Sorensen Distinguished Lecture: A Conversation With Volker Türk

 

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk discusses the most pressing human rights issues around the world.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Wow. I see some familiar faces in the room. Good afternoon, everyone. Let me start by welcoming all of you to today’s Council on Foreign Relations Sorensen Distinguished Lecture on the United Nations.

We are really honored to have the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk here with us today for this year’s lecture. Having served as the United States ambassador to the United Nations from 2021 to 2025, I am so delighted to be presiding over today’s discussion with both a colleague and a friend. This endowed annual lecture was established in 1996 by Gillian and Theodore C. Sorensen to highlight the United Nations, and to offer a premier occasion for its most distinguished and experienced leaders to speak to the Council membership.

And on a particularly special note, we are really thrilled to have former U.N. Undersecretary-General Gillian Sorensen with us in person today, and her daughter, Juliet, online. So, Gillian, thank you so much. (Applause.) The last time I saw Gillian we were in her living room with an inspiring group of young women leaders. And so to have you here with us today is really very, very special.

Now, allow me to introduce our speaker today, Volker Türk who, since October of 2022, has served as the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. He has devoted his long and distinguished career to advancing universal human rights, notably the international protection of some of the world’s most vulnerable people. Prior to this, Volker was the undersecretary-general for policy in the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary-General, where he coordinated global policy work. His report, Our Common Agenda. We gave you a hard time on that I know, but we loved it. It set out a vision to tackle the world’s interconnected challenges on foundations of press, solidarity, and human rights.

Volker previously served as assistant secretary-general for strategic coordination in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General as well. And he served as assistant high commissioner for protection in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva from 2015 to 2019. In that position, Volker played a key role in the development of the landmark Global Compact on Refugees. And I think, Volker, that’s where we first met and became friends. So please join me in welcoming my friend, my colleague, Volker Türk. (Applause.)

So, Volker, let’s start out by talking about you. I did give you an extensive introduction. You’ve had a long and distinguished career, as you all heard. Did you ever dream that you would become the world’s foremost leader on human rights? So tell us what you had in mind about what your career would be to lead you to this place?

TÜRK: Look, it really started when I studied law in Austria. And I was never interested in corporate law, but using the law to advance the rights of people. And it was very early, because actually I volunteered for Amnesty International in Austria, in Vienna, and it was all about refugees, frankly, and asylum seekers. And of course, if you’re a lawyer they come to you because they want to see, you know, how do you get legal advice from lawyers in order to get your case heard to resolve some of those issues. So this became a natural thing for me to really fight for the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and then I worked for UNHCR for a very long time. But when you work on the humanitarian front and on the protection front you also realize that we are palliative. We respond to crises when they already—when war has erupted and conflict rages.

So I did always think how could I work more on prevention on the human rights violations that actually lead to refugee displacement or internal displacement and forced displacement. So it was always a strong idea in my mind how could I do more on the broader human rights front and not only specifically for the human rights of refugees and internally displaced people.

So, yes, I did think about joining the human rights office several times. I always came back to UNHCR but in the end I ended up.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: And where UNHCR is, of course, is responding. But where you are and what you’re describing to me today it’s about prevention. How do we deal with issues of preventing human rights leading to the kinds of crises we’re dealing with today?

TÜRK: And we often talk in the multilateral system that the multilateral system, except for the Security Council when it wants to exercise this, doesn’t have teeth. I mean, you have heard it. The secretary-general talks often about it.

But I have to say that the human rights system has teeth. We may not have very sharp teeth and they may be baby teeth but we do have teeth. We can bite.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Babies bite.

TÜRK: They can bite, and I see this when we have discussions in the Human Rights Council.

When states report in the treaty body—in the treaty body organs about their state practices, when special rapporteurs issue statements and I issue statements it has an impact when we engage with governments and want to change laws, want to get people out of detention.

Some of the people that—recently in Egypt, for example, El-Fattah, he came out of detention. It was a longstanding emblematic case for us to work on and, yes, it took a long time but eventually he was released.

So these things do matter. I mean, the system of human rights as it was established actually plays an incredibly important preventative role.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Well, we always knew no country ever wanted to be the subject of one of your reports so that was certainly a deterrent to a certain extent.

TÜRK: China is a good example.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Yes, but they still commit human rights violations as well as others.

So we’re in a new world order. We’re seeing a new world order take shape right before our eyes today, and I know this is an extraordinarily difficult moment both geopolitically and for the wider multilateral system. Looking at a U.N., founded eighty years ago, what do you see as some of the challenges that the U.N. and its human rights work in particular have to grapple with?

