UN General Assembly
1990

As we welcome the end of the cold war, we also welcome a new perspective for the United Nations in the field of human rights. United Nations human rights standards have always provided clear and uncompromising criteria by which the conduct and achievement of Governments could be measured. Now a sustained effort can be made to strengthen the supervisory machinery which is so important if respect for human rights is really to be improved. In the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) mechanisms have been established which, more than the United Nations body of norms, provide States with specific detailed procedures to hold each other accountable for violations of human rights. The same may be true for the new norms which have been developed in the CSCB for compliance with the requisites of free elections and the rule of law. Here, as elsewhere, regional and United Nations systems should reinforce each other.