A/HRC/23/29 III. Statements of panellists A. Special Advisor of the Secretary-General for the prevention of genocide and participant in the World Conference 21. The Special Advisor of the Secretary-General on the prevention of genocide, Mr. Adama Dieng, highlighted the fact that the Vienna Declaration represented a building block of contemporary human rights from both a theoretical and practical perspective. Firstly, by reiterating that the promotion and protection of human rights was a matter of priority for the international community, it reaffirmed the principle of the universality of human rights. Second, it represented a global commitment to the protection, promotion and implementation of human rights at the national, regional and international levels. He emphasized, in particular, paragraph 28 of the Declaration that states that “the World Conference on Human Rights expresses its dismay at massive violations of human rights especially in the form of genocide, ethnic cleansing and systematic rape of women in war situations, creating mass exodus of refugees and displaced persons. While strongly condemning such abhorrent practices it reiterates the call that perpetrators of such crimes be punished and such practices immediately stopped.” 22. Mr. Dieng referred to the Rwanda and Bosnia genocides and stressed that the establishment of international tribunals, as well as the creation of ad hoc and national courts to prosecute those responsible for international crimes and massive human rights violations, represented important steps in the fight against impunity. The creation of the International Criminal Court was a further vital step in the global search for justice. 23. Mr. Dieng mentioned the establishment of the position of the Special Adviser on the prevention of genocide as an important commitment by the international community towards the prevention of genocide and related atrocities. However, he made clear that many challenges remained in light of the tremendous price paid in terms of human lives lost when atrocity crimes occur. He said that millions of lives had been lost in the previous twenty years and referred to several country situations. 24. Mr. Dieng concluded by calling again for the Vienna Declaration to be used as a guide for our work for human rights. He considered the concept of the responsibility to protect agreed by the 2005 World Summit to be a natural development of the 1993 World Conference. He called for the commitment to the responsibility to protect to be renewed and said that despite the complexity and difficulty of that task, we had to do our best to keep the promise of “never again”. B. Member of the Turkish Parliament and member of the Committee on the rights of persons with disabilities 25. Member of the Turkish Parliament and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Ms. Safak Pavey, identified herself as a member of the 1990s generation and thanked all those involved in Vienna in 1993 for the path they opened for future generations, including children, women, disabled people and minorities. She recalled that, while at that time the divisions seemed almost impossible to overcome, the agreement on the VDPA was a major achievement. She stressed that the VDPA played a very important role in making “discrimination” unacceptable and shameful at the level of States. In the previous twenty years, developments and changes within the international community had strengthened multilateral human rights actors and procedures. Human rights were accepted as less controversial in foreign policy agendas, with civil society becoming increasingly significant in the political landscape. 7