“We are gratified for this acknowledgement that the concern for peace and the promotion of human rights are inseparable. Peace is not to be measured by the absence of conventional war, but constructed upon foundations of justice. Where there is injustice, there is the seed of conflict. Where human rights are violated, there are threats to peace…
The integral relationship between the cause of peace and the concern for human dignity was perhaps an all too obvious and easily reached conclusion in the aftermath of a universal holocaust. But with the passage of time this vision of the just society as a precondition to a peaceful world has grown dim. The vision must not be lost.
People everywhere need to be continually reminded that violations of human rights, whether arbitrary arrest and detention, unjust imprisonment, torture, or political assassination, are threats to world peace. Each violation, wherever it occurs, can set in motion a trend towards the debasement of human dignity. From individuals to groups, from groups to nations, from nations to groups of nations, in chain reaction a pattern sets in, a pattern of violence and repression and a lack of concern for human welfare.
This must never be allowed to start. And the place to stop it is at the level of the individual. Therefore, the protection of the rights of the individual to think freely, to express himself freely, to associate freely with others and to disseminate his thoughts is essential to the preservation of world peace.”
– Amnesty International Nobel Peace Prize Lecture
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