Mr. President,
Your Excellency,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We align ourselves with the Statement of the Group of Friends of R2P and the European Union. We continuously support the work of the Special Adviser on R2P.
We thank and support the Secretary General for the proposed concrete measures.
Since the UN’s establishment some 72 years ago, perhaps our greatest failure has been our inability to always protect civilians against atrocity crimes. We are deeply concerned about the worldwide negative trends, we share the view expressed in the report that prevention of atrocity is the first step to implement R2P.
Since the adoption of the principles on the R2P in 2005, Hungary is fully committed to raise the awareness on this issue on national and international level as well. Hungary is a proud member of the Friends of R2P Group and a party to all important Conventions related to mass atrocities and war crimes.
Hungary – as an active member of the ACT Group – welcomes the reference in the report to the Code of Conduct and the role of the Security Council. We advocate for refraining voluntarily from the use of veto in the Security Council in cases of mass atrocities and we encourage all Member States who have not yet done so to support the Code of Conduct elaborated by the ACT Group and signed by 113 Member States to date. Hungary is a committed supporter of preventive diplomacy and early warning.
As a clear sign of our commitment to prevent atrocities, Hungary takes actions through legal measures, education, commemoration, and zero tolerance policy, for example against anti-semitism and xenophobia.
The Hungarian Criminal Code penalizes genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and hate speech as well.
Hungary has signed the joint statement on the “Principles for UN Global Leadership on Preventing Violent Extremism”.
We strongly support utilizing mechanisms of the Human Rights Council, even more so in these times, since Hungary has been elected a member of the UN Human Rights Council
We also support the using of the Universal Periodic Review process to address atrocity prevention gaps and to considering further exploration of the responsibility to protect by the Security Council.
We must dedicate special attention to ending impunity and ensuring justice for victims of atrocities, including trial-based mechanisms and other forms of transitional justice.
We appreciate the efforts taken by the International Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC) to implement and ensure respect for International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in armed conflict situations.
Hungary is still a staunch supporter of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) on international crimes committed in the Syrian Arab Republic.
Hungary hosts the Budapest Centre for the International Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, which provides an invaluable input that can contribute to effective and timely action aimed at preventing the commitment of atrocity crimes: in institution building, technical assistance, early warning capacity building, best practice advice and persistent attention to the warning signs. Such warning sign can be the emerging presence of extremism in our societies.
In 2008, Hungary launched the Budapest Human Rights Forum, a series of annual international human rights conferences attended by national and international human rights experts, representatives of international organizations, non-governmental organizations and governments.
In 2016, one of the panels of the 9th Budapest Human Rights Forum was dedicated to the human rights aspects of the prevention of mass atrocities and the responsibility to protect.
Just lately, in cooperation with the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, hosted an international Conference on “Victims of armed conflicts at the juncture of international humanitarian law and human rights law”. The Conference concentrated on the prevention aspect.
We believe that with strengthened political will of Member States and better use of already existing wide range of tools, the international community could effectively prevent mass atrocities.
I thank you, Mr. President!
