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United
Nations Millennium Declaration.
Resolution adopted by the General Assembly
55/2
[without
reference to a Main Committee (A/55/L.2)]
The
General Assembly
Adopts the following Declaration:
United Nations Millennium Declaration
I. Values and principles
1. We, heads of State and Government,
have gathered at United Nations Headquarters
in New York from 6 to 8 September 2000,
at the dawn of a new millennium, to reaffirm
our faith in the Organization and its Charter
as indispensable foundations of a more peaceful,
prosperous and just world.
2. We recognize that, in addition
to our separate responsibilities to our
individual societies, we have a collective
responsibility to uphold the principles
of human dignity, equality and equity at
the global level. As leaders we have a duty
therefore to all the world's people, especially
the most vulnerable and, in particular,
the children of the world, to whom the future
belongs.
3. We reaffirm our commitment to
the purposes and principles of the Charter
of the United Nations, which have proved
timeless and universal. Indeed, their relevance
and capacity to inspire have increased,
as nations and peoples have become increasingly
interconnected and interdependent.
4. We are determined to establish
a just and lasting peace all over the world
in accordance with the purposes and principles
of the Charter. We rededicate ourselves
to support all efforts to uphold the sovereign
equality of all States, respect for their
territorial integrity and political independence,
resolution of disputes by peaceful means
and in conformity with the principles of
justice and international law, the right
to self-determination of peoples which remain
under colonial domination and foreign occupation,
non-interference in the internal affairs
of States, respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms, respect for the equal
rights of all without distinction as to
race, sex, language or religion and international
cooperation in solving international problems
of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian
character.
5. We believe that the central challenge
we face today is to ensure that globalization
becomes a positive force for all the world's
people. For while globalization offers great
opportunities, at present its benefits are
very unevenly shared, while its costs are
unevenly distributed. We recognize that
developing countries and countries with
economies in transition face special difficulties
in responding to this central challenge.
Thus, only through broad and sustained efforts
to create a shared future, based upon our
common humanity in all its diversity, can
globalization be made fully inclusive and
equitable. These efforts must include policies
and measures, at the global level, which
correspond to the needs of developing countries
and economies in transition and are formulated
and implemented with their effective participation.
6. We consider certain fundamental
values to be essential to international
relations in the twenty-first century. These
include:
-
Freedom.
Men and women have the right to live their
lives and raise their children in dignity,
free from hunger and from the fear of
violence, oppression or injustice. Democratic
and participatory governance based on
the will of the people best assures these
rights.
-
Equality.
No individual and no nation must be denied
the opportunity to benefit from development.
The equal rights and opportunities of
women and men must be assured.
-
Solidarity.
Global challenges must be managed in a
way that distributes the costs and burdens
fairly in accordance with basic principles
of equity and social justice. Those who
suffer or who benefit least deserve help
from those who benefit most.
-
Tolerance.
Human beings must respect one other, in
all their diversity of belief, culture
and language. Differences within and between
societies should be neither feared nor
repressed, but cherished as a precious
asset of humanity. A culture of peace
and dialogue among all civilizations should
be actively promoted.
-
Respect
for nature. Prudence must be shown
in the management of all living species
and natural resources, in accordance with
the precepts of sustainable development.
Only in this way can the immeasurable
riches provided to us by nature be preserved
and passed on to our descendants. The
current unsustainable patterns of production
and consumption must be changed in the
interest of our future welfare and that
of our descendants.
-
Shared
responsibility. Responsibility for
managing worldwide economic and social
development, as well as threats to international
peace and security, must be shared among
the nations of the world and should be
exercised multilaterally. As the most
universal and most representative organization
in the world, the United Nations must
play the central role.
7. In order to translate these shared
values into actions, we have identified
key objectives to which we assign special
significance.
II. Peace, security and disarmament
8. We will spare no effort to free
our peoples from the scourge of war, whether
within or between States, which has claimed
more than 5 million lives in the past decade.
We will also seek to eliminate the dangers
posed by weapons of mass destruction.
9. We resolve therefore:
-
To
strengthen respect for the rule of law
in international as in national affairs
and, in particular, to ensure compliance
by Member States with the decisions
of the International Court of Justice,
in compliance with the Charter of the
United Nations, in cases to which they
are parties.
