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Mary Robinson

Mary Robinson Biography

Former President of Ireland

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“As Elders, we are fully committed to the principle that all human beings are of equal worth. You will see that we highlight equality for girls and women - not just women's rights. That is important as girls, especially adolescent girls, have been almost invisible in debates on equal rights. Yet it is in adolescence that events can have a huge effect on a girl's life.”

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“As Elders we have great respect for all religions and traditions as important forces that bind people together. Faith and tradition provide much of the foundation of our laws and social codes. But where religion and tradition are used to justify discrimination and especially when they are used to justify cruel and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation, infanticide and child marriage, then we believe that is unacceptable.”

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“Tackling the issue of climate change presents us with an inflection point in human history - a climate justice revolution that separates development from fossil fuels, supports people in the most vulnerable situations to adapt, allows all people to take part, and, most importantly, realise their full potential.”

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“The international human rights framework is a vital component and engine for promoting global values. Governments have signed up to this international legal framework and we should hold them accountable, in all circumstances from environmental or labour standards, to trade talks, arms control and security issues as well as other international legal codes.”

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“Look, you are interested in trying to make sure that governments keep a clean environment, have regard for the lifestyles of indigenous peoples, and work for fair trade rules. Well, it's exactly the same for human rights - from non-discrimination to the basic rights to food, safe water, education and health care. We are talking rights not needs. There are standards that governments have signed up to - but nobody is holding them to account.”

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“It remains the task of governments to implement the fundamental human rights standards which should influence all aspects of globalisation, including even trade talks, and to be answerable for this in a democratic way. The structure is international, but the accountability is national and I would like to see that accountability being more penetrating at regional and local level, especially in federal systems.”

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“In human rights theory it is very important that governments still have the primary responsibility for the standards and provision of such services even if they no longer deliver them. They must insist that the private sector delivers without discrimination. So governments still have responsibility, including the need to influence business.”

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“It is a great problem for the true international agenda of human rights that the United States, uniquely among industrialised countries, has not ratified three main instruments, has not ratified the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, or the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and we could have so much richer a debate and dialogue on international human rights standards if the superpower would sign up to the agenda.”

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“I'm not interested in scoring points or being over-critical of the US administration. I want to find the entry points to try and get it back on track so that the United States can get out of the present disastrous situation it's in, and back into being a constructive force for human rights in the world.”

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“The structures of the WTO need to be reformed to increase participation. There must be a greater sense of shared ownership of the substance of the trade negotiation agenda. Decisions about issues to be negotiated, and in which sequence they should be taken, should rest with all WTO members, not only the most powerful.”

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“The term 'human rights' has been too often associated with conditionality, and with concerns of developing countries that in order to benefit from open trade they would be required to implement immediately labour and environmental standards of a comparable level to those applied in industrialised countries. At the same time, debates about the primacy of trade as against human rights legal codes have contributed to maintaining the unfortunate impression that the two bodies of law are pursuing incompatible aims.”

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“From Iraq to Guantanamo Bay, international standards and the framework of international law are being given less when they should be given more importance. I am pleased that the courts in the United States are beginning to review what has happened to those detained in Guantanamo Bay. Similarly in Iraq we need to bring our strategies back within the framework of international norms and law.”

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“I don't like a bipolar or a unipolar world. I like a multipolar world but on many occasions people have been surprised that South Africa has not seemed, internationally as well as internally, to take a decision that affirms the true values of your Constitution and the vision of those who were there at the beginning - Madiba himself and others.”

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“We need to understand that we need to get the work-life balance better for both men and women - by men taking on more of those roles of homemaking and child rearing - it's an important area that we still haven't got right. I do worry; it's not just in the United States, it's also in parts of Latin America.”

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“I'm coming to a sense of a women's movement which was extraordinarily important in the struggle for freedom in Ireland and immediately afterwards, but then some of those women who were involved in the movement got involved in representative positions and perhaps some of them got a bit distanced from the grassroots issues. But also the women's movement itself seemed to say, "No, we've got our own government, our own parties in power" and they sat back.”

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