and the currents across the world are running against the rights that amnesty international has been fighting for for so long. i don t, and you know why? because that is the only way, in my opinion, to prevent the world from falling into an abyss. at the moment, this is where politicians and leaders are bringing us, through a lack of common vision and common humanity. human rights is the only way at the moment we can make some claims and try to present the world with a different journey. we cannot afford to lose that battle because, if we lose it, it s the entire world that is losing. but you are losing it. well, and then we need to keep fighting, and we need to keep fighting harder. like the people of peru, like the people of taiwan, like the people of senegal, who are fighting for their rights and democracy. like the people of ukraine that are fighting for their independence. we need to keep fighting, we need to resist.
of power, and they are prepared to do everything to prevent it. the importance of rights, you see that reflected, for instance, in the fact that the indigenous people i ve just mentioned in peru, they talk about their rights. the people of taiwan who are confronting china s repression, what have they done? they ve set up a way of domesticating international convention. the climate change. well, i m going to stop you, agnes, because. i m just giving you an example. no, no, iunderstand, and what you re saying is very important. but isn t there an even more profound problem than just the fact that repression and human rights abuse appears to be on the march in so much of the world? there is another related problem that those countries which are broadly democratic and which proclaim to respect human rights, don t seem to care so much about dealing with those countries where repression is rampant. to take china and you ve alluded to taiwan several times, china is a country
where we started. but agnes callamard, there are a host of organisations focused completely and solely, for example, on the urgent need for climate change action, on the dangerous warming of our planet. what extra can amnesty international provide in a field like that when you have so much to do, as we ve discussed, on core human rights? i mean, i can show you. what is vanuatu doing right now? what is the general assembly doing on climate change? the only important thing that was done over the last six months, it mandated the international court ofjustice to provide an advisory opinion on climate change as a human rights issue, 0k? what happened less than a year ago? less than a year ago, the general assembly of the un adopted the notion that there is a right, the right to a clean environment. the human rights agenda,
amnesty international was founded to fight the repressive abuses of governments around the world. you characterise it as defending prisoners of conscience, fighting against torture and the death penalty. today, amnesty releases reports about climate justice, saying more oil equals more problems. you enter into debates about global economicjustice. do you think you re in danger of diffusing the strong and focused message of your organisation? absolutely not. the basis for amnesty s work is the udhr. in fact, we re celebrating. the universal declaration of human rights. yeah, we re celebrating its 75th anniversary. and now is not the time to suggest that it cannot be the basis for the work. the udhr recognise a range of human rights. amnesty international is not only focusing on civil and political rights, even though that s
who was there with them for months after the event, for weeks at a time? amnesty international. we went there and we kept being there for them. i was in taiwan two weeks ago. amnesty international has been in taiwan since the 1980s. we fought the white terror government. we are now in taiwan as an established ngo, but also an ally for the civil society more generally in terms of pushing for the rights agenda in the face of china s repression. so i will say that, around the world, in many places, or in the majority of places,