-
To
make the United Nations more effective
in maintaining peace and security by giving
it the resources and tools it needs for
conflict prevention, peaceful resolution
of disputes, peacekeeping, post-conflict
peace-building and reconstruction. In
this context, we take note of the report
of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations
and request the General Assembly to consider
its recommendations expeditiously.
-
To
strengthen cooperation between the United
Nations and regional organizations, in
accordance with the provisions of Chapter
VIII of the Charter.
-
To
ensure the implementation, by States Parties,
of treaties in areas such as arms control
and disarmament and of international humanitarian
law and human rights law, and call upon
all States to consider signing and ratifying
the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court.
-
To
take concerted action against international
terrorism, and to accede as soon as possible
to all the relevant international conventions.
-
To
redouble our efforts to implement our
commitment to counter the world drug problem.
-
To
intensify our efforts to fight transnational
crime in all its dimensions, including
trafficking as well as smuggling in human
beings and money laundering.
-
To
minimize the adverse effects of United
Nations economic sanctions on innocent
populations, to subject such sanctions
regimes to regular reviews and to eliminate
the adverse effects of sanctions on third
parties.
-
To
strive for the elimination of weapons
of mass destruction, particularly nuclear
weapons, and to keep all options open
for achieving this aim, including the
possibility of convening an international
conference to identify ways of eliminating
nuclear dangers.
-
To
take concerted action to end illicit traffic
in small arms and light weapons, especially
by making arms transfers more transparent
and supporting regional disarmament measures,
taking account of all the recommendations
of the forthcoming United Nations Conference
on Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light
Weapons.
-
To
call on all States to consider acceding
to the Convention on the Prohibition of
the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer
of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction,
as well as the amended mines protocol
to the Convention on conventional weapons.
10. We urge Member States to observe
the Olympic Truce, individually and collectively,
now and in the future, and to support the
International Olympic Committee in its efforts
to promote peace and human understanding
through sport and the Olympic Ideal.
III. Development and poverty eradication
11. We will spare no effort to free
our fellow men, women and children from
the abject and dehumanizing conditions of
extreme poverty, to which more than a billion
of them are currently subjected. We are
committed to making the right to development
a reality for everyone and to freeing the
entire human race from want.
12. We resolve therefore to create
an environment - at the national and global
levels alike - which is conducive to development
and to the elimination of poverty.
13. Success in meeting these objectives
depends, inter alia, on good governance
within each country. It also depends on
good governance at the international level
and on transparency in the financial, monetary
and trading systems. We are committed to
an open, equitable, rule-based, predictable
and non-discriminatory multilateral trading
and financial system.
14. We are concerned about the obstacles
developing countries face in mobilizing
the resources needed to finance their sustained
development. We will therefore make every
effort to ensure the success of the High-level
International and Intergovernmental Event
on Financing for Development, to be held
in 2001.
15. We also undertake to address
the special needs of the least developed
countries. In this context, we welcome the
Third United Nations Conference on the Least
Developed Countries to be held in May 2001
and will endeavour to ensure its success.
We call on the industrialized countries:
-
To
adopt, preferably by the time of that
Conference, a policy of duty- and quota-free
access for essentially all exports from
the least developed countries;
-
To
implement the enhanced programme of debt
relief for the heavily indebted poor countries
without further delay and to agree to
cancel all official bilateral debts of
those countries in return for their making
demonstrable commitments to poverty reduction;
and
-
To
grant more generous development assistance,
especially to countries that are genuinely
making an effort to apply their resources
to poverty reduction.
16.
We are also determined to deal comprehensively
and effectively with the debt problems of
low- and middle-income developing countries,
through various national and international
measures designed to make their debt sustainable
in the long term.
17. We also resolve to address the
special needs of small island developing
States, by implementing the Barbados Programme
of Action and the outcome of the twenty-second
special session of the General Assembly
rapidly and in full. We urge the international
community to ensure that, in the development
of a vulnerability index, the special needs
of small island developing States are taken
into account.
