Ambassador Nikki Haley: Remarks at the Graduate Institute of Geneva (text plus video)

I’d like to thank the Graduate Institute and for everyone that came today. Before we get started, I think it’s important that we remember the senseless lives that were lost in London. The United States stands strongly with London with these careless acts and we are committed to helping fight terrorism as it continues to go forward.

The first chairman of the United Nations organization dedicated entirely to human rights was a chairwoman.

Eleanor Roosevelt was elected to head the Human Rights Commission when it first met in January, 1947. She was a natural choice. Mrs. Roosevelt was already well known for her heartfelt advocacy for universal human rights. She was a woman of deep faith. Her nightly prayer asked God to quote, “make us sure of the good we cannot see, and of the hidden good in the world.” Eleanor Roosevelt was an idealist. But she was no pushover.

The first item on the Commission’s agenda was drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. During the debate, the United States and the Soviet Union clashed repeatedly in some of the opening skirmishes of the Cold War. The Soviet delegate taunted Mrs. Roosevelt: How could the United States call itself a champion of human rights when African Americans were still discriminated against? To which Mrs. Roosevelt acknowledged that yes, the United States still had problems, and progress was being made.

And then she proposed a deal that quieted the Soviet delegate: She said the Soviets could send a delegation to observe the United States – if the United States could do the same to the Soviet Union.

Of course, the Soviets never did and never would give free reign to a U.S. delegation. She was making a point. She was calling out a fellow commission member for using human rights as a cover for its political agenda.

Mrs. Roosevelt’s vision of the Human Rights Commission was bigger than any one country. She saw the Commission as a place for conscience, not politics. She knew that if it was allowed to become a forum for hypocrisy and political point-scoring, it would do more to hurt the cause of human rights than to help it.





https://geneva.usmission.gov/2017/06/06/ambassador-nikki-haley-remarks-at-the-graduate-institute-of-geneva/