of my daughter when she was three or four years old. She'd spend hours building a tower that then she'd take great pleasure in kicking down, and that would take a second. But it would take an hour to build the tower. And if I could use that sort of as a simple parallel to what it is that we're potentially seeing, that the fragility that you speak in the building process is still very much there. And we need to think differently, I would submit perhaps, as to how it is that we make the case for a world where we combine our efforts, that we have to be team human being, not firsters in a particular chauvinistic, nationalistic context, and deciding matters of policy in a way that puts vulnerable people at risk. And there are many vulnerable people out there. Is that a reading that is misguided on my part? Mr. President, if I come back to you, I'm fine. Thank you very much. Just let me say that, of course, we come from different perspectives, because most of your references are to daily occurrences and daily political developments which take place on the world stage. Whereas here at the court, we deal with long-term issues. And therefore, I look at things in a kind of a historical long-term, from a historical long-term perspective. And you know, I mean, we have taken into account the fact that the multilateral system as a functioning system, whether it is in the human rights field, whether it is in the field of peace and security, is something recent in human history. And that's why I said we are in a building process. And therefore, we are not yet done with that building. And with that process of construction, I think there will be always advances as there may be regressions. And we have to do our best to fight the regressions. And we have to try to consolidate the advances. But we should not always feel threatened when there is a slight departure from the system. This is something that is bound to happen. And I think that since the system is new in human history, 100 years ago, when the Hague Convention and conferences on peaceful settlement of disputes were convened here in the Hague and the Peace Palace was actually constructed, the status were unwitting to submit themselves to judicial settlement of disputes. The matter was discussed at length. And there was absolutely no state participating in that discussion that was willing to have an independent judicial mechanism resolve disputes between it and other states. This is 100 years, it's not really a long time in human history. But of course, in the last 50 to 70 years, since the United Nations system has been put into place, and since the Universal Declaration was issued by the UN General Assembly, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, we have taken gigantic steps as far as human progress. And the consolidation of multilateral cooperation is concerning. And therefore, we have to safeguard that system because why should we safeguard that system? Because we have seen, first of all, that it is through that system that people who were subject to repression, to oppression, to colonialism, acquire their independence and acquire their freedom. It is through the right of self-determination of bibles that the colonization has taken place. And it is only, this was only possible through the multilateral system. It would not have been possible before that system. Second, we have seen that in the last 50 years, because of the prevailing atmosphere of peace, which has been insured by this multilateral framework of cooperation, prosperity has actually been experienced by a wider part of the world and has been expanding to various regions of the world, where poverty reigned in the past. So I believe that we can be proud of the fruits of the system, of the achievements of the system, and we can agree that the system needs to be safeguarded and to be consolidated further, not to be undermined. If I can dwell on this point, many years ago when I was a young man back in the 14th century, I had to do my military service. And I took a parachuting course. I had to jump five jumps from a plane. And the interesting thing is that every jump, I became more anxious. I was more aware of all the perils that awaited me as I jumped out of the plane. Is it not also the case that as we have achieved so much, and you rightfully point to the construction of this architecture, and that enabled social movements in many countries to find an anchor point and to raise issues with the governments, the duty bearers, and push the agenda in a progressive manner against no doubt headwinds that would have existed at every step of the way? Isn't it also the case, therefore, that we have more to lose and therefore we have more to be anxious about because we have achieved a great deal. And to see any regression now would be so painful, perhaps even more painful than never having realized it in the first place. Would you not agree that that is something that has to be also worn in mind? Yes, certainly. I think we have come a long way and we need to, on the first hand, make sure that we preserve what we have and maintain that system. But also I think we have to develop further. I think this is an evolutionary process and we do, from time to time, reconsider what we have already gotten, where we have to then add to what we have in order to ensure that there is sufficient protection in the system for both the individual as well as recognition of collective rights. Like the President has very correctly said that the most important and visible part of international law that recognizes collective rights is the right to self-determination. So we have to make sure that all these things are open. They are not written in stone and that we can mold these to the evolving society and the current needs that we have. But I would just like to take up the point that the President made with regard to the multilateral system, which is a functioning system. I acknowledge that it is a functioning system. But at the same time, my reading of what is a functioning system goes beyond what the courts, for instance, are doing. This system is dependent very much, not just on the legal side of it, but also on the political side of it. Because once a court has, for instance, given a decision, what kind of mechanisms do we have to ensure that these decisions are enforced in a manner in which governments and their conducts can be corrected and any action that has given rise to concern and the courts have adjudicated that adjudication will be respected. And this is where we see what the problem is. And my concern at the moment and a