Pope champions human rights, multilateralism in UN speech

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Pope champions human rights, multilateralism in UN speech

Pope Benedict XVI Friday launched a spirited defense of human rights and multilateralism, and called for greater dialogue between cultures in a landmark address to the UN General Assembly.

Dressed in his white robes, the 81-year-old pontiff reminded all 192 UN member states of their duty to protect their people from human rights abuses.

"Every state has the primary duty to protect its own population from grave and sustained violations of human rights," he told a packed assembly on his first visit to UN headquarters since becoming pope three years ago.

"If states are unable to guarantee such protection, the international community must intervene with the juridical means provided in the United Nations Charter," he said.

At a 2005 summit here, world leaders committed themselves for the first time to endorse the concept of "responsibility to protect" their people from genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The pontiff had arrived by Alitalia jet at JFK International earlier Friday and then flown by helicopter to the UN headquarters to be met by UN chief Ban Ki-Moon. The two men had a 30-minute tete-a-tete before the pope's address.

The speech was one of the highlights of Benedict's first papal visit to the United States during which he has taken unprecedented steps to atone for decades of sexual abuse of young people by US Catholic priests.

In his speech, the head of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics also extolled the virtue of multilateral consensus" which he said "continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few, whereas the world's problems call for interventions in the form of collective action."

Several UN member states, particularly developing nations, have complained about what they view as the excessive weight of big powers, like the United States, particularly in the UN Security Council.

Issues of security, development, global inequality and climate change "require all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law, and promoting solidarity with the weakest region of the planet," the pontiff said.

He however cautioned that any action by the world community must respect "the principles undergirding the international order" and "should never be interpreted as an unwarranted imposition or a limitation of sovereignty."

"What is needed is a deeper search for ways of pre-empting and managing conflicts by exploring every possible diplomatic avenue, and giving attention and encouragement to even the faintest sign of dialogue or desire for reconciliation," he added.

Noting that this year marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the pope said promoting human rights was "the most effective strategy for eliminating inequalities between countries and social groups and for increasing security."

But he also warned against "a relativistic conception" of such rights under which "the meaning and interpretation of rights could vary and their universality would be denied in the name of difference cultural, political, social and even religious outlooks.

"This great variety of viewpoints must not be allowed to obscure the fact that not only rights are universal, but so too is the human person, the subject of those rights," he added.

And he also underscored the need to foster dialogue between cultures and religions at a time of tension between the West and the Islamic world.

"The United Nations can count on the results of dialogue between religions and can draw fruit from the willingness of believers to place their experiences at the service of the common good," Benedict XVI said, earning a standing ovation at the end of his remarks.

His UN visit is the fourth by a pope, following those by Paul VI in 1965 and John Paul II in 1979 and 1995.

After celebrating Mass with some 48,000 people in Washington Thursday, Benedict met privately with five abuse victims acknowledging the pain and damage caused by the scandal.

Wednesday he met President George W. Bush in the first papal visit to the White House in three decades and urged the US leader to prioritize diplomacy over war as a way of resolving conflicts

The Source