18. We recognize the special needs
and problems of the landlocked developing
countries, and urge both bilateral and multilateral
donors to increase financial and technical
assistance to this group of countries to
meet their special development needs and
to help them overcome the impediments of
geography by improving their transit transport
systems.
19. We resolve further:
-
To
halve, by the year 2015, the proportion
of the world's people whose income is
less than one dollar a day and the proportion
of people who suffer from hunger and,
by the same date, to halve the proportion
of people who are unable to reach or to
afford safe drinking water.
-
To
ensure that, by the same date, children
everywhere, boys and girls alike, will
be able to complete a full course of primary
schooling and that girls and boys will
have equal access to all levels of education.
-
By
the same date, to have reduced maternal
mortality by three quarters, and under-five
child mortality by two thirds, of their
current rates.
-
To
have, by then, halted, and begun to reverse,
the spread of HIV/AIDS, the scourge of
malaria and other major diseases that
afflict humanity.
-
To
provide special assistance to children
orphaned by HIV/AIDS.
-
By
2020, to have achieved a significant improvement
in the lives of at least 100 million slum
dwellers as proposed in the "Cities
Without Slums" initiative.
20. We also
resolve:
-
To
promote gender equality and the empowerment
of women as effective ways to combat poverty,
hunger and disease and to stimulate development
that is truly sustainable.
-
To
develop and implement strategies that
give young people everywhere a real chance
to find decent and productive work.
-
To
encourage the pharmaceutical industry
to make essential drugs more widely available
and affordable by all who need them in
developing countries.
-
To
develop strong partnerships with the private
sector and with civil society organizations
in pursuit of development and poverty
eradication.
-
To
ensure that the benefits of new technologies,
especially information and communication
technologies, in conformity with recommendations
contained in the ECOSOC 2000 Ministerial
Declaration, are available to all.
IV. Protecting our common environment
21. We must spare no effort to free
all of humanity, and above all our children
and grandchildren, from the threat of living
on a planet irredeemably spoilt by human
activities, and whose resources would no
longer be sufficient for their needs.
22. We reaffirm our support for the
principles of sustainable development, including
those set out in Agenda 21, agreed upon
at the United Nations Conference on Environment
and Development.
23. We resolve therefore to adopt
in all our environmental actions a new ethic
of conservation and stewardship and, as
first steps, we resolve:
-
To
make every effort to ensure the entry
into force of the Kyoto Protocol, preferably
by the tenth anniversary of the United
Nations Conference on Environment and
Development in 2002, and to embark on
the required reduction in emissions of
greenhouse gases.
-
To
intensify our collective efforts for the
management, conservation and sustainable
development of all types of forests.
-
To
press for the full implementation of the
Convention on Biological Diversity and
the Convention to Combat Desertification
in those Countries Experiencing Serious
Drought and/or Desertification, particularly
in Africa.
-
To
stop the unsustainable exploitation of
water resources by developing water management
strategies at the regional, national and
local levels, which promote both equitable
access and adequate supplies.
-
To
intensify cooperation to reduce the number
and effects of natural and man-made disasters.
-
To
ensure free access to information on the
human genome sequence.
V. Human rights, democracy and good governance
24. We will spare no effort to promote
democracy and strengthen the rule of law,
as well as respect for all internationally
recognized human rights and fundamental
freedoms, including the right to development.
25. We resolve therefore:
-
To
respect fully and uphold the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
-
To
strive for the full protection and promotion
in all our countries of civil, political,
economic, social and cultural rights for
all.
-
To
strengthen the capacity of all our countries
to implement the principles and practices
of democracy and respect for human rights,
including minority rights.
-
To
combat all forms of violence against women
and to implement the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women.
-
To
take measures to ensure respect for and
protection of the human rights of migrants,
migrant workers and their families, to
eliminate the increasing acts of racism
and xenophobia in many societies and to
promote greater harmony and tolerance
in all societies.
-
To
work collectively for more inclusive political
processes, allowing genuine participation
by all citizens in all our countries.
-
To
ensure the freedom of the media to perform
their essential role and the right of
the public to have access to information.