great worry for me is that this commitment to the multilateral system is waning. And we don't recognize this. And through our skepticism of the multilateral system, forget that this is the minimum that we do need. Of course, these systems are not perfect. But at the same time, if you didn't have these systems, a lot of what has happened in the past and where prevention of violations has occurred has been because of what the contributions of this system has been. If we are able to improve them, of course, there is always this room for improvement and this commitment towards improvement that the system itself has in it. But at the same time, I think it's very important that these thoughts are kept in mind. Systems function only when there is the other side that is taken care of as well, because access to justice doesn't mean that people can go just to courts and get a good judgment, a fair judgment, but also that that fair judgment brings them the remedy that they originally expected when they went to court. If the remedy does not come, that will be a difficult thing because I have grown up in a tradition of law where from the very beginning as law students, we were taught that where there is a right, there is a remedy. We recognize the rights very well. Our populations recognize the rights very well. And I think that's a very positive development also when the people recognize that they have the right. And this is something that the civil society has contributed to a great deal. But at the same time, the remedy many times is not available because of the failings of the judicial system at the international or national levels, but because the control over actions of the state become very difficult. And the enforcement of judicial decisions, especially at the international level you will see, there have been many judgments which have acknowledged rights, but at the end of it, the remedy for the victims does not come because these judgments are ignored. These declaration of justice and fairness by courts are ignored. So these are some of the things I think that in the current challenges are important for us to consider well and see where we can take action at the international level and devise means to overcome the problems that we are facing now where people are doing their own way and unilateralism seems to have become the buzzword right now. And we are the ones, you know, there's this nationalistic thing, we are the ones who are going to decide what is good for us. People have become very immune to the notion that the rule of law and rule based systems only, you know, prosper when there is a complete recognition of the universality of these rules. And I also think it's important for me that people who are, you know, administering justice must know that while they should never be influenced by the political environment, they must have a good understanding of it. It's not that you can keep aloof from it because justice will be done in the context of the political environment that we face either globally or in our national context. So these are the things that I think are important. Well, I think you've touched on an important other point and that is that is the multilateral system simply symptomatic and a mere reflection of what we see out there. In other words, if the global condition is a poor one, the multilateral system suffers. Or should we look at it as aspirational, that there is law that has to be interpreted, that has to be safeguarded, and then the multilateral system has to provide leadership. In other words, we have to go back to those who constructed this architecture and said, remind them why they did this in the first place. It was born out of enormous suffering and violence, and it was the distillation of human experience as codified in law, which brought us to this point. And of course, Mr. President, you mentioned the Hague regulations and the devastating Franco-Prussian War that preceded a short war, but very violent war in the heart of Europe. And this is what I think in one way worries at least us in the human rights community, that memory is being lost and being superseded by sort of nationalistic passions which drive a first agenda. In other words, we will carve out of the international system what's good for us, but we're not really interested in the common good or the common effort. For us, it's more important that we win elections, that we have a constituency that we support, and if there are a majority population, then ethnic population, then we will triumph at the expense of those rights of the more vulnerable groups. Ultimately, taking this back to the Universal Declaration, it is still the individual who will pay the price for the folly of humankind. And I'm reminded of an author who wrote this wonderful lyrical passage about the First World War in which he had direct experience, and he referred to the invincibility of man's stupidity. That tries, we might, to construct an ordered society built on the suffering and the violations attended to others. We will constantly be met by those who will plunge us into the worst recesses and impulses available to humankind. And in this constant struggle, doesn't Hina have a point that we need to be aspirational, that if we're seen as just a mechanism inert bureaucratic dispensing with either judicial decisions or advisory opinions or in our case decisions by the treaty bodies, by the working groups, which have a quasi-judicial quality to them, that we will never quite meet the expectations of those who really need us most, those who will suffer the greatest if we fail or who are suffering at the moment because we're not doing better? No, definitely we need to be aspirational, and I think that we need to improve the system and we need to think about how best to improve the system, how best to move it forward also and to ensure that the prosperity, the well-being that has resulted from peace, from the recognition of human rights, from the colonization, from the recognition of collective rights of people, the right to self-determination, that all these gains are preserved and that they are taken forward because they are gains for humanity as a whole, and therefore we have to safeguard them, we have to preserve them, but we also need to ask ourselves, as far as the multilateral system is concerned, whether there has not been a failure to review the system, to restart the system, to reform the system, to re-equip the system in a way, to make it, to adapt it to the evolution of the world, to the evolution of humanity, to the manner in which things are done, to