UN rights chief warns world risks 'dystopian future'

GENEVA

The U.N. rights chief warned Monday that the world needed to change paths to avoid a future filled with military escalation, repression, disinformation, deepening inequality, and rampant climate change.

Opening a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Volker Turk stressed that "we are at a fork in the road."

"We can either continue on our current path—a treacherous 'new normal'—and sleepwalk into a dystopian future, or we can wake up and turn things around for the better, for humanity and the planet," he said.

In a world afflicted by conflicts, including Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, Russia's war in Ukraine, and the civil war raging in Sudan, Turk insisted that "states must not—cannot—accept blatant disregard for international law."

Currently, he warned, the world appears comfortable with the "crossing of innumerable red lines, or readiness to toe right up to them."

Turk noted that during a record year for elections globally, such votes matter.

"With some elections already having taken place, and others still to come this year, I urge all voters to keep in mind the issues that matter most to them—be it a home, education for their children, their health or job, justice, their family and loved ones, the environment, to be free from violence, tackling corruption, being heard," he said.

"These are all human rights issues," he stated.

"I urge voters to ask themselves which of the political platforms or candidates will work for the human rights of everyone."

The world's new normal, he stated, "cannot be endless, vicious military escalation and increasingly horrifying, technologically advanced methods of warfare, control, and repression."

He warned against a "free-for-all spread of disinformation, smothering facts and the ability to make free and informed choices."

Turk also criticized "heated rhetoric and simplistic fixes, erasing context, nuance, and empathy. Paving the way for hate speech and the dire consequences that inevitably follow."

"I urge all voters to be vigilant. Be wary of the shrill voices, the 'strongman' types that throw glitter in our eyes, offering illusory solutions that deny reality," he cautioned.

"Know that when one group is singled out as a scapegoat for society's ills, one day your own might be next."

Gaza crisis

"Equally, the wider situation of illegality across the Occupied Palestinian Territory deriving from Israel’s policies and practices, as so clearly spelt out by the International Court of Justice in its advisory opinion in July, must be comprehensively addressed," Turk said.

"States must not and cannot accept blatant disregard for international law, including binding decisions of the Security Council and orders of the International Court of Justice, neither in this nor any other situation," he urged.

Stressing that Palestinians struggle to survive each day, he said nearly 1.9 million people have been forcibly displaced across the strip, many multiple times.

"While the actual number is likely higher, almost 10,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons or ad hoc military facilities, many arbitrarily, with over 50 people having died due to inhumane conditions and ill-treatment," he said, adding that 101 Israeli hostages are still believed to be held in Gaza.

He warned that "deadly and destructive" operations in the West Bank are at a scale "not witnessed in the last two decades," and they are "worsening a calamitous situation" which is already aggravated by settler violence.