Name: Committee on Foreign Affairs Ordinary meeting
Uploaded: 2026-06-25T09:19:37+00:00
Duration: 3640 s

00:00 - 01:36

Speaker 2

Dear colleagues, please be seated now. We come to the final item of today, at least for the Foreign Affairs Committee members, this is the item number 12. This item is held jointly with our Subcommittee on Human Rights, DROI, and I would like to welcome Mounir Satouri, the chair of our subcommittee, who is sitting up front here with me. It is a great honor and pleasure to welcome Mr. Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. It is indeed a real pleasure to have you here with us again, especially as you have just presented your annual report to the 52nd regular session of the Human Rights Council last week.

Colleagues, I will be brief in my introductory remarks, just the following: at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions, increasing challenges to multilateralism, and a concerning global decline in democratic governance, the defense of human rights has become more important than ever. Civilians around the world continue to bear the devastating consequences of armed conflicts, including Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and the conflicts in the Middle East. Dear High Commissioner, we look forward to your reflections on the global state of human rights and how to strengthen our collective efforts to promote and protect them, also in light of the launch of the Global Alliance for Human Rights. That's all from my side. I will now immediately hand over to Mounir for his introductory remarks, and then we will listen carefully to Volker Türk.

Please.

01:36 - 03:21

Speaker 1

Merci David. Je suis très heureux de tenir ce point conjointement. Monsieur le Commissaire, cher Volker, je tiens également à vous souhaiter très chaleureusement la bienvenue parmi nous. La sous-commission des droits de l'homme entretient un dialogue fort et régulier avec vous et avec votre bureau, ainsi que l'ensemble de la communauté de l'ONU. Je tiens à souligner d'emblée les travaux du Conseil des droits de l'homme qui fête aujourd'hui, enfin, son 20ème anniversaire, ainsi que le travail des rapporteurs spéciaux, des commissions d'enquête, de tous les mécanismes onusiens qui sont absolument indispensables.

Indispensables pour faire respecter le droit international, indispensables pour établir de manière objective et rigoureuse la réalité des violations commises, indispensables enfin pour lutter contre l'impunité et poser les fondements d'une justice digne pour les victimes. À ce titre, ils méritent notre soutien plein et entier. Cher Volker, nous partageons les mêmes inquiétudes face aux atteintes des droits de l'homme, à la démocratie qui se multiplient dans le monde. La situation est grave, mais ne nous résignons pas. C'est pourquoi nous saluons l'initiative que vous avez lancée il y a deux semaines, l'Alliance mondiale pour les droits humains, une initiative forte que nous attendons avec intérêt que vous puissiez nous la présenter en détail.

Les parlements sont, comme un ensemble d'autres acteurs, des parties prenantes de cette alliance. Et le Parlement européen doit la soutenir et participer à la faire vivre. Il est également essentiel d'assurer l'implication de tous ceux qui sont à la pointe dans la défense du droit humain dans le monde, les défenseurs des droits humains évidemment, mais aussi les journalistes, les avocats, la société civile.

03:21 - 03:28

Speaker 3

C'est donc un grand plaisir que je vais vous passer la parole pour votre présentation.

03:28 - 06:34

Speaker 4

Well, thank you very much, merci beaucoup, both Mr. Chair, Monsieur Président. It's a real pleasure to be here. I always enjoy very much the exchange that I have with both committee and committee and subcommittee, so it's good to have a chance to engage with you again. And I'd like to share with you a couple of thoughts, but before doing so, I would also like to express my deep appreciation to the European Union for its strong support to the human rights cause, both politically, financially, and strategically. And given the times we are in, we will need even more support in the future.

Last week, you mentioned the global report, I presented, as I do three times a year, my global update to the Human Rights Council. And if you look at my statement, it really gives a review of, if you like, the state of human rights around the world. So I'm not going to repeat any of the things that I have in that global update because this would take a bit too much of time, but I would like to highlight a couple of things, but then also focus specifically on the European Union and some of the developments that I think have an impact also on the European Union. Of course, the big concern that I'm sure we all share is that the very high number of conflicts. We have over 60 conflicts currently in the world, and some of which we hear a lot about, others we hardly hear anything, including in the public perception and in the public reporting.

Of course, my role is, and the role of my office is to make sure that we keep monitoring, documenting, and reporting on all of these situations and make sure that the attention, the world attention is also paid to some of the forgotten crises and some of the forgotten conflicts. But if there's one thing that all these conflicts have in common, it is the disregard, and I would say the blatant disrespect of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. And this is a very slippery slope because we know that if one accepts civilian casualties in a way that is no longer in any way proportionate to any military objectives that are being pursued, you create a new norm. And a new norm that could be used by others who are waging war, and I hear it, frankly, from those who say, oh, this one is happening in this particular situation, so we're using more or less the same tactics and methods. And my role as High Commissioner, but I think it's a role for frankly all member states of the United Nations, is to be a persistent objector, this is a legal term, to any attempt to mollify or weaken the standards that come from international human rights law and international humanitarian law.