TÜRK: I mean, obviously, the raging conflicts around the world and the extremely serious blatant violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in all of them. There is no exception to it.

The fact that we—I mean, we have Julie Bishop here—we have a very selective focus on human rights issues around the world. I mean, Myanmar, despite the fact that we do a lot of reporting on it, we hardly ever talk about it. It’s not—it doesn’t attract the attention that it deserves. There’s no political energy that goes into it anymore, and that’s problematic.

So the wars and how the conduct of hostilities is done and what it means for those who want to wage war in the future, especially when you accept more and more civilian deaths, that civilian infrastructure to be destroyed, has implications for all of us because wars will be waged differently in the future if we are not careful and if we are not that’s a legal term, a persistent objector, to any attempts to redefine the rules of war. Of course, human rights is in the middle of all of this. So it’s about the erosion of the edifice.

The other thing is we see more authoritarian tendencies around the world, become a new fashion to restrict civic space, quick to adopt foreign agents laws in many different countries, to use cybercrime—which is a very important issue, but it’s often in authoritarian type of settings used to suppress dissent, suppress opposition.

And we see a tendency where there is a reductionist approach to human rights as well. Culture wars and launched, and then the whole system is negated. I’m always stunned when we hear discussions about inequality, about antiracism, about gender equality, about issues of protection of women, of the LGBTIQ+ community, people with disabilities, and so forth that this becomes now a culture issue. No, it’s a fundamental issue of nondiscrimination and equality. And I fear that we are losing the very foundation that human rights are part of the social consensus in any society. It’s not an ideology, doesn’t belong to any political party. It’s what—the foundation societies are founded upon. And I fear for that because we cannot afford it. Otherwise, you have social cohesion fraying. We need a basic consensus to conduct our business.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: I traveled to the border of South—of Sudan when I was the U.N. ambassador. I took a group of press people and we met with a group of young women. And I will never forget—and I used this in my speech and I talk about it all the time—having a young woman tell me that she was hopeless and that she had lost her ambition. How do we keep hope alive for people who are in difficult circumstances? How do we keep their ambition? I remember looking at her, saying: Your mission is yours. You own it. Cannot let anybody take it from you. You have to keep your ambition at the forefront of your mind. But how do we do that, given what you just described for us just now?

TÜRK: I mean, I was in Sudan as well. It was the first country I visited when I became high commissioner, and I visited in November ’22. And I remember very well, because I wanted to meet young people and the women who were really behind the overthrow of the al-Bashir—of the Bashir regime, of a military dictatorship that had lasted for thirty years. And despite the fact that Burhan and Hemedti took over again through a military coup, there were—there were resistance committees all around the city in Khartoum—young people, women’s groups, mainly; and you had, you know, civil society activists, you had human rights defenders out there—and their spirit was indomitable, and I could feel it.

So, as a result, Burhan—General Burhan, who was de facto president, could not crush the aim of going back to civilian rule, because, you know, half a year later that’s what was supposed to happen. And then those two men started to fight and unleashed the war. And so I do think—and I’m sure among—and we have a lot of contact with civil society in Sudan—that spirit is there. Of course, when you—when you have wars—I mean, when you have—when you have guns talking, you silence it. You silence any civic space that then is any—meaningful in any way.

But it does show that around the world, and especially among young people—and we look very carefully at protest movements—Bangladesh last year, Nepal now, what happened in Serbia, and so forth. It actually shows that especially young people really care and they are motivating/driving forces—(off mic).

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Well, one of the things I heard whenever I met with young people was that we could not turn our backs on them and that they are depending on you, on the Human Rights Commission, on the whole global system, on the Security Council to stand up for their rights when they are unable to do it for themselves. And so, clearly, the Human Rights Commission is a place where people look for that to—for that to happen. But I get a sense when I’m talking to young people now that they feel we’re not serving their interests. We’re not standing up for them. So what do you say to those young people today?

TÜRK: Well, I can tell you, the young people who launched the protest movements in Bangladesh, they were looking to us to help them. We were very clear about where we stood on it. We were very clear about the denunciation of the excessive use of police force, in fact the killing of students. And then Muhammad Yunus, who became the chief adviser or the de-facto prime minister in the transition, asked us to send a fact funding mission very quickly, so that we could document what has been happening. And that was part of a very important process of reckoning. And the fact that they knew that we were watching what was happening had an effect also, I’m sure a mitigating effect, on the role of the army. Because the army, as you know, did not step in in any repression. And that, you know, shows, again, this value.

