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UNSC discusses promoting human rights, protecting civilians

KUWAIT, July 7 (KUNA) -- The UN Security Council discussed on Tuesday contributions of the UN peace process to boosting and protecting human rights, and challenges facing human rights as well as ways of addressing them.
Addressing the Council during a virtual meeting, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said that components of human rights are contributing strongly to improving the protection, bringing the missions closer to people they serve and strengthening capabilities of governments to go ahead with comprehensive development, the rule of law and peace.
She added that the Council stressed preventing conflicts should be based on the protection of human rights, noting that this principle has been implemented through integrating human rights into the missions of the peace-keeping operations during most dangerous crises threatening the world.
She pointed out that there are 12 UN peacekeeping operations, six of which are working in accordance with the components related to human rights, while the others are special political missions.
Working on addressing human rights violations facing people prevents the recurrence of the conflicts, she said.
Human rights components in peace operations have been mandated and trained to do this work by discovering and addressing inequalities and grievances that occur due to the outbreak of certain conflicts, she added.
According to Bachelet, as the COVID-19 continues to spread rapidly, the impacts on the pandemic on health, societies and economies are threatening development and creating new grievances and tensions.
She welcomed the strong call for a global ceasefire of all cases on the council's agenda.
The call will lead to a wide coordinated global move to prevent and mitigate impacts of the pandemic in the present and the future.
The Council pointed in its resolution 607/2020 to the destructive impact of the pandemic on countries affected by the conflicts and humanitarian crises.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres demanded actions for human rights, with the aim of strengthening collective efforts to implement mission mandates in increasingly complex environments, and boost collective participation as well as contribution and responsibility of all components of peace operations so as to improve status of human rights. (end) asf.hm