As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the MFA Armenia, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan particularly said,
“Your Excellency President of Armenia, Mr. Armen Sarkissian,
Your grace Archbishop Natan Hovhannisyan,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,
Many warm welcome to Armenia,
Many warm welcome to the first morning post-election Armenia.
Welcome to the Third Global Forum. Welcome to Matenadaran, the institute and museum of ancient manuscripts, a monument of knowledge, idea, creation and education, a legacy of Armenia’s centuries-old contribution to world civilization and the bastion against the darker side of the human nature, against discrimination and hatred and intolerance - the very root causes of what we are gathered together to elaborate the ways to prevent.
Welcome also to Armenia at a time when the international community commemorates the 70th Anniversary of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. 72 years ago the UN adopted a landmark resolution 96/1, which was tabled by, at a time, India Cuba and Panama and which endorsed the term “genocide” and which opened the way for the subsequent adoption two years later, on 9th december in 1948, of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It was obviously a day of triumph for one particular man, Raphael Lemkin, who dedicated his entire life to addressing this crime, which rattles the conscience of humanity - the crime of genocide.
Also welcome to Armenia on a day when the international community commemorates the 70th Anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights which is exactly today. Again 70 years ago in 1948 great panel of experts have gathered to draft an important document, which became a foundation of what in subsequent seventy years have been the construction of the machinery of human rights protection globally, internationally. And again a good day to recognize and celebrate the legacy of those experts under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt and such prominent lawyers as Charles Malick, William Hutchison, Fernand Santa Cruz, John Humphrey, René Cassagne, Peng Chun Chang, Alexander Bogdanov․
Over the seventy years UN has been quite successful in building considerable foundations, considerable pillars to bring nations together to work against discrimination, against violations of human rights for the protection of human dignity and human rights. It took two world wars to recognize the devastation of human distraction, the distraction of human identity.
In seventy years we have both solid body of law and practical machinery of addressing collectively the issue of human rights. Twenty years ago Armenia initiated a process to take a level up the international cooperation, international effort to strengthen the concept of prevention against atrocities. At the time of the 50th anniversary of the Convention, Armenia tabled a resolution to remind the international community that there is such document, which is still as relevant as ever and which requires recognition, effort, implementation, especially at the national level, the primary level of protection and promotion of human rights. Subsequently we have developed further the international soft law on prevention.
We have celebrated and supported the effort of UN Secretary General at a time in 2004 to create a special body within the United Nations. His ambitions were a bit higher but the members of the UN have lowered those ambitions unfortunately. We have what has been created as the Office of Special Adviser of the Secretary General for the Prevention of Gen...
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