In so many other conflicts, yes, we are failing. Look at what’s happening in the Middle East, look at what’s happening in Ukraine, look at what’s happening in Sudan. I mean, we are not able to trigger the political action that is necessary to stop this. So we need to be much more innovative, find different ways and means, study the political economy of conflict much better in the future, so that we actually put more pressures on those who could have a difference—make a difference. Not only in the conduct of hostilities, but also stopping the wars.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Now, the U.N. Charter drafted eighty years ago—we’re celebrating that eightieth year this week—charged us with saving the world from the scourge of war. And we would pat ourselves on the back regularly saying, there are no—there’s no world war. So we have saved the world from the scourge of war. But today we know that is not true. We’re following the horrifying situation Gaza. We’ve talked about the situation in Sudan and Ukraine. You mentioned even Bangladesh, the situation in Myanmar, the DRC. So these are clearly not world wars, but they have an impact on the world.

So I think it’s clear that we have to redefine what we mean when we say, “saving the world from the scourge of war.” What situations that you’re dealing with—how are you dealing with all of these various situations, these various conflicts—thousands of people dying every single month, people starving? Where do you see us going from here in dealing with the current conflicts?

TÜRK: Yes, well you didn’t—well, it’s not a conflict, per se, but it’s a horrific situation very close to the U.S., Haiti, for example.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Oh, yes.

TÜRK: And I want to mention it because if there were political determination to make sure that there are sanctions imposed against the ones who finance these gangs, there’s a strict arms embargo implemented, they’re actually things that the Security Council, when you were there, were decided upon. If that were implemented, you could actually stop it. Plus you need, of course, the support to the Haitian police force. But I have to say, it’s one of those situations that are outside any political attention. And it does have an impact, not only within the Caribbean, but also, I mean, for the U.S. eventually. And you have big Haitian populations living here in the U.S. as well. And they follow, of course, what is—(off mic). And there is a direct context there.

I do think we need to make sure that a lot of those situations get the attention that they deserve, and that we enhance not only the accountability mechanisms for it—despite the fact that the financing has really gone down massively and it has left us and my office and the mechanisms that we support in an extremely dire situation. But accountability is going to be absolutely key. And one should never, ever think that it doesn’t reach the ones who have done it. I mean, look at the former president of the Philippines. Who would have thought that he would end up in the Hague? But he did so.

The documentation, the reporting, the monitoring of our work is incredibly important. I mean, if I look at the recent decision by the European Court of Human Rights on the Ukraine-Russia case, for example, my office’s reports were cited 500 times. So it—I mean, yes, it doesn’t immediately prevent it, but hopefully it has some effect, including from the perspective of accountability.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you for mentioning Haiti. I can’t believe I neglected to mention that, given how much time we devoted to that when I was here in New York on the Security Council.

A successful human rights framework to me has to have both foundational, but also it has to be inspirational. And we saw that this week the Council put out a piece titled “Trump’s Boycott of the U.N.’s Human Right Process Puts America Last, not First.” And we were just looking at the new—the decision that the administration just made on an asylum. So in light of this, are there still glimmers of hope, despite what is—what we see as incredible backsliding? And what keeps you going? I want to know what keeps you going, but I also want to know what keeps you awake at night as well. (Laughs.)

TÜRK: Well, I mean, what keeps me going is precisely the impact that we do have in a number of situations that are not necessarily in the limelight of public attention. Bangladesh is a good example. Sri Lanka, I mean, I visited the country recently. Huge issues of accountability, as you can imagine, after their thirty-year war. There are now, with the focus of international accountability and what the new government is trying to do, there is hope that finally we would end up with an accountability mechanism that functions. So there are these things that do happen. So it’s—Serbia.

I saw—I went to Serbia. I was the first one that the students allowed to enter the University of Belgrade and to give a lecture to hundreds of students and professors, because even the professors don’t receive a salary these days, or hardly a salary, because they wanted to, you know, have a real discussion about human rights issues. And I was surprised how many of them asked about other situations, including the one in Bangladesh. You know, you would have thought Belgrade and what’s happening in Bangladesh a year ago would not necessarily be at the forefront of their minds. But they asked about it. And I—you know, that actually shows that we can make a difference if we do work well.

What keeps me, what keeps me awake at night is the erosion that we see, is sometimes what I think is a bit of a sleepwalking into the dismantling of an international order that has served us well. I mean, you mentioned asylum. I mean, if now the fundamental right to seek and enjoy asylum is questioned, we really go back to the pre-war years. I mean, we go back—I mean, let’s not forget, the human rights edifice emerged because, after the experience of two world wars, the Holocaust, atrocity crimes, the Great Depression. And it came out of that experience of never again. And if we end up—and the right to seek asylum was specifically put there because how many Jewish citizens—I mean, Jewish people could not, because they were in—they were deprived of nationality—could not seek asylum and perished as a result, horribly.

