Ladies and Gentlemen:

As a member of the World Judiciary, it gives me a great pleasure to be in this great country today, addressing such a unique, important gathering at the world's largest school, the City Montessori School (CMS), Lucknow, India. It is an honor to be here and I am indeed very much grateful to the organizers and those who have facilitated my participation in this significant conference.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Throughout the history, the process of maintaining law and order in any given society has always been seen as an essential requirement for peaceful cohabitation. The absence of law --or equally the non enforceability of the law-- therefore, affects the stability and leads to chaos in any human gathering. That is why our world today has become in real need to give more attention to the rule of law, not only within the boundaries of the concerned states, but also at the international level, in order to deal with the frequent global challenges we increasingly confront.

We, as member of the World Judiciary, are aware that both national law and international law should live together and be respected. Perhaps, potential confrontation and conflict between national and international laws are expected, but should be handled delicately without affecting the state's respect to the rule of law and its international obligations.

Consistency between national law and international law is essential for meaningful compliance with the latter, as national courts arguably remain the most effective enforcers of international standards. Absent consistency between national and international law, it is necessary to have some mechanism in place for giving effect to international law on the national plane when national and international laws conflict. Otherwise, international law shall constitute no more than hollow promises with little or no practical impact on the domestic plane.

As judges, we believe that compliance and enforcement of law have to be carried out all the way by all parties concerned, otherwise the law becomes nothing but empty slogans and hollow principles. We also trust that peaceful co-existence of human beings within civilized societies presumes due respect for the rule of law at domestic as well as international level alike. It is, therefore, a must that members of the international community and their public powers together with the different state actors should all always have a responsibility and uphold the rule of law if they tend to live under a democratic system of government wherein people are safe and their basic rights and freedoms are guaranteed.

We, as members of the World Judiciary, are always concerned with the rule of law together with the preservation as well as the promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Those are our great judicial beliefs and values; we have inherited them from our ancestors and should continue to teach them to the junior members of our judiciaries. We must put our faith in our judicial communities, and the people at large, and the values that we share. Today, we should stick to those beliefs; we should always emphasize them and do our best to make them work fairly for our people and our world.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

History is full of lessons that show us how important adherence to the law is. Today, the world at large should become more aware of the tragic consequences for the weak enforceability of international norms and ordains. The world at large should also recognize that all actors concerned should comply with the law and enforce it. Law enforcement, even at the international level, is not in any way a reserved mandate to one or specific actors. Rather, it is a common endeavor within which all actors should actively participate.

Judicial contribution in this area is irrefutable. As members of the World Judiciary, we are certainly aware of the enormous, inescapable responsibility we shoulder to facilitate access to justice and enforce the law. We should exert all possible efforts to ensure that every petitioner has appropriate access and right to court and has a fair trail and timely, enforceable judicial remedy.

As accurately, genuinely once declared by the Honorable Mr. Justice P. N. Bhagwati, former Chief Justice of India, we should, as members of the World Judiciary, interpret law creatively and imaginatively to ensure that justice is done not only to those who come before their courts, but also to those who need justice but cannot afford to come before the court .

Consequently, I have personally been taken with great admiration by the arrangements of your conference; particularly the theoretical, expressive concept of filing a public interest petition on behalf of the world's two billion children and generations yet-to-be-born. The students' conscious of the need for an enforceable international law so as to protect their future and basic fundamental rights against the ongoing threats facing the world, is indeed both timely and of great importance to human beings in all different parts of the globe. While facing a wide range of common threats and challenges --including, but not limited to, transnational terrorism, environmental problems including global warming and climate change, economic interdependence, AIDS, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction-the visionary idea of bringing before the World Judiciary a collective action at the international level employing international law could provide us with a good tool to raise worldly awareness of such threats and the need to combat them.

In that sense, I am very much hopeful that the full bench of the World Judiciary gathered here today will provide a comprehensive guidance to the petitioners and the future generations on the need to respect international norms and how best international law and order should be enforced. We should change the misconceptions and traditional belief that international law is not a law that cannot be enforced in the absence of a satisfactory enforcement mechanism.

Actually, today, many mechanisms for enforcing international law have come to exist. They include the mandate UN Charter has placed on the Security Council to determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression, and to impose mandatory sanctions to try to rectify such situations (Chapter VII) . Also, International courts as well as national courts are expected to contribute positively to the enforcement of international law and should be encouraged to do so. They should employ judicial activism and the power of judicial review to interpret international instruments in a manner that recognizes their status and gives them full effect.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

In our efforts towards establishing a better peaceful world, we must generously build the capacity of our judges and other legal stake holders to be more comfortable with international law and internationally recognized standards of human rights. This would effectively guarantee better observance and implementation of the international norms. We must move forward and not go backwards; we must not turn the clock back to the past. Our steps then should lead us towards guaranteeing more respect for the rule of law and fundamental human rights.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Our gathering today should send a powerful signal to the whole world: If our commitment to the rule of law is inheritably rooted in our beliefs and values, there should be no limits on our respect to international law if we are truly serious about our efforts to live in a more peaceful world.

Today, the future is within our reach, if we're willing to reach for it. My faith that we, members of the World Judiciary, can shape a better future for our societies and the world at large throughout fulfilling our mission in establishing and promoting respect for the rule of law, and upholding human rights and protecting the dignity of the human personality.

Promoting more respect for international law requires a sincere, continuous cooperation between members of the international community on the one hand and judicial institutions, both at national and international level, on the other. The further involvement of the judiciaries in this process will certainly advance the status of international norms in the concerned societies and consequently facilitate international law compliance and enforcement. I am confident that my fellow colleague judges, wherever they are, will willingly, patiently do their best to achieve this fundamental goal and put the enforcement of international law back on track.

Thank You,