Hosni Mubarak Quotes

Upholding human rights is not merely compatible with fighting terrorism, it is essential.

From my experience both as DPP and previously as a human rights lawyer, I know that human rights and effective protection from terrorism are not incompatible. On the contrary, they go hand in hand.

I care about people's human rights and, as a country, we have a very proud record indeed. But I'm also realistic about what we can do... we can raise those issues with leaders and we can talk about those issues, and we do that.

If we destroy human rights and rule of law in the response to terrorism, they have won.

Promoting and protecting human rights internationally is not just a matter of principle or morality - doing so also serves our national security interests.

Abuse of human rights and international law demand resolution - whoever is responsible.

What makes the Universal Declaration an epochal document is first of all its global impetus and secondly the breadth of its claims, a commitment to a new social contract, binding on all the Governments of the world.

I abhor anything that constitutes torture. Water-boarding, it's perfectly clear to me it is torture. I never supported extraordinary rendition to torture, always said that Guantanamo should be closed. There is no clash of ideals and pragmatism there.

When human rights are systematically abused, it raises the question whether it may be legitimate in some circumstances for the international community to intervene within individual states as well as in conflicts between states.

The war against terrorism is a war against those who engage in torture.

As a consequence of these hesitations and of the vague character of such innovations, the Commission on Human Rights itself had doubts from the beginning about its role and its functions in general.

Terrorism can never be accepted. We must fight it together, with methods that do not compromise our respect for the rule of law and human rights, or are used as an excuse for others to do so.

I refer to calls for humanitarian intervention in the affairs of another state - a new idea, this - even when they are made under the pretext of defending human rights and freedoms.

Every State has the primary duty to protect its own population from grave and sustained violations of human rights, as well as from the consequences of humanitarian crises, whether natural or man-made.

In the '90s, there was scant presidential leadership and insufficient domestic political mobilization for foreign policy grounded in human rights.

As human beings, we reach out for justice. You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much stature… if you think you are a soldier, you are not----- you are a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not meet with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

We do not send detainees to countries if we believe that they will be tortured.

The promotion and preservation of human rights can and should be the driving force for world affairs.

There are millions of people all over the world, right now, who are looking to the United Nations for protection and redress against the violation of their rights and deprivation of their freedoms.

Does the global Left - as well as the Israeli Left - truly not care about the horrific Taliban regime, the terrible oppression of women in Gulf states, and the mass hanging festivals in Iran?

That's one of the things that I'm going to talk about, is the need for the Human Rights Council to actually deal with human rights. We've got countries on the Human Rights Council right now like Venezuela and Cuba.

It is ironic in today's world, but the core values, the protection of the law which we had thought to be universally accepted, has been seriously breached by the war on terrorism.

The young, the old, women, the disabled, the sick and the wounded are entitled to protection under international law. Too often, the ICRC's calls for those laws to be respected are ignored.

The principal cause of suffering during humanitarian crises is insufficient respect of applicable rules of international humanitarian law.

Not enough countries, not enough armies, not enough armed groups are abiding by the fundamental human values enshrined in the Geneva Conventions.