The world is at a dangerous moment as conflicts spread, UN rights chief says

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. human rights chief warned Thursday that the world is at an especially dangerous moment in history, with disregard and disrespect for international law “reaching a deafening crescendo.”

Volker Türk said conflicts are spreading and intensifying and humanitarian and human rights laws are being “trampled amid broad impunity.”

He was sharply critical of Israeli authorities for allowing Palestinians in Gaza to reach “catastrophic levels of hunger” but also cited human rights violations in Ukraine, Sudan, Haiti and Myanmar — and said he could name many other conflicts.

The U.N. high commissioner for human rights spoke about this critical moment “for human life, for human rights and for the stability and prosperity” of countries to reporters Thursday and in a briefing to the General Assembly’s human rights committee on Wednesday.

Türk said the reason the world is in such a crisis of conflicts and violations of international law is because the international structures that were painstakingly built after World War II and the Holocaust to protect human rights and prevent atrocities are starting to erode.

“Then, we have to be very worried because the erosion leads to more erosion,” and if civilian casualties are at the edge of being accepted in conflicts, “and you sort of get used to the fact that war is the answer to everything, I fear for the world — and I fear for human rights in particular,” he said.

Türk was especially critical of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, reiterating his warning to Israel that starvation of civilians in war is prohibited by international humanitarian law "and constitutes a war crime.”

Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon insisted Wednesday at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Gaza that his country’s humanitarian efforts remain “as comprehensive as ever.” He criticized the council for focusing on the humanitarian situation in Gaza while Israeli civilians “are being targeted daily by those who seek our destruction.”

Danon said Israel has delivered over 1 million tons of aid, including 700,000 tons of food, to Gaza since it launched its military operation after Hamas’ attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. He stressed that the real issue is Hamas, which he said “has hijacked the aid, seizing it for their own purposes.”

Türk said the reality on the ground is that only a trickle of aid is getting into Gaza. He cited reports that Israeli forces are preventing aid from reaching the north, where Israel is conducting a ground offensive.

The U.N. rights chief also said Israeli evacuation orders appear aimed at cutting off the north and cited “serious concerns about a large-scale forcible transfer of civilians,” which would amount to a war crime.

With Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon taking military action against each other on another front, he said, “the risk of a full-fledged regional war remains very high — one that could engulf the lives and the human rights of millions of people.”

Elsewhere, Türk said, wars and extreme violence are devastating lives.

“In Ukraine, nearly 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion, we continue to see terrible devastation, characterized by recurring human rights violations and war crimes,” he said.

In Sudan, he said, the more than yearlong war between rival government and paramilitary forces competing for power has forced “a staggering 10 million people to flee their homes” and left more than 25 million people facing acute hunger.

In Haiti, Türk said his office has documented more than 3,950 killings, 1,835 injuries and 1,150 kidnappings as a result of gang violence so far this year.

And in Myanmar, he said, “air and artillery strikes on civilians, mass arrests and reports of extrajudicial killings in blatant breach of human rights and humanitarian law continue unabated, amidst stifling impunity.”

Wars can only end when human rights are respected, Türk stressed, and restoring that respect “is more essential now than ever.”