Human Rights Watch today hailed the announcement that the United Nations and its Secretary General, Kofi Annan, were awarded the 100th Nobel Peace Prize. "As U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan has been particularly forceful in highlighting the importance of human rights as an essential foundation for long-term security," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "As the world mobilizes to curb terrorism, awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize sends an especially powerful message of the need to embrace, rather than circumvent, the values of human rights."
"As U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan has been particularly forceful in highlighting the importance of human rights as an essential foundation for long-term security," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "As the world mobilizes to curb terrorism, awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize sends an especially powerful message of the need to embrace, rather than circumvent, the values of human rights."
From the moment he became the U.N.'s seventh Secretary General in January
1997, Annan has spoken frequently and forcefully about basic rights and has shown a keen understanding for the centrality of human rights to the work of the United Nations. He has also taken numerous practical steps to integrate human rights into these areas of work.
Following the September 11 attacks in the United States, Kofi Annan was quick to add his moral authority to the voices condemning terrorism. His reaction to terrorism - this most dangerous assault on human rights - was consistent with his usual outspokenness in defense of human rights.
His appointment on October 3 of Lakhdar Brahimi as his Special Representative for Afghanistan is indicative of the perspective Annan is likely to take on the future of Afghanistan. The Algerian diplomat Brahimi, an Afghanistan expert, had also been in charge of a major review of U.N. peacekeeping operations. That review said post-conflict measures should ensure any peace agreement meet key threshold conditions, such as consistency with international human rights standards.
In what has come to be known as the "Annan Doctrine," he has repeatedly stated that state sovereignty must not shield states in the face of crimes against humanity. During the wave of post-referendum violence in East Timor in 1999, Annan warned that senior Indonesian officials risked prosecution for crimes against humanity if they did not consent to the deployment of an available multinational force. They quickly relented.
Annan has been criticized for the role he played as head of U.N. peacekeeping at a time when the international community failed to stop the genocidal slaughter of civilians in Rwanda and Srebrenica. Annan has repeatedly referred to this inaction with deep regret and has been forceful in investigating and developing recommendations to ensure these tragedies are not repeated.
"Today's Nobel Prize should strengthen Kofi Annan's hand in safeguarding human rights at the time when it is most needed," Roth said.
