Volker Turk: “Fighting the cancer of misogyny will be a priority of my mandate as High Commissioner for Human Rights”

After taking office in October 2022, he multiplied missions in Sudan or Ukraine. In Haiti in February, he warned of a dramatic situation on the island. But in China, Volker Turk is waiting the most for human rights. Her predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, who has been critical of the issue, repeatedly delayed the release of a report on Beijing’s violence against Uyghurs in Xinjiang province.

Can your agency investigate China when Beijing’s growing weight in the UN system leaves little room for maneuver? We remember that the missions of the World Health Organization in Wuhan were not very successful.

I am very concerned about the human rights situation in China. Report by M.^I Bachelet insisted on Xinjiang, but I want to emphasize that we are also concerned about the situation in Tibet, Hong Kong, as well as the hardening of civil space. The independent mandate given to us by the UN General Assembly is a dialogue with each member state on human rights issues. Things are obviously not always easy and you have to adapt to the country in which you want to see the situation. We are in dialogue with China to inform it which practices, measures and laws do not comply with the international human rights bill.

This year, the United Nations celebrates the 75th anniversary of Rene Cassin’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One gets the impression that the latter are retreating almost everywhere. You are asking for your budget to be doubled and your presence in the 193 countries of the United Nations. is it realistic

You should always have aspirations. One of my predecessors, Louise Arbor, succeeded in doubling the funding of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2005. Today, human rights violations are massive, there are setbacks, including in democratic countries, and we have conflicts everywhere, even. In Europe, with Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, which brought back this quasi-medieval specter of direct state-to-state conflict. So we really need to reiterate to the whole world that if it is serious about human rights, it needs to do a lot more: resources, political and strategic support. It won’t happen overnight, but it’s up to me to claim it.