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Resolution adopted by the General
Assembly
[without reference to a Main Committee (A/55/L.2)]
The General Assembly
Adopts the following Declaration:
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:
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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