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“Health” a “Self-Evident” Right

Speech of Colum Murphy at New York State University, Stony Brook, September 2007 : "This speech is about the essence of human rights, given in September 2007 by Colum Murphy at the New York State University, along with French Minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Kouchner and the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva Sergei Ordzhonikidze."

Distinguished Hosts, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am deeply grateful to you for your invitation to speak here today. Please accept my heartfelt thanks.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident” Thomas Jefferson wrote eloquently in the American Declaration of Independence - not “we believe these rights to be valuable, or useful, or desirable, but “self-evident”.

A “NEW DEAL” FOR THE UNITED NATIONS - let’s try again!

By Colum de Sales Murphy

The United Nations needs reform. And it needs entrepreneurship. We need also to reform the international political system. Finally, we need to reform human behaviour. Since, realistically, the latter two are not about to be reformed anytime soon, it is fitting - and urgent - that we look hard, again, at the United Nations. It is the only institution of its kind. Anyway, it ain’t going to go away, nor should it. It is, after all, family.

UN REFORM : THE VIEW FROM SWITZERLAND

By Colum de Sales Murphy

As a non-Swiss I am in no way qualified or mandated to speak of the views of Switzerland. The view of UN Reform from Switzerland, however, is illuminating.

Geneva is without doubt, as we like to say at our university, the most diplomatic neighbourhood on the planet: no less than 190 international organizations, government and non-governmental, in addition to the diplomatic missions, are in Geneva. The heart of them, still in its mostly fascist-era architecture, is the United Nations - now largely housed in the old League of Nations buildings. Across the road from where I live, in Bursinel, Churchill in 1946 wrote his United States of Europe speech for delivery in Zurich. From this vantage point, it’s easy to look backwards and forwards at the same time.

L’ONU mérite sa réforme

Par Colum de Sales Murphy

« Pour accomplir de grandes choses, il faut rêver autant qu’agir ». Le très juste postulat d’Anatole France ne pourrait s’appliquer à une meilleure situation que celle de l’Organisation des Nations Unies. Celle-ci est née d’un rêve, celui d’hommes de bonne volonté qui s’étaient courageusement élevés contre le fléau de la guerre en lui opposant la voix des peuples, de tous les peuples.

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Quotes

Colum Murphy witnessed the Western intervention in Bosnia — during and after the war—from the inside. His account provides important testimony, both about the dealings of the UN diplomats and military men, and about the attitudes of the Bosnian politicians in Sarajevo and Pale. Above ail, this is a deeply humane book, by someone who has not been afraid (unlike some of his colleagues at the time) to distinguish clearly between good and evil. — Noel Malcolm, Fellow of AII! Souls College, Oxford; author of Bosnia: A Short History.