the evolution of technology as well, and to the globalization which Perhapis has taken the multilateral system by surprise to a certain extent, because I don't think that all the effects of globalization were foreseen because first of all the main criticism of globalization came from the developing world, because the developing world felt marginalized by globalization, the people in the developing world felt that globalization meant that the rich people would get richer, but now we see that it is the people in the developed world who are actually complaining of globalization, so the multilateral system has not perhaps been able to reform itself, to review its mechanisms and to try to keep up with developments in the world, and this is where we need actually to improve things, because the mechanisms that were put into place are not mechanisms that are good for all times, they are not mechanisms that suit and are adapted to everything, they are mechanisms that need to be revised, need to be reviewed, that need to be improved, and therefore I think Perhapis, this is one area in which one needs to look into. Okay, so you've brought us to a very crucial juncture, because I think we need to also develop, as you're suggesting, a greater self-awareness, and let me let me make the point in this way, back in January I was invited to a dinner with experts in artificial intelligence, almost all of them were engineers or had an engineering computer science background, and I was one of two or three who didn't, and I was sitting at the dinner table and for two hours I was completely lost, I was lost by the jargon, the terminology, the way they were thinking about these issues, and then toward the dessert when I got to my fine pastry, I began to understand it, and it really wasn't that hard for me to understand, but they had created this almost insuperable barrier through technical language, and I sometimes wonder, as we see in economics and development economics, or you see in engineering or other professional disciplines, whether we ourselves, whether we're talking about public international law, whether we talk about international human rights law, or any subspecialty of law, we create a technical jargon that for most people is incomprehensible, in our human rights world we talk about OPCAT and how countries have to set up NPMs or national preventive mechanisms, and how they need to invite the SPT to, we use acronyms, jargon, I think if I can be utterly honest about this, I think a lot of it serves our own sense of vanity, that we present ourselves as people with expertise, as people who are knowledgeable, and for most people who are non-lawyers, non-practitioners, are unaffected by an immediate issue, it seems like an alien space, and perhaps we need to do better and be reminded of the simplicity of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is written in language everyone can understand, when I compare it and contrast it with some of the decisions issued by either the ICJ and I had the privilege of attending two of the oral submissions when I was a representative of a state, or whatever comes out of the treaty body system, I mean unless you're a lawyer you're not going to understand it, and so there is a, we need of course the legal community to defend our rights and national jurisdictions before courts and dispute mechanisms, but should we not also make everything we do more accessible to the person who's a non-lawyer, so they understand in a very visceral sense the importance of what it is that we're doing, is that not a fair reflection, Hina? Yes, quite right, and I think a lot of our efforts have been focused in that direction over the years, that international law in particular which is really principles of human rights, they should be explained to people and present their problems explained to them, and the remedies explained to them in the context of what is fair and what is just, and that's how we kind of connect with the social movements as well, but I think the important thing here is that if we want the international system to prevail, we have to recognize that the whole concept of sovereignty also has to be unpackaged. States have claimed sovereignty in my field of work, for instance, when there is international scrutiny of their human rights record, and they suddenly come up with this rhetoric of sovereignty. Now, what kind of irks me many times is that it's not the state that's suffering, it's the people who are suffering, and all our constitutions say that very clearly, when the rights of those very people in whose name the state claims sovereignty are in question, then I do believe that there must be an international norm developed to show states that here the concept of sovereignty has in many ways to give way to the concept of protection of the people and respect for their human rights. Why is the international system important for people, and when will they feel that this is something that is important for them and connected with their everyday lives? They would feel it when they see the gap at the international level. When at the national level, the state is either unwilling or unable to provide the remedy that I was speaking of. This international and multilateral system provides the alternative, the critical alternative to the people who have grievances at the national level and are able to bring it at the international level, and that's the beauty of the international human rights system that we have developed. It needs to be defined in a way in which that system is able through its actions to deal with international level violations or international principles are able to through their consequences or through their functioning, able to fairly apportion benefits of the system, the global system for everyone. This globalization problem actually arose with the developing countries mostly because people started feeling that if there are benefits, they're not fairly apportioned and they go to a certain sector in the international community but not to the rest of us. So I think this fair apportionment of benefits must be the endeavor and the effort that we must have and the objective we must have because universality and globalization not just at the economic level but otherwise is inevitable and that I think has to be kept in mind. But it will only succeed and frustrations will only be prevented if we keep in mind also this principle of fair apportionment of benefits. Yes. No, I mean you touch on so many important points. If I can go back to the previous intervention you made though about how it is