And that’s why we have the right to seek asylum. And it was enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To dismantle that system is—well, it really gets us back to a time that we thought we had all overcome. And I’m worried about precisely that. I’m also worried about, you know, this very strong focus on defense and military. And that this is the only response. That don’t use—we don’t look at national security from the perspective of soft power anymore, or some countries. And also that we forget—we throw out the baby with the bathwater. We can’t afford this. And, yet, we need human rights so much more at this very time.

It’s not only the moral, it’s also the legal compass, and it gives hope to millions of people. They look to us and expect us to deliver to them.

We have huge financial problems. I’m losing a quarter of my income for my office and that puts us towards the survival level, and it has direct consequences. For instance, I cannot finance the mission of inquiry for the Democratic Republic—for eastern Congo. There’s zero money, and that has consequences and victims. So, yes, that (has me ?) very worried.

But I want to end on the positive note. At the same time, in this week I’ve heard words of support and announcements from countries from there that I didn’t even expect and from philanthropists and from civil society voices that really are waking up to that reality and want to do something about it, and that’s encouraging.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you for that.

There were a couple of things that you mentioned that I thought we should go back on when you were in Bangladesh and people talked about what else was happening in the world, and I recall a meeting I was in at USIP a couple years ago. The meeting was on Syria and, again, Syria is completely off the radar today.

But there was a Syrian woman in the room and she asked for a one-on-one with me for a few seconds, and I expected—I’d travelled to the Syrian border a couple of times and I expected that she was going to talk to me about what was going on in Syria.

And she came into the room and she said, I need to talk to you about what is going on in Gaza, and I was extraordinarily impressed with her because I said, your women are suffering but, yet, you can focus attention on where women and children are focusing elsewhere, and I thought that was extraordinarily positive.

The other issue we did not mention today is Afghanistan and the fight of the women of Afghanistan, and I’d love to hear your views on both those issues.

TÜRK: Well, there’s actually currently a discussion going on within the Human Rights Council to establish a mechanism of accountability for Afghanistan. We will see. I hope—again, the question is going to be the financing bit.

The issue is, indeed, of what type of pressure, leverage, do you use in order to influence the absolutely horrific gender apartheid system that they have as well and, I mean, I have an office on the ground. They try to do whatever they can. You know, there are pockets within Afghanistan where you have some women who are able to get on with their lives but that’s not the vast majority of the country.

And it is absolutely critical that, indeed, we not only document it but we are also trying to put more pressure and find an accountability for this massive violence against women and girls in particular but also against men, especially those who oppose the Taliban and who end up in prison or executed.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: I’m going to ask one last question before I turn it over to the floor.

So it’s kind of back to you. So you’re concluding your third year as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and I’d love to hear from you some reflections on the role, what has been—I think we’ve heard from you what has been really hard. What has been really enriching for you? And, finally, do you have any advice to those who will someday lead the United Nations and its various agencies, perhaps to the new secretary general whoever she might be? (Laughter.)

TÜRK: Yes. Well, I think for any advice for the future secretary general I think it will be very important for her to make sure that we are not only paying lip service to human rights including within the human rights system but we actually make it work and ensure that it is part and parcel of the peace and security side, of the development side, of the humanitarian side.

And I mean, with the UN80 report that has just come out, creation of a human rights coordination group, that’s a good beginning. But what I often see in and outside the U.N. there’s a lot of lip service.

We need to fix the financing issue. We need to fix the political support issue. We need to fix the fact, yes, that the human rights front will always be the uncomfortable one. We’ll always have the difficult conversations, and that’s part of our job and it’s always with the purpose of doing better.

What I’m worried about and what I’ve seen over the last couple of years in societies, and I think it has a direct bearing on human rights, is the polarization within countries, within the international communications, and what I would call a very binary thinking—you know, us versus them.

Complexities get lost. We see either you’re for me or against me, and that is not the thinking of the future because we need to have robust discussions. We have to have fierce disagreements. We need to find ways and in a respectful way to find the best possible solution and be creative about it.

But people don’t even listen to each other anymore and that’s very dangerous.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: But how do we get them to listen? What are the forums?

I mean, there’s been this whole discussion around whether the United Nations—and, again, like so many people my generation I believe strongly in the United Nations and I always quote Madeleine Albright who said, “If we didn’t have it, we’d create it today.” That’s a bit of a misphrasing, but, basically, we need the United Nations. What do you say to people who say the United Nations is not relevant to dealing with the issues that we are facing today?

TÜRK: Well, we definitely need to do a much better job at communicating. But there are many things that are working and, for instance, humanitarian aid and assistance is being delivered.

