Jordan Gavaris Quotes

A lack of moral clarity is also the tragedy that has befallen efforts to advance peace and security in the world. Promoting peace and security is fundamentally connected to promoting freedom and democracy.

The Great Seal was an early proclamation of 'humanitarian intervention,' to use the currently fashionable phrase.

In international relations, in foreign policy, a great deal has to do with historical circumstances, a great deal has to do with the sense and perception of people.

We're in an illusion about what our role is in world politics and foreign affairs, and our policies are killing and destroying and doing a lot of things that we are not aware of.

In human rights and peacemaking, it's really about having a solid concrete goal - the reduction of human suffering somewhere in the world - and then doing what is required to get that goal achieved.

So I've gone in and out of the U.N., working on counter-terrorism, on U.N. reform, on peacekeeping, peace and security issues, many things through the years but always with a strong interest in humanitarian issues, and human rights issues as well.

I've been quite involved in a lot of U.N. operations over the years. I was a U.N. observer at the East Timor referendum in 2000. I've been very involved in that for a long time.

I think no one knows what humanitarian intervention means. If I were a person who was non-American, I would think humanitarian intervention is just another name for United States imperialism.

It is one thing to be against unilateralism and against nonhumanitarian interventionism - but it is quite another thing to be against humanitarian interventionism.

I have a lot of interests in global issues, as you know, humanity, inequity, arms control, and I continue to be active on all these issues.

The U.S. government engages with many countries around the world in official dialogues on human rights.

It depends on the situation. I mean, on one hand there's the argument that people should be left alone on the other hand, there's the argument to wade in a stop slaughters in places like Bosnia and Kosovo and what we probably should have done in Rwanda.

The Czech Republic is a dynamic United Nations Member State, active on the Human Rights Council, contributing to the peaceful settlement of disputes, and helping other countries to achieve a democratic transition.

There are, however, cases in which, while our own interests are not greatly involved, strong appeal is made to our sympathies.... in extreme cases action may be justifiable and proper. What form the action shall take must depend upon the circumstances of the case; that is, upon the degree of the atrocity and upon our power to remedy it.

Every foreign policy has to have a moral purpose.

Those who try to give us advice on matters of human rights do nothing but provoke an ironic smile among us. We will not permit anyone to interfere in our affairs.

Preserving peace does not always coincide with the promotion of human rights.

A multipolar world means more compromise [on Human Rights violations]… more back-scratching and less principled denunciation.

Stability is a reasonable foreign policy goal, but not at the expense of human rights.

Defending human rights should be an important objective of foreign policy, and that, too, will sometimes be hard to reconcile with an economic agenda, especially when it comes to dealing with rich but repressive players like China and Russia.

I don't see any possibility of Britain and the U.S. allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that's almost inconceivable.

A peaceful world requires collective measures for the prevention of war, international cooperation to solve economic and social problems, and respect for human rights.

My point was very simple, and it was that it is absolutely absurd for the United States of America to continue to urge us further down the line towards a federal superstate when the U.S. has not even signed up to the U.N. Convention on Human Rights.

We are not living in the same world we were immediately after the Cold War, when there seemed to be a greater belief in the universality of human rights and there was enough prosperity to make us question why we had not committed more resources to upholding the values we claimed to hold most dear.

Countries often prioritise economic interests over human rights - hence all the kowtowing to China.