that we have member states or the governments accept decisions by international bodies, judicial bodies such that the remedies are available. When you have two things happening seemingly and from my perspective, one is that we have a new crop or a new generation of leaders who feel no shame, no shame in ignoring decisions by the multilateral system or by judicial bodies. Two, we don't have the sort of coalitions of countries that will back a decision taken by a judicial body. It's now a sort of archipelago as a friend described it once an archipelago as opposed to a series of different leverage points over governments. And so we go back to the the leadership point here about how we shed light and then convince an unconvinced leadership because the leadership in many of these countries is self-serving and nothing but. And to the point on sovereignty, I have challenged a number of countries as I'm sure you have to come up with the legal reasoning behind that would back up their position as to why it is that we can't shed light on a particular human rights violation in a particular context. And they have not met the challenge, they have not come to me to make the argument because as we know the General Assembly had to deal with frequent submissions from the apartheid government in South Africa over many years that the General Assembly was meddling in its internal affairs that it was intervening in essentially the domestic sphere and the General Assembly resoundingly or resoundingly rejected those arguments. And so it's a weak legal stick to use in terms of defending the argument but that's how they do it. My sense, the way we can tie this together is to connect what it is that we do with the social movements in many countries where you see a great sort of sense of energy but it remains limited to partitions on specific issues in specific countries and that they can develop a sense of momentum and produce results is undeniable but it's how to fuse this better with what it is that we do. And I'll just give you an example. I mean when I look at the proceedings in the context of the UN mechanisms we have in place whether it be you know the participation before an advisory opinion or in an advisory opinion before the ICJ or when I used to serve on the UN Security Council or indeed in now working in Geneva and I look at for instance a number of viewers who are viewing the proceedings that we are involved with. Out of a population a global population now approaching 8 billion in a few years you have a few hundred views a few thousand views at most maybe the total number of views the UN has ever collected on a specific issue a specific speech 10 million at most. The penetration the penetration seems to be seems to be rather superficial in the sense that not enough people are aware of the depth and the importance of what it is that we're doing. If somehow we can connect better to these movements to better explain to them what it is that is being protected by the system and to mobilize the efforts in conjunction and augmented by our energies then perhaps we have more leverage to ensure that decisions are abided by and that the framework is respected ultimately the framework has to be respected. Is that is that pie in the sky thinking on my thinking along the right track Mr President I'm putting you on the spot. No I don't think you are putting me on the spot because I think that we are all talking about the same thing but we are coming to it from different direction and I agree with you when you refer to the need for more accessibility to what we do to also the decision is of human rights bodies and judicial institution is at the international level and that we should use language which is more accessible to the wider public. We try our best always to do that and of course to break down after we issue a judgment to break down that judgment for the wider public and to put it into a language which is a understandable and accessible to everyone but of course you cannot abandon in the exercise of your profession itself a certain a technical language because it is the language with which through which you communicate also with others in the same profession it is the common language that you use in that profession and in that sense I think that when you talk about the for example the universal declaration of human rights the universal declaration of human rights was originally adopted as a declaration of the UN General Assembly and you know that declarations of the UN General Assembly under the charter are not binding in instrument and it is through the pronouncement is of judicial bodies like the International Court of Justice that actually the universal declaration of human rights has acquired the legal character it has today because the court has said and has referred to the provision is of the universal declaration of human rights as a normist or principle is of customary international law and so it is through the clarification and interpretation of those instrumenties however simple may be the language in which they are written and a better understanding of those instrumenties that we can also bring about the use of the instrumenties for the protection of people is for the protection of individuals for the protection of collectivities and for the protection of individually human being and this has been the main concern and preoccupation of the court for example with respect to the cases that have been brought before the court on genocide the Bosnian cases the Croatian cases both cases brought against Serbia and the court has actually tried its best to explain to the outside world because for example and that is the danger which exists when where these are used loosely because accessibility is one thing but the loose use or the vague use of word is can also have negative consequences the court tried its best to explain to a wider public what actually genocide means that we should not for example equate ethnic cleansing however bad it is with the legal definition of genocide and the court has recognized it for example that there were instances of ethnic cleansing which were admitted by the status themselves that the status which committed this ethnic cleansing and the court actually determined that there was genocide in the case of Srebrenica in Bosnia Herzogovina so I think this is also a work of simplifying a work of explaining a work of making the law and not only public international law but human rights law also more accessible to a wider public a second point to which you raised my commissioner which is of interest to me also