Yes, we don’t have enough funding but it is still being done. We have a human rights system that, as I mentioned, has some teeth. I’m absolutely convinced that the political repression that we saw in Venezuela a couple of years ago, which is still there—don’t get me wrong—but it has not been done in the way that it was a couple of years ago because of the international attention that the world put on it.

So that—I mean, yes, can we prove it? Can you do it scientifically and technically? Can you really show? Probably not.

But we see it in so many situations that because you have a system that is there to work for these type of things you have an effect that, well, not only responds to victims but also, you know, stops repression and mitigates some of the worst effects.

I mean, if you look at the many conflicts around the world this requires not only a co-ownership, it requires the leadership and ownership of the member states, and I sometimes feel when I listen to leaders when they speak at the U.N. as if the U.N. was something else—they didn’t belong to it.

And that’s a problem because they own it, the member states do, and you would have to reinvent the U.N.—(off mic)—because you would not have the convening spaces. You would not have the possibilities to at least look for the solutions when they can come.

You will need the channels of communication open to everyone in order to find a solution. But if you close all of this actually the world would be a very—even a more dangerous space than it is.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you.

So at this time I would like to invite members to join us in a conversation with their questions. Wow. (Laughs) I don’t even know where to start. (Laughter.)

A reminder that this meeting is on the record and what I will do is start with a couple questions from the audience, but we also have a virtual audience as well. So I’ll take a couple of questions from the audience and then I’ll take a virtual question, and if we have time I’ll come back to the audience again.

Yes?

Q: John Maigen (ph). I used to be the head of peacekeeping at the United Nations.

Today, the U.N. seems to have very few real friends. The United States sometimes seems to be actively working against its creation. The Europeans remain friends of the U.N., but they are very inward-looking because of the priority of repelling the Russian aggression in Ukraine. China is ambiguous, because on the one hand it likes a world of norms that creates a measure of predictability but I would not claim in front of the high commissioner for human rights that it is the model of human rights. At the same time, it has a certain sense of accountability to its people in some ways. And so my question is, in this configuration what kind of alliance of friends can you build? And in particular, how do you see China in that picture?

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Want to take a couple?

TÜRK: Yes.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: And then I’m going to go to the back of the room. Back of the room is always ignored. (Laughs.) Can I describe you as the man with the white hair in the back of the room? (Laughs.) No, that’s you, sir. Right here. (Laughter.)

Q: The distinguished.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: The distinguished—the distinguished man with the white hair in the back of the room. (Laughs.)

Q: Thank you very much.

Both of you bring incredible knowledge of the working of the United Nations, both from the inside and outsider working inside. The big question now at the eightieth anniversary of the United Nations is reform, not only because of the financial circumstance of the United Nations but because of lots of other challenges. And some say that the job of the United Nations is maintaining peace and security; where are you going to put all the other things they are doing? But without those—without action on other things, the peace and security, that is really threatened. So the question is, what do you see happen moving forward? Is this really a reform exercise that is going to deliver? Or, like many of the things that we talked about in the past, is—(off mic)—to the next secretary-general?

My name is Ramakrishna. I’m from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Oh. Well, thank you, Rama. (Laughs.) Why don’t we take those two, and then you can open it up for a couple questions from the virtual audience?

TÜRK: So I think the alliance issue is absolutely key, and we have been trying very hard to work out with variable geometry how do you build up voices from different quarters. And it’s not only member states; it will have to be civil society—who are also, I’m afraid, affected by some of the funding cuts, heavily affected, especially grassroots—but also, philanthropy, private sector, and so forth. So we really need to build that alliance, and we are trying to build it as we speak.

What I find interesting is at the last Human Rights Council high-level segment we have never had so many high-level dignitaries show up, including from countries that you would normally wonder why do they want to engage with us at the Council. And I have had a lot of conversations, especially with ambassadors but also now with a lot of foreign ministers and delegations here, that they are worried about the erosion, they’re worried that the system could actually be weakened, and they are waking up to it. And so I do think—including from different countries in Asia, Africa, and in Latin America. And we need them to make sure that their voice becomes louder, clearer, and that they also, you know, counter what I think is a—it’s not only the funding; it’s also the—by the way, the sanctions against the International Criminal Court are appalling. They are totally unacceptable because it actually undermines—(applause)—a fundamental piece of the international system. I didn’t hear member states strong enough on this, but I do think this is changing as we speak.

And by the way, it’s not only the U.S. It’s also the Russian Federation, because the Russian Federation has issued arrest warrants against judges. The U.S., as you know, issued sanctions against judges and prosecutors. And I really think that’s extremely dangerous, and there needs to be a very strong reaction from member states to that.

