On Inside Geneva this week: part six of our series marking the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Imogen Foulkes talks to Michelle Bachelet, who served as UN Human Rights Commissioner from 2018 to 2022. She was a young woman during Chile\u2019s military dictatorship, and experienced human rights violations first hand.
\u201cYou needed to be as strong as possible, and not to fail and not to... how could I say confess things that could harm other people.\u201d
When democracy returned to Chile, Bachelet served as her country\u2019s president twice. Valuable experience, she believes, for later, persuading world leaders to respect human rights.
\u201cI could put myself in the shoes of that person who was making those decisions, and tried to think which could be the arguments that would convince them to respect human rights. That it's not only the right thing to do but also the smart thing.\u201d
She came under huge pressure for a much delayed but hard-hitting report on human rights in China.
\u201cI used to tell them look if you ask me not to publish this then tomorrow, another big country will call me and say don\u2019t publish this. And then another big country will come so then the only thing I can do is to go back home. Because I have to do my job. So there was lots of pressure, lots of criticism.\u201d
Now, she feels the world has failed civilians in Gaza.\xa0
\u201cYou have people there that need a humanitarian corridor, so they can get food, medicines, water, electricity and I feel that the international community has been slow to respond. Slow and weak.\u201d
And what about the Universal Declaration at 75?
\u201cThe Universal Declaration is still valid. Because it gives sort of a minimal, I would say, standard of how we can live together.\u201d
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