Intervention by Sweden at the 77th session of the General Assembly (Item 69 General discussion), 19 October 2022

Mr President,

The first mass grave that was excavated in Izium, in Ukraine, a few weeks ago contained 436 bodies. 90 percent bore traces of violence. Six were children.

The most common injuries were mutilated genital organs, amputated or broken arms and legs and bullet wounds. Many of the bodies had their arms tied behind their backs. Some had nooses around their necks.

Mr President,

It is sometimes easy to get the impression that human rights are vague appeals that mean everything, and therefore nothing. Political exhortations that lack real world relevance.

But they are not.

The past several months have shown us - with painful clarity - what a world without respect for human rights and international law is like.

It is the world of Bucha, of Izium – the horrors of the past months under Russian control.

And of countless other places of unspeakable cruelty and despair around the world.

Mr President,

Perhaps we never fully value human rights until we experience their negation.

From the beginning, that contrast was always there.

Human rights, as the well-defined, legally binding obligations that we know today, were created out of the ashes of the Second World War.

Out of that abyss, the perhaps greatest and noblest achievement of mankind surprisingly emerged: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and all the legally binding treaties that followed.

Women and men from all continents, from different religious, political and philosophical traditions helped create them. To prove one thing: that war, oppression and glaring inequalities do not have to be the destiny of mankind. It was created in the hope - and the conviction - that we can do better.

And we have.

The past seventy plus years have proven that human rights, democracy and the rule of law are not just romantic notions, not just words on a paper.  If respected, they are a blueprint that can - and have - shown us how to build societies that are more free and more just, with less hunger and less fear.

The laws and institutions we have created at the national and international level to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law have made a difference.

They have created structures that have helped us to debate and resolve our differences through peaceful means, rather than through violence and oppression. Together with the scientific breakthroughs of the past decades, they help explain why the world, as a whole, has become freer, richer, healthier and more well-governed than at any other time in human history.

But what can be built can also be destroyed. Global democratic backsliding and deteriorating human rights situations in countries around the world give cause for serious concern.

In these challenging times, we must do our utmost to uphold the international laws and institutions that we have jointly created and designed, and that have served us so well in creating freer, more prosperous and more equal societies.

Mr. President,

The sovereignty and territorial integrity of every State must be respected. The equal rights and dignity of every person must be respected. Accountability for violations and abuses must be ensured.

These obligations are indivisible from our continued efforts for more prosperous societies where also the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights can be ensured – challenges already daunting in the face of the pandemic and climate change.

So, yes, we can - and we must - do better.

Thank you.