On China, well, China, at least in its own configuration—and we just saw a number of initiatives—does want the multilateral system to work. But as the others, they all want to work it according to their own vision. And that’s why the law comes back and the charter comes back—also in response to the colleague—the charter doesn’t talk only about peace and security. It talks about human rights. And when I hear discussions about—when you talk about things in country—and this is domestic interference and it’s national sovereignty—well, actually, if you read the charter carefully, this is gone out of the winds, because this is not the argument at all. The charter makes it absolutely clear that human rights concerns are—I mean, human rights are a matter of international concern. And it’s not an interference in domestic affairs.

And that’s the type of discussion, especially when it comes to China and some of the countries around it, Russia, very similar, they emphasize the sovereignty argument, as if you couldn’t say anything or do anything about what’s happening in these countries. Well, no. Human rights are a matter of international concern. I mean, the Myanmar discussion in the Council is often very absurd, because China, Russia, others will always say, well, this is not a matter of any concern to anyone. Well, you have 1 million refugees in Bangladesh. You have rampant trafficking going on. You have massive violations inside the country. Of course, it’s—(off mic). We must never lose the arguments—and the law helps us. Charter helps us. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and all the subsequent instruments, they help us counter these arguments.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: OK. Thank you. We will take one question from our virtual audience at this point.

OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Farha Tahir. Farha, please unmute your mic. It looks like we’re having some trouble with that line. We’ll take the next question from Trooper Sanders.

Q: Hi. Hi, this is Trooper Sanders.

So I want to ask how you think about human rights and artificial intelligence, both what we see today with our ChatGPT and large language models, but in particular, when or if we reach the state of what’s called artificial general intelligence, and where AI may be able to exceed human capabilities, which could include human capabilities to abuse human rights. Thank you.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Why don’t you respond to that one? We’ll take that one.

TÜRK: We’ll take one? So, obviously, that’s one of our big issues on the whole digital side, and in particular generative AI and human rights. We have done a taxonomy of risks when it comes from the human rights perspective, and generative AI in particular. And you know that—I mean, we always talk about what AI is going to give us, and what it’s going to—(inaudible). So that’s—I’m sure we will be seeing a lot of very good progress on health, education, and so forth. But all of this does require a very clear risk analysis.

And there is this myth, including some legal theories, that say, well, well, no. Human rights doesn’t apply online. It doesn’t apply to the digital world and everything. And this is, of course, total nonsense. But it’s because, of course, human rights apply online, offline, wherever you are. It’s not a question of—it doesn’t make that distinction, because it affects daily lives of people. And it affects—and, as we know, AI systems often perpetuate prejudice, biases that we have in society. We know, for example, that in some instances, especially when you use it for facial recognition issues and surveillance, that it very often leads precisely to the type of violations that we see offline. And that’s a particular risk.

I often find it quite striking that when it comes to the pharmaceutical industry, for example, where you have to go through rigorous processing, rigorous tests, that you don’t have the same on the digital side when products are put on—out on the market, and to analyze the risk of putting out this type of tools without proper risk testing. Which brings us to regulation because, of course, from a human rights perspective, you do need regulation. And it cannot just be because of the human—not only because of the human rights things, but primarily because—(off mic).

And I went to Silicon Valley last year. I met all of the big companies also to discuss their own risk framework, which they say they have. But then each one has a different one and it doesn’t necessarily take the full range of human rights into account, including where these products land. Again, Myanmar is a good example. It’s not artificial intelligence, but it was Facebook, as you know, was the medium where the hatred and the incitement to violence was spread, without the proper safeguards in place to stop it. So, yes, it’s a big issue.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You know, if I can follow up on that a bit. You know that last year we were able to pass an AI resolution in the General Assembly with 120 cosponsors, including China. But what was interesting to me is that many of the cosponsors were countries from the Global South. And part of the reason for putting that resolution forward was to put some kind of guardrails around how AI is being used, and that it be used for good, and that it be made available for the entire world, even those countries where the technology and the capacity is not there. How do you see us using AI as a positive tool? For example, when you’re doing investigations into places where you have no access?

TÜRK: And we are using it. We have—I’ve created an innovation hub on the data side. And we are using—I mean, frankly, not least because of the financial difficulties we have to use AI even more. And we have a whole program on that. So that’s clear. But it is also clear that some of these tools, the same human rights defender out there that uses it to document abuses is then often silenced immediately, and the surveillance kicks in that prevents her from doing that. And that’s—so we have these tool—we have these—(off mic)—which is why you need—and I remember the GA resolution that you mentioned. Of course, from our perspective, we wish there was a stronger emphasis on human rights. It wasn’t there so much. But then—

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: It was there at the start.

