Charles Kennedy Quotes

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.

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.

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

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

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

Human rights in China should absolutely play a role in broader U.S. policy toward China. When we look the other way on fundamental issues of human rights, we are also responsible.

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 the president of the United States says that attacks on civilians, starvation, and denial of religious freedom in Sudan are important international issues, they become so.

It's up to any government to decide how to react to the denial of basic human rights anywhere in the world, including Egypt.

If there's a clear genocide somewhere, don't we really want to positively impact that kind of a situation? Isn't that what we're all about? Isn't that what we've always been about?

With a foreign policy appropriately rooted in some sense of humanitarian decency, the Central African crisis will not be easily ignored by American policymakers. It screams for remedy.

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.

Mass killing has very clearly not been eliminated, nor has the 'international community' developed a response that will avert it or bring it to a quick end.

The United Nations has become a largely irrelevant, if not positively destructive institution, and the just-released U.N. report on the atrocities in Darfur, Sudan, proves the point.

Human rights enforcement at the international level needs to be handled in a manner similar to the treatment of military aggression under a collective security regime. The violation of human rights in one state must be considered the concern of all, and enforcement mechanisms must provide for a unified response on the part of the entire international community.

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

Genocide and oppression not confined to the pages of history or memorials like Yad Vashem. They are taking place today, in our world. Nearly half a million black Africans have died in Sudan's Darfur region, systematically targeted for murder, rape, or displacement by government-backed Arab "Janjaweed" militias, simply because of their race. This is a genocide, taking place right now. We have the power to stop it. But action to date by the civilized world has been utterly insufficient.

There may be circumstances in which damaging our relationship with countries over human rights is counterproductive and the benefits to human rights may be very small because of our limited capacity to enforce our stance. That was the dilemma the United States faced after Tiananmen Square.

It is good that the Canadians are raising the flag among Western countries to raise the issue of human rights abuse throughout the Middle East.

Well, human security is a concept that I am very committed to enshrining in American foreign policy.

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

I do think that every super power on the globe has a very poor record on human rights.

Well, this is an unfortunate part of the UN institution. It's the - the theater of the absurd. It doesn't only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi's Libya chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights; Saddam's Iraq headed the UN Committee on Disarmament.

Surely our inaction with respect to Syria is a poor precedent if we're fighting a war on terror.

Our campaign is powered by college students who are not about to let the first genocide of the 21st century happen on their watch.