The UN Human Rights Council has adopted by consensus a Resolution on Prevention of Genocide, sponsored by Armenia, as reported the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia.

The press release of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia particularly states the following: “This resolution is one of the major commitments of the Government of Armenia on the international agenda. The Resolution was co-sponsored by 58 countries from all five regions involved, including all EU member states, other European countries, Asia, Africa, Central and Latin Americas, Australia and Canada. Such large-scale support attests to the importance that the international community attaches to the genocide prevention agenda. Once again, the Resolution calls on focusing on massive human rights violations since it is an accepted fact that those massive violations that have ethnic, religious and other components can lead to genocides in the future.

This year, there have been several innovations in the Resolution, and one of them is that the major role of civil society in the genocide prevention agenda is stressed. There is also special emphasis on the role of prevention of violence against women and ladies as a major part for genocide prevention. Another innovation is the importance of preservation of monuments and conservation of monuments and memorial sites as a major objective to prevent genocides and transmit the memory of genocides.

One of the key descriptors of the Resolution is the need to guide genocide prevention through special practical steps which further strengthens the efforts of the international community to never allow the horrible crime ever again. I would like to give special thanks to all the countries supporting our efforts. I would also like to thank the team at the Ministry of Foreiogn Affairs which helped make the adoption of this Resolution a success. I would also like to give special thanks to Permanent Representative of Armenia to the United Nations Office at Geneva Andranik Hovhannisyan and the whole staff of the Embassy.

This Resolution serves as yet another new and qualitative step and introduces several new components to reinforce the genocide prevention agenda.”