TÜRK: I’m sure it was.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: I will tell you that we drafted it, but—yeah.

TÜRK: It was part of the negotiation process. But we did have the Pact for the Future and the Global Digital Compact that had a stronger human rights reference. And that is important.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you. Saw your hand. I won’t describe you. (Laughter.) I’ll just say—

Q: Thank you for your reticence. I’m Ken Roth, currently from Princeton, in the past from Human Rights Watch.

I want to ask you about the Uyghurs. And, as you know very well, at the height of China’s persecution one million Uyghurs out of a population of eleven million was detained, by far the largest percentage in the world. Today there’s been some diminution, many of them just put into forced labor. Your predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, put out a very strong report finding possible crimes against humanity. In your three years, you’ve never once condemned China’s treatment of the Uyghurs. You have never reiterated in your own voice the findings of your predecessor. You just say you stand by your office’s findings. You say you’re engaging with China. But would you today on the record condemn, deplore, criticize, you know, whatever you choose, China’s treatment of the Uyghurs? And would you reiterate in your voice her finding of possible crimes against humanity?

TÜRK: One more?

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Can I take one question from the back of the room? (Laughter.) I see a lady back there with a kind of purplish—yeah.

Q: Hi, Ambassador. It’s wonderful to see you.

My question is, for you, what role do local and regional governments play in promoting human rights, as we see certain national governments stepping away? As someone who’s in local government, we know that it is important for our voices to be heard. So I’d love to hear your perspective on that. Thank you.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Take those too, and then we’ll see if we can take any more.

TÜRK: Look, there’s no—oh, sorry.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: No, go ahead.

TÜRK: There’s no crack of light between me and the report. And I’ve always made that very clear publicly, I don’t know how many times. Yes, the report was issued. The Council did not decide on it. As you know, it was defeated in the Council. So, yes, my strategy is to talk to them again and again and again, not only about the issues in Xinjiang, by the way, also in other parts of China—Hong Kong, Tibet, civic space. And it’s to find ways and means to engage. We have very robust discussion with the Chinese authorities at all levels.

Whether it will lead to the changes that we all hope for, progress is extremely slow. And, yes, I’m frustrated by that, enormously. So we are, as much as we can, following up on this. We don’t have the financing that we have that we would need to do more about this, to be very honest. But, yes, it’s part of the DNA of our work. And we will continue doing it. And you have—if you look at all the public statements that I’ve made, I’ve been very clear about this. And I have no crack of light between me and the report.

On local and regional governance, we actually have just issued guidance on the creation of human rights cities, because we think precisely that—and it’s not just cities. It’s also local governance structures, so that they adopt the human rights-based approach when it comes to housing issues, when it comes to refugee and migration issues, when it comes to issues of even basic services. And we believe very much that very often at the local level you have bastions of freedoms that you don’t necessarily see at the national level or at the regional level. So, yes, extremely important. We’ve just issued guidance on it.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: OK, her name starts with a J. That’s all I can see. (Laughter.)

Q: Hi. Janine di Giovanni, The Reckoning Project.

You spoke with great empathy about Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, Sudan. But you glossed over Gaza. And given today’s statement by Netanyahu, as well as the mounting catastrophic situation there, and the U.N.’s report last week, given genocidal intent, could you elaborate on that, please? Thank you.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: OK. Oh.

TÜRK: I thought you were going to get more.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: I was coming back—(inaudible). I haven’t looked at this side of the room. The gentleman with the white sleeve. That’s you. (Laughter.) And I’ll go to the middle of the room after this.

Q: Thank you both for a lovely conversation. My name is Galuaukra Amdit (ph).

Last week your office came out with a report on South Sudan. And you said that systemic elite corruption is driving the South Sudanese human right crisis. What is your message to governments, and business leaders, and even, you know, as Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield put it, South Sudanese who are losing hope that, you know, they can do anything about their rights being violated, and the international community isn’t doing anything? Thank you.

TÜRK: Look, on Gaza, I have—if you look at all the statements I’ve made over the last couple of years, last two years in particular, and I thought that also the idea is that we talk about other crisis because I speak about Gaza almost every week. We just issued today also in the West Bank the so-called database about business interests. It’s absolutely horrific. War crime upon war crime, crime against humanity against—upon crime against humanity.

I mean, the solution is clear. We need a ceasefire. We need the release of all hostages. We need a path for peace. And we have seen a lot of developments this week at the U.N. which I hope will finally make it clear that it is in the interest of Israelis and Palestinians to find a way out of what—absolutely out of this. And, yeah. I mean, we continue documenting what we can, and reporting to the world about what is happening. It’s because we discuss other situations, not by—you know, because of oblivion, because we are very much on record when it comes to that situation.

