O Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney on Wednesday in Vienna complained of backward steps in the application of human rights. “The international system is failing,” Clooney told the 4Gamechangers Festival in Vienna’s Marx Halle and also saw Europe’s national governments as responsible. War crimes like those in Ukraine must be prosecuted by national courts – including in Austria, she demanded.
Clooney paints a worrying picture of the international human rights situation. “Not only are we not closing new deals, we haven’t delivered on the promises we made 30 years ago,” she said.
The human rights lawyer found the reason for the lack of enforcement of human rights in the veto power of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – including Russia. Furthermore, many States have not yet joined the International Criminal Court (ICC). She has little hope that the system will be reformed anytime soon.
Individual governments can also do a lot in the fight for human rights, for example issuing emergency visas to persecuted journalists and vulnerable groups to bring them to safety, demanded the human rights lawyer.
Schallenberg responds to the allegations
O Ukrainian human rights lawyer Oleksandra Matviychuk, whose organization CCL received the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, called for a special court to prosecute Russian war crimes. “We have to break this cycle of impunity,” said Matviychuk.
O Ukrainian human rights lawyer Oleksandra Matviychuk.
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She called on governments and Austria to exert political pressure to hold Russian perpetrators accountable. Russian troops have been committing war crimes in Chechnya, Georgia or Syria for decades, “and governments like Austria ignore this and shake hands with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin,” she criticized.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP), who was confronted with demands from human rights activists during his subsequent appearance, stated that Austria was already working hard to ensure that those responsible for war crimes were held accountable. “We strongly support the International Criminal Court, both financially and in terms of personnel,” said Schallenberg. Furthermore, Austria is part of a group of states working to establish a special court in Ukraine to charge Russia with an act of aggression.
O Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska was connected from Kyiv.
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The one connected via video Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska called for much international support to “return peace to the world this year”. The wife of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the difficult situation in Ukraine, from which children suffer the most. More than half of the schools would not have air raid shelters. “The biggest problem for Ukraine is the destroyed medical facilities: hundreds of hospitals and clinics have been completely destroyed.”
Nobel Peace Prize winners Murad and Ebadi
Well-known Nobel Peace Prize winners also spoke at the festival in Vienna organized by the ProSiebenSat.1Puls4 Group and ORF on Wednesday. O Nobel Peace Prize Yezidi Nadia Muradsurvivor of IS’s radical Islamic genocide against the Yazidi minority in Iraq, complained that European states would not take back former IS supporters from their countries.
O Iraqi Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Nadia Murad.
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“Leaving these people and their children in the fields or releasing them is the same and equally dangerous.” She visited the fields: “You can’t live there,” Murad reported. Germany has shown how crimes committed by IS can be prosecuted in national courts, Murad said, and urged other countries to follow suit.
O Iranian Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi expressed confidence that the Iranian protest movement will succeed. “I know that sooner or later this movement will prevail – without violence,” Ebadi said.
Most Iranians are convinced that the current system cannot be reformed, Ebadi said. According to the Iranian human rights lawyer, if the Iranian regime falls, many other problems in the region will also be resolved, such as the conflicts in Yemen, Syria and Lebanon, where Iran is interfering.