Mary Robinson took the time during her Yale visit to speak with a reporter from WYBC. She described her work as U.N. high commissioner for human rights "a deep privilege but at times daunting."

Former U.N. official urges an 'ethical globalization'

One of the most important questions facing the world today is "how do we build an ethical globalization which bridges the current divides between north and south, rich and poor, secular and religious?" said Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and former United Nations high commissioner on human rights, in a lecture on campus.

Robinson told a packed audience on Oct. 8 in the Law School auditorium that she had come to campus to "share some thoughts on human rights in this increasingly interconnected world." Her talk, the 10th annual Coca-Cola World Fund at Yale Lecture, was titled "Building an Ethical Globalization" and was sponsored by the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, the Law School and the School of Management.

Having completed her term as U.N. high commissioner for human rights last month, Robinson said she believes that "significant progress has been made" and she has "seen a transformation to the approach to human rights over the past five years."

She noted that government and non-government organizations -- often on opposite sides of human rights issues -- are increasingly working together to solve problems in their countries, and cited Cambodia as an example. There, she said, "human rights activists were critical of the government, but they are working with the government to prepare a report for the [Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights'] Committee on the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights."

Speaking about the need to eliminate discrimination against women in nations across the globe, Robinson said, "It is very important for the women's movement that it is not about words or rhetoric, but it is about legal rules that governments have bound themselves to, and they must be made accountable."

A commitment to a human rights-based approach should apply "equally to developed and developing countries and to countries in transition," she said, noting that in China she worked "to strengthen its involvement and the promotion and protection of human rights primarily through the ratification and implementation of human rights treaties."

Robinson referred to Yale President Richard C. Levin's most recent trip to China and his efforts to increase the global reach of the university, and asked the audience to consider "how the Yale community could further contribute to shaping an ethical globalization."

She suggested that -- by drawing on the strengths of Yale's Center for International and Area Studies, Law School, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Center for the Study of Globalization and other areas, and by continuing to encourage a rights-based approach to environmental protection and issues of sustainability -- the University could make even further progress toward the study of globalization.

Robinson also recalled her first meeting with Ernesto Zedillo, then the president of Mexico, and currently director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. "Did either one of us imagine when he welcomed me to Mexico, on my first visit as high commissioner for human rights in 1999 ... that we would both identify the study of globalization as a necessary priority in the future?"

Robinson's work at the U.N. was "a deep privilege but at times daunting," she admitted. One of the areas that she will be focusing on in her post-U.N. career is to help developing countries build their own "national protection system in human rights," she said.

-- By Elizabeth Connolly

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