Last week, just a month after becoming the UN’s new human rights chief, Volker Turk was in the Darfur region of Sudan, meeting victims of a conflict that has already displaced millions of people.
Later, in the capital Khartoum, he met with the generals who have seized power with the help of troops and who are using deadly force against protesters. Turk said Sudan needs a transition to civilian rule and needs to ensure that human rights are the driving force behind that political process.
Previous UN High Commissioners for Human Rights often spent a few months at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva to familiarize themselves with the intricacies of their work before departing on visits to other countries. But Turk began arranging his visit to Sudan even before he officially started in his new role. He’s getting ready to make one or two more trips by the end of the year. A mission to Ukraine is reportedly on his agenda.
On Thursday, the turmoil in Iran was at the top of his list. The UN Human Rights Council decided in an emergency session to investigate Tehran’s response to protests against theocratic rule – a wave of repression that has already led to hundreds of deaths.
The Council asked for the appointment of an international mission to investigate the Iranian authorities’ reaction to the widespread popular protests triggered by the death in police custody in September of Mahsa Amini, detained for violating the law on the wearing of a headscarf.
Turk strongly criticized the Iranian authorities’ actions, saying they had led to 300 deaths, including more than 40 children, 14,000 arrests, which he described as appalling, and the death sentences of at least six protesters.
“The old ways and fortress mentality of those in power just don’t work,” he said. “Change is inevitable. Moving forward requires significant reforms.”
The readiness with which Turk is embracing his new role points to the practical advantages he brings to this post, being an experienced official who knows the UN inside out and is familiar with its complex bureaucracy.
The 57-year-old Turk has 30 years of experience working for the United Nations, first at its refugee agency – for which he visited Darfur 11 years ago – and, for the past three years, as political adviser to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York, including for human rights issues.
But his background as an “insider” contributed to the cold reaction of international human rights organizations to his nomination. In the past, UN chiefs have tapped former heads of government, jurists or eminent diplomats for the notoriously difficult post of human rights chief, a post the holder of which must deal with world leaders and occasionally berate them for their failures on the issue. of human rights.
Critics said that, given his experience and temperament, Turk was ill-prepared for this sensitive role. And the fact that he was appointed by a UN secretary general seen as weak on human rights fueled fears that Guterres had chosen a low-key diplomat, someone who would be more likely to share his boss’s preference for diplomacy than behind the scenes than to make use of the powerful weapon of public pressure.
But the steady stream of public statements made by Turk in his first month in office has given hope to some critics. On his second day, he condemned the Ethiopian attacks on civilian targets in Tigray, calling them “completely unacceptable”. When Elon Musk acquired Twitter, Turk released an open letter reminding the billionaire of his platform’s responsibility to “avoid the dissemination of content that results in violations of the rights of people”.
And when the COP27 climate conference opened in Egypt, Turk drew the ire of the host government when he urged it to release political prisoner Alaa Abdel-Fattah, who went on a recent hunger strike, and other wrongfully convicted prisoners.
There are bigger challenges ahead.
A key test of Turk’s effectiveness will be his follow-up to the report released by his predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, minutes before leaving office. The report concluded that China may have committed crimes against humanity with its crackdown on Uyghurs and other Muslims in its region of Xinjiang.
China dismissed the report as a politicized collection of Western lies, something the UN should not have published. Chinese diplomats in Geneva sought to discredit the report, saying the High Commission did not support the text.
Beijing may be disappointed by Turk’s reaction. He said he considers the document important and the result of careful investigation. “It is a report produced by my entity, and it has my full support. It contains strong recommendations, and I will look to find ways to engage with Chinese authorities on their implementation.”
More generally speaking, Turk told reporters this month: “I will speak up when we feel our voices can make a difference or when that’s needed, especially to reinforce victims’ voices or to sound the alarm.”
Turk’s activism comes as no surprise to colleagues who have followed her career at the UN refugee agency. After serving on missions in Congo, Kosovo and Southeast Asia, Turk became head of protection, a role described by some as human rights in action.
“Turk is the kind of guy who rolls up his sleeves and gets down to business, not someone who stays at the office,” says Kirsten Young, his UN co-worker and friend who has worked alongside Turk in Kosovo and beyond. places. “Many of the works he participated in saved lives.”
Now Turk’s ambitions as high commissioner include building a much stronger UN human rights presence on the ground and raising a lot more money to fund a body that is under-resourced for the demands it faces.
The biggest challenge Turk sees ahead is recovering a global consensus that recognizes human rights as universal and fundamental to tackling the most pressing issues, including the Ukraine War and climate change.
He fights what he considers to be the mistaken view that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the cornerstone of international human rights protections adopted since World War II, is a cocktail of Western values. The deterioration of human rights, he says, “cannot be the collateral damage of geopolitics and division”.
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