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Ambassador Zhang Jun: Peace operations have the mission of peace which facilitates development and promotion of human rights

2020-07-07 22:55

On July 7, the UN Security Council held an high-level Open Debate on "United Nations peacekeeping operations: Peace operations and human rights". The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for South Sudan and Head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, David Shearer, and a civil society representative will brief the Council. Ambassador Zhang Jun, Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations, participated in the meeting and expounded China's position.

Ambassador Zhang said that promotion and protection of human rights is the common ideal of mankind, but it is only possible with peace and stability. As a powerful instrument of the Security Council to maintain international peace and security, peacekeeping operation has played an important role in upholding the rights to subsistence and peace of people in host countries, and created basic conditions for realizing the right to development and other human rights for the people of host countries.

Ambassador Zhang stressed that the objective of peace operations is to support political settlement of hotspot issues. Whether human rights protection should be included in the mandate depends on the situation of each mission. Peacekeeping operations must strictly follow Security Council resolutions, fully communicate with host countries, and respect their unique circumstances. Meanwhile, Governments of host countries have the primary responsibility of promoting and protecting human rights.

Ambassador Zhang emphasized that peace operations should assist countries' response to COVID-19. Peacekeeping missions should, within their mandates, assist Governments in strengthening capacity building, help the Governments and the people of host countries fight the pandemic, put people at the center, and safeguarding people's rights to life and health effectively. Peace operations should strengthen prevention and punishment to internal human rights violations. Human rights violations by peacekeeping personnel have been reported in recently years. Peacekeeping operations, either deployed by the UN or regional organizations, should improve internal management, strengthen discipline, and effectively address and prevent such incidents.

Ambassador Zhang said, China attaches great importance to peacekeeping personnel capacity-building. China provides strict pre-deployment training to ensure that the peacekeepers better understand and respect local people and culture. Chinese peacekeepers are well-disciplined. They have successfully completed large numbers of peacekeeping tasks. Peace operations have the mission of peace which facilitates development and promotion of human rights. As the first country to sign the UN Charter, China remains true to its original aspiration, and will continue to honor its commitment to multilateralism and contribute more to peacekeeping and the cause of human rights.

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