George Ryan Quotes

Global markets must be balanced by global values such as respect for human rights and international law, democracy, security and sustainable economic and environmental development.

The subject of human rights in China confounds absolute pronouncements.

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.

In the United Nations, when China entered, we voted on the same position, and since then we have maintained the same position, that position has not changed.

Any time the United States government turns over an American citizen, including military personnel, to the government of another country, it is in our nature to want to make sure that they receive the best treatment, the fairest treatment, and the most humane treatment.

I could not become an American citizen. I would not like to become a citizen of a country that has capital punishment.

The NATO forces will, to the extent that they have capacity, assist the war crimes tribunal.

We need to keep examining evilness. For instance, I'm totally against the fact that Osama bin Laden was shot. I think that he should have been put on trial and exposed as that human being he was. I think he should've been standing mentally naked in front of the rest of us and stand to justice for what he did.

A growing number of courts outside the United States--- courts that accept or assume the lawfulness of the death penalty--- have held that lengthy delay in administering a lawful death penalty renders the ultimate execution inhuman, degrading, or unusually cruel.”

I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture … and we are leading this fight by example.

That a pressing need exists for an International Criminal Court is an unhappy reflection on the tragic realities of the world today.

However, whether people are fighting a noble cause or not, there are certain acts which they may not perpetrate. Exploding bombs in public places and killing innocent people cannot be accepted. Holding civilians to ransom or as hostages cannot be accepted. Poisoning food, medicine or water supply cannot be accepted. These are acts of terror and anyone committing these acts must be regarded as terrorist by everyone, irrespective of the cause they are fighting for, irrespective of their religion, race or creed. And once they are defined as terrorists it is the duty of everyone, every country, to hunt them down and bring them to justice

To build a better, freer world, we must first behave in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people. This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law.

It is necessary to take the further step of using the right to intervention as a preventive measure, to stop wars before they start and to stop murderers before they kill ... We knew what was likely to happen in Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo long before they exploded into war. But we didn’t act. If these experiences have taught us anything, it is that the time for a decisive evolution in international consciousness has arrived.

There should be a single standard in the world for human rights.

International policy does not aim at exploiting local, specific conditions to widen zones of influence and create difficulties for another country. The goal of international policy is to insure universal fulfillment of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man" and to prevent a sharpening of international tensions and a strengthening of militarist and nationalist tendencies.

America must be a model citizen if we want others to look at us as a model. We can’t torture or treat inhumanely suspected terrorists we have captured.

Labor has a universal position of opposition to the death penalty both at home and abroad... It is not possible in our view to be selective in the application of this policy.

We stand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind. This declaration may well become the international Magna Carta for all men everywhere. We hope its proclamation by the General Assembly will be an event comparable to the proclamation in 1789 the adoption of the Bill of Rights by the people of the U.S., and the adoption of comparable declarations at different times in other countries...

The isolationists are preparing again to play somewhat the same role they played at the end of World War I. They are idealists, but they do not want to pay the price of practical idealism or of peace for the world. They still believe that the United States can prosper all alone, can have peace all alone, can be a little island apart from the rest of the world.

The League of Nations is the greatest humbug in history. They cannot even protect a little nation like Armenia. They do nothing but pass useless resolutions.

I have written to Israel's friends around the world, including the U.S. Congress and the E.U., and asked them to make funding for the United Nations dependent on ending blatant discrimination against Israel at the U.N. Human Rights Council.

I do think that Magna Carta and international law are worth paying some attention to.

China, as a major nation of the world, as one of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and as a member of the U.N. Council on Human Rights, should be contributing to peace for humankind and progress toward human rights.

We should forcefully call out China whenever it violates international standards.