UN Human Rights Council - 47st session, 25th of June 2021
Interactive dialogue with the Secretary General’s Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide
Intervention by Denmark, on behalf of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden
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I have the honor to speak on behalf of the Nordic-Baltic countries: Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and my own country, Denmark.
We welcome Special Advisor Nderitu on her first visit to the Human Rights Council and reaffirm our firm commitment to atrocity prevention and our full support to her Office.
We welcome today’s exchange with the Special Advisor, as we consider it natural and necessary for the Human Rights Council to contribute to atrocity prevention. Natural because the Council’s mandate includes prevention. Necessary because it is well established that atrocity crimes such as genocide do not occur over night, but are often the result of patterns of violations and abuses of human rights. We therefore also look forward to the upcoming High Commissioner’s report to build on February’s successful intersessional on the prevention of genocide.
We seek to continue this work in Geneva and urge you, Madame Special Advisor, to contribute by strengthening efforts to continuously provide Member States and UN organs with assessments of country situations as well as concrete and timely advice on how to prevent genocide and other atrocity crimes.
From a human rights perspective, we also encourage regular updates from your Office about its initiatives regarding hate speech, the responsibility of social media companies and the role of religious leaders and actors. Practical examples will help increase our understanding on how to more effectively translate prevention into concrete action and also provide new opportunities to collaborate.
Thank you.