personally is the issue of the artificial intelligence which you refer to and that's why I say that we need to bring the system into a state or a condition the multilateral system of cooperation which can keep up with for example technological development is of course people are looking towards the use of artificial intelligence in order to increase perhaps productivity to benefit human beings in the production of buddhism services etc and in making life or rendering certain aspects of life easier for human beings but there are also the dangers that can arise from the use of artificial intelligence and there is a lot of discussion nowadays about the creation of autonomous weapon systems and the danger that they pose for humanity in general yes no this is a point that we are very keen to continue to monitor and observe and I was in Silicon Valley not long ago and there was a distinguished leader within the tech industry who opined that artificial general intelligence will more or less solve all our problems in 20 to 30 years he drew a gasp when he mentioned this from the audience and I was on stage with him because clearly in countries where you don't have deep digital penetration those the remedies are not available so so we do have a long way to go my sense is that we need to reinforce each other we need to reinforce civil society we need to make our work more comprehensible maybe not us but we need others to help us translate what it is that we're doing so that people understand when you have general common 34 on freedom of opinion and expression and how it relates to article 20 of ICCPR that they understand the language of general common 34 it's not merely for a court to interpret it but they understand what the what the treaty body is trying to opine and impart through it and others perhaps need to help because if we can better make people understand they can then defend the system which we are saying is still quite fragile because it isn't in the process of being built I would also add to our worries in the sense I would say that there is no state in the world today that isn't still work in progress every state is or can be ruined by a generation or two of reckless politicians every state and if we we combine that to what it is that we're trying to discuss I think the return of an emphasis on the rights of the individual to power empower that individual to defend the system and for us to defend them I think and to convince governments that that this is not divorced from their fundamental interest of of securing the widest share of benefits for the entire population not to serve the community but to serve the whole I think if we can strike in that direction we're on to a more positive trajectory but it needs at a fundamental level leadership not just of people like us but really individuals throughout countries and we see them and we see human rights defenders do the most amazing things and both of you can count yourselves as human rights defenders in your past and former careers and and I think that's that's the greatest resilience that we can secure for ourselves in terms of protections for the system ultimately if I can boil it all down it requires courage and and that's what we need to see first and foremost on the part of people who maintain the system in place you know yes I think what I totally agree with what you said and I think we do need to preserve this system this is the you know the more the basic minimum that we all need in order for the global affairs to go forward and to proceed in a fair and just manner I think we also need ethical leadership a leadership test that does not submit to populism but is able to lead its people elate the fears and insecurities that make people target and and attack international human rights you and universal values of human rights of democracy and I do believe that these are some of the current issues that confront us difficult to overcome but it's not impossible and I think many of us are already making overtures or in our different fields especially you High Commissioner and I think you've done a brilliant job at least in being able to put forward that this is these are principles that we stand for that there are sufficient number of people who are you know putting their weight behind these these principles and that they are not in any way isolated in their struggles if there may be people who are at the moment because of the understanding or lack of understanding that they may have who are trying to deviate or make these principles recede in some way but that will not happen because they will stay the only thing is what do we find what ways do we find to make this as painless as possible yes no I thank you for your comments I you remind me of a French wit who referring to populism said of a particular leader and was quoting the leader I think it's sort of tongue-in-cheek when he said well of course I have to follow them I'm their leader and so so this is what ultimately we need to to have reassessed we need ethical leadership leadership based on on principles legal principles on legal norms and to understand I am worried I have to convey to you this growing tendency we see in the international media more particularly to discuss values and to discuss ethics as the means of almost avoiding the discussion on rights and law and and treaty law which is binding on states and those states that have exceeded and I think this is something that we also need to be careful of that that the decisions have already been taken on some of these key issues and we cannot go backwards I am I am of the belief and I think others share this that if we tried from scratch to rewrite or draft the convention against torture it certainly wouldn't be in the in the form it is that we see today or I can't imagine how they would draft article two in the way that it is today and so we sense the pressure on the dam or since the president is in the hage on the dyke and we have our fingers that are plugging the holes I hope the three of us will continue to plug the holes where they emerge and I thank you for taking part in this discussion I hope I've acquitted myself well as as an interviewer and moderator and I look forward to to continuing this beyond camera and to all of you who have joined us thank you for taking the time and I would like on your behalf to thank President Yusuf of the International Court of Justice and Hina Jolani a champion for the human rights agenda and a champion of all human rights advocates and activists thank you both and thank you for taking the time to be with us thank you