INTRODUCTION

In December 2004, the City Council of Weimar, in northeast Germany, unanimously awarded its prestigious Human Rights Award to Paul Polansky, an American historian and author. Polansky was nominated for the award by Guenther Grass, recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize for Literature. The following excerpt is from Polansky 's acceptance speech:

Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has told the press on several occasions that all those responsible for violations of human rights should be brought to justice.

UN secretary-genera! Kofi Annan has also stated publicly on numerous occasions that the UN must assume a greater role to insist on the responsibility of States to protect, not injure, their own citizens so it is going to be interesting to see if the UN will apply the same standards to their own personnel that they demand from other countries when it comes to their human rights violations in Kosovo.

Of course, not many people want to hear about the UN violating human rights after all, when you have Hollywood stars acting as your ambassadors, as UNHCR does, why would any newspaper editor want to run a story about celebrities covering up crimes against humanity? But it does beg the question: why does UNHCR need Hollywood stars to promote their image? Shouldn 't UNHCR 's good works be their best public relations device?

Thus the great importance of this human rights award by the city of Weimar... this award tonight is a warning to all governments, even the world government of the United Nations, that you do not have immunity from public opinion. Nor, I hope, from public prosecution.