VI. Protecting the vulnerable
26. We will spare no effort to ensure
that children and all civilian populations
that suffer disproportionately the consequences
of natural disasters, genocide, armed conflicts
and other humanitarian emergencies are given
every assistance and protection so that
they can resume normal life as soon as possible.
We resolve therefore:
-
To
expand and strengthen the protection of
civilians in complex emergencies, in conformity
with international humanitarian law.
-
To
strengthen international cooperation,
including burden sharing in, and the coordination
of humanitarian assistance to, countries
hosting refugees and to help all refugees
and displaced persons to return voluntarily
to their homes, in safety and dignity
and to be smoothly reintegrated into their
societies.
-
To
encourage the ratification and full implementation
of the Convention on the Rights of the
Child and its optional protocols on the
involvement of children in armed conflict
and on the sale of children, child prostitution
and child pornography.
VII. Meeting the special needs of Africa
27. We will support the consolidation
of democracy in Africa and assist Africans
in their struggle for lasting peace, poverty
eradication and sustainable development,
thereby bringing Africa into the mainstream
of the world economy.
28. We resolve therefore:
-
To
give full support to the political and
institutional structures of emerging democracies
in Africa.
-
To
encourage and sustain regional and subregional
mechanisms for preventing conflict and
promoting political stability, and to
ensure a reliable flow of resources for
peacekeeping operations on the continent.
-
To
take special measures to address the challenges
of poverty eradication and sustainable
development in Africa, including debt
cancellation, improved market access,
enhanced Official Development Assistance
and increased flows of Foreign Direct
Investment, as well as transfers of technology.
-
To
help Africa build up its capacity to tackle
the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and
other infectious diseases.
VIII. Strengthening the United Nations
29. We will spare no effort to make
the United Nations a more effective instrument
for pursuing all of these priorities: the
fight for development for all the peoples
of the world, the fight against poverty,
ignorance and disease; the fight against
injustice; the fight against violence, terror
and crime; and the fight against the degradation
and destruction of our common home.
30. We resolve therefore:
-
To
reaffirm the central position of the General
Assembly as the chief deliberative, policy-making
and representative organ of the United
Nations, and to enable it to play that
role effectively.
-
To
intensify our efforts to achieve a comprehensive
reform of the Security Council in all
its aspects.
-
To
strengthen further the Economic and Social
Council, building on its recent achievements,
to help it fulfil the role ascribed to
it in the Charter.
-
To
strengthen the International Court of
Justice, in order to ensure justice and
the rule of law in international affairs.
-
To
encourage regular consultations and coordination
among the principal organs of the United
Nations in pursuit of their functions.
-
To
ensure that the Organization is provided
on a timely and predictable basis with
the resources it needs to carry out its
mandates.
-
To
urge the Secretariat to make the best
use of those resources, in accordance
with clear rules and procedures agreed
by the General Assembly, in the interests
of all Member States, by adopting the
best management practices and technologies
available and by concentrating on those
tasks that reflect the agreed priorities
of Member States.
-
To
promote adherence to the Convention on
the Safety of United Nations and Associated
Personnel.
-
To
ensure greater policy coherence and better
cooperation between the United Nations,
its agencies, the Bretton Woods Institutions
and the World Trade Organization, as well
as other multilateral bodies, with a view
to achieving a fully coordinated approach
to the problems of peace and development.
-
To
strengthen further cooperation between
the United Nations and national parliaments
through their world organization, the
Inter-Parliamentary Union, in various
fields, including peace and security,
economic and social development, international
law and human rights and democracy and
gender issues.
-
To
give greater opportunities to the private
sector, non-governmental organizations
and civil society, in general, to contribute
to the realization of the Organization's
goals and programmes.
31. We request the General Assembly
to review on a regular basis the progress
made in implementing the provisions of this
Declaration, and ask the Secretary-General
to issue periodic reports for consideration
by the General Assembly and as a basis for
further action.
32. We solemnly reaffirm, on this
historic occasion, that the United Nations
is the indispensable common house of the
entire human family, through which we will
seek to realize our universal aspirations
for peace, cooperation and development.
We therefore pledge our unstinting support
for these common objectives and our determination
to achieve them.
8th plenary meeting
8 September 2000
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