The UN human rights chief urged countries on Monday to work together to defeat threats such as war and pollution at an event to mark 75 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that risks being overshadowed by the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Ministers, diplomats, and activists attended the Geneva event where Volker Turk invoked the spirit in which the newly formed United Nations adopted the declaration in December 1948, in response to what the document calls "barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind."
"I view today's event as a call to hope, and a call to action," said Turk, an Austrian, who said the declaration had inspired successes such as the end of racial segregation in the United States and apartheid in South Africa.
He also lamented failures in the struggle, such as war, referring to "millions of people suffering unbearably in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, notably in Gaza, and Israel" as well as famine, discrimination, repression, and pollution.
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