2016-06-02 20:00:00

Small NGO shares views on atrocity prevention with Holy See Delegation at Istanbul Summit


(Vatican Radio) Pushing its agenda to step into situations where conflict threatens to break out and prevent disasters before they happen, a small NGO was present at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul last week telling world leaders to focus more on prevention.

The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, established in 2008 to promote acceptance and effective operational implementation of the norm of the "Responsibility to Protect" populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, was represented by its Executive Director, Dr Simon Adams, who also met with the Vatican Delegation present at the Summit.

He spoke to Linda Bordoni about the contribution the Global Centre has to make in preventing humanitarian disasters as well as about his meeting with Cardinal Pietro Parolin and the rest of the Vatican Delegation at the Istanbul Summit:

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Pointing out that he had many values and ideals in common with the Holy See delegation present at the Summit, Dr Adams expressed his appreciation for the Vatican’s engagement in issues of human rights and social justice.

Regarding his meeting with Cardinal Parolin and the shared ideals pursued by the Global Centre and the Vatican, Adams spoke specifically of the attention for situations in the world where mass atrocities are happening.

The discussion, Adams says, focused on the role of the Church in situations of conflict and on the way religion is used, in a number of these circumstances “to enflame them and make them worse” while the “Church believes that religion can play a positive and progressive role in solving those conflicts and bringing people together, not pitting them together as enemies”. 

Adams said he complimented the Holy Father for his visit last November to the Central African Republic, a visit – he says - which is “a great example of the role of one of the greatest faith leaders of the world”.

He points out there was a lot of pressure on the Pope not to make the visit for security reasons, but Francis went ahead and visited the conflict-ridden nation and “I think this played a very positive role in the country”.

“We talked about the role the Vatican is playing more generally as being a very important voice standing up for civilians in a number of situations, regardless of their faith, and we talked specifically about the very vulnerable situation a number of Christians communities find themselves in the Middle East for example, and what can be done in those situations” he said.

Adams explained that the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect is a very small Human Rights Organization that works mainly with the Security Council in New York and with the Human Rights Council in Geneva, and that it was “set up by Kofi Annan and others who care about the issues of mass atrocity crimes and stopping them in the world today”.

“What worries me about the Istanbul summit, he says, is that a lot of the focus is very much on the bandages and blankets end of the occasion. What we do when people are on the move, when they are displaced, when disaster has struck them”.

Adams expresses his belief that it is very important to focus on prevention and he says this was mentioned by the Secretary General right at the start of the Summit when he pointed out that 80% of humanitarian funds go towards armed conflict situations.

“What if we could stop those conflicts before they broke out? Adams says.

What we need, he stresses, is to get better at the preventive work: “its upholding human rights, its preventing disasters before they happen. We can’t stop cyclones and tornados and earthquakes but we can stop the human disasters that human beings inflict on one another – war being the most obvious one”.

And speaking specifically about what the Global Centre brought to the table at the World Humanitarian Summit, Adams says that hopefully – thanks to the fact that it is a voice with the most powerful council in the world –the UN Security Council – it is hopefully able to help shape the way these situations are viewed, “particularly those situations where mass atrocities are being threatened or are happening”.

“We try and keep prevention at the heart of the discussion and try and keep ideas about human rights paramount in the minds of the world leaders so it doesn’t become a discussion about how do we buy more blankets and how do we distribute more bandages, but actually how do we stop these disasters from happening in the first place” he said.

And true to the core mission of the organization he heads, Adams says it is of vital importance to keep a focus on preventing conflict and on “how we look at the situations in the world today where civilians face violations of international humanitarian, international human rights law - where they face mass atrocity crimes which are prohibited under international law - and on how we can get better at protecting them”.  

For more information on the work of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect click here.  

 








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