On South Sudan, I mean, we issued, again, press release after press release. It doesn’t get the international attention that it needs, because it should trigger, hopefully, some action on those who have any influence over the current government. And it’s going absolutely in the wrong direction. And I think the business interests, again, I think are important to look at because some people obviously benefit from this chaos.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Do we have anybody else virtual? All right, the lady in the blue dress. Right behind the camera. I guess the—

Q: Maryum Saifee, CFR life member and until July 11 I was a very proud Foreign Service officer, but now have been purged alongside 1,300 colleagues including Maureen sitting next to me.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you for your service. And—

Q: Appreciate it.

My question I feel is like a very scorched-earth moment. I’m sort of emerging from the dust of it myself. And you know, one thing—and it’s an awkward question for me to ask as someone who spent almost two decades inside government as a career diplomat, as a U.S. diplomat—is there a silver lining to the leadership vacuum of the U.S. in this moment? As Attah (ph) mentioned, the subnational diplomacy piece, like the Cities for Human Rights, are there seeds to a new multilateral human rights order that could emerge that, at a day after, borrowing the concept of hope, that maybe we’ll see something different emerge in the future that could be a potential positive? And hopefully one day we will be back onstage in terms of our leadership in the—in the space.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you for that question, and that wasn’t planted. I didn’t know you were a Foreign Service officer. (Laughter.) But I am very happy you asked that question, because I have one last question as we’re running out of time and I’ll add that question to her question.

I want—I think it would be useful for this audience to hear how we can be helpful to you as advocates, as supporters, as members of the Council. Is there something that we can do for you that will help you do your job even better? So, with that, I turn it over to you.

TÜRK: I mean, I think one area that I’m worried about is that—and I think Shomo (ph), again, mentioned it—is now just the U.S.—the absence of the U.S.; it’s also lack of leadership elsewhere. And I mean, Europe is very much self—as you said—I fully agree with you—it’s very much self-absorbed. And that’s a problem, because, you know, of course, Ukraine, also very dramatic, I mean, but we need leadership that regains this global—you know, when we are moving to this very bizarre world where we don’t yet know how the rules are going to turn out, we do need in particular from civil society, from societies, that they actually speak up very clearly about some of the fundamental principles and values upon which this order was founded. If we don’t have that—and we have—we cannot afford double standards or selectivity when it comes to this. And that’s also part of the problem, because there is different attention paid to different things. And you know, that’s normal. We as my office cannot afford this because we—that’s why we issue on South—I mean, on all these different crises constantly something.

We need to find a way to connect much more with social movements to use the law to its fullest. I mean, litigation is going to be an absolutely important—to make sure that facts are presented and that they are not denied, like lying wrong again—be a good way of—in this this nihilistic, post-truth world is not serving anyone, and that we are also able to move away from crisis and focus on the longer-term issues. Because, you know, we are in this governance that is so short term that it forgets the big issues of our times, that we hardly ever talk about anymore.

Climate change—in fact, sometimes denied—but clearly is one of the big issues of our times, and we are not putting the political energy behind it that is actually necessary. Although, if I look at the private sector, the private sector moves on irrespective. And that’s actually a little bit the hope that I also have, that with the mobilization of private sector—because the private sector has an interest in a stable environment. They don’t—I mean, except for some. But mostly they have—they have an interest in a stable environment. And that’s the best guarantee for us to bring society together, and to build alliances, and to act in solidarity with each other, because there is a lot—the divide and rule comes in. I mean, the divide and rule will be played out in these times enormously, and really awful.

I mean, we need coalitions of all those who care about fundamentally what moves us, and see what happens. And I think we are in the—in the—at the beginning of finding out how we—how we can do that.

Sorry, then I forgot. What? Was that all, or you asked me—

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Well, I asked what we can do to help you. I think you—

TÜRK: Oh, what you can do to help. I mean—

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: I think you’ve described—

TÜRK: First of all, U.S. support would be very important, including in terms of studies that you do, precisely to, you know, think about governance, of what governance actually—(off mic)—for us and how to bring—how to bring in the social movement side. And, yes, we need your political, strategic, whatever financial support you can provide. We will need that as we go forward. Thank you.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Well, let me thank all of you for joining today’s session. (Applause.) And I want to give a special thanks to the high commissioner and to the Sorenson family for supporting this really extraordinary discussion. And again, thank all of you today for making this such a rich discussion.

You can find the video and the transcript of this lecture on CFR’s website. Thank you. (Applause.)

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.