Editor's note: This is the near-final draft which will be
presented to the delegates to the Millennium Assembly and Summit meeting
at the United Nation in New York, September 6 - 9, 2000. Delegates will
undoubtedly make minor word changes during the session, but the essence of
the Declaration will remain.
I. Values and Principles
1. We, the Heads of State and Government of the Member States of the
United Nations, have gathered at the dawn of a new Millennium at United
Nations Headquarters in New York 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 equality and equity at the global level. As leaders we
have a duty, therefore, to all the world's people, especially to 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
United Nations Charter, which have proved timeless and universal. Indeed,
their relevance and capacity to inspire have increased as nations and
peoples have become increasingly inter-connected and interdependent
4. 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 distributed and its costs mainly borne by the
developing countries. To be inclusive and equitable, globalization
requires broad and sustained effort to create a shared future, based upon
our common humanity in all its diversity. It also requires policies and
measures that are sensitive to the needs of developing countries.
5. We consider certain fundamental values to be essential to
international relations in the 21st Century. These include:
- Multilateralism: The management of worldwide economic and
social development as well as risks and threats to international peace
and security must be a shared responsibility. As the most universal
and most representative organization in the world, the United Nations
must play a central role in exercising this responsibility.
- 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
multilaterally, and in a way that shares the costs and burdens fairly
in accordance with the most basic principles of equity and social
justice. Those who suffer, or who benefit least, are entitled to help
from those who benefit most.
- Tolerance: Human beings must respect each other, in all
their diversity of faith, culture and language. Differences within and
between societies should neither be feared nor repressed, but
cherished as a precious asset of humanity. 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 so 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 seriously addressed in the interest of our future
6. In translating these shared values into actions we have identified
the key objectives to which we assign particular significance.
II. Peace, Security and Disarmament
7. We will spare no effort to free our peoples from the scourge of war,
both intra and interstate, which has claimed more than 5 million lives in
the past decade. We will at the same time seek to eliminate the dangers
posed by weapons of mass destruction.
8. We resolve therefore:
- To strengthen respect for the rule of law, in
international as in national affairs, and in particular to ensure the
implementation of both the agreed provisions of treaties on the
control of armaments and of international humanitarian and human
rights laws. In this connection, we urge all States to sign and ratify
the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
- To enhance the effectiveness of the United Nations in the
maintenance of peace and security, by giving it the resources and the
tools required to promote conflict prevention, the peaceful resolution
of disputes, post-conflict peace building and reconstruction, and by
strengthening the capacity of the Organization to conduct peace
keeping operations.
- To take concerted action against the menaces of terrorism
and drug trafficking and to expedite the adoption of an International
Convention against Terrorism.
- To minimize the adverse effects of economic sanctions on
innocent populations, and to subject sanctions regimes to regular
reviews and to eliminate the adverse effects of sanctions on third
parties.
- To take concerted action to prevent the illegal traffic in
small arms and light weapons, especially by creating greater
transparency in arms transfers and supporting regional disarmament
measures, in the light of the recommendations of the International
Conference on Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Arms in all its
aspects.
- To call on all States to sign and ratify the Ottawa Treaty
banning the manufacture, production, use and export of anti-personnel
landmines.
- To strive towards the elimination of weapons of mass
destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, and to convene a major
international conference to identify ways of eliminating nuclear
dangers.
III. Development and Poverty Eradication
9. 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 confined. We are committed to
fully realising the right to development and freedom from want.
10. We resolve, therefore, to create an enabling environment- at
national and global levels alike- which is conducive to development, the
empowerment of women and the elimination of poverty.
11. At the national level, it is now widely accepted that success in
meeting these objectives depends in large measure on the quality of
governance within a country. Internationally, success depends on the
existence of an open, equitable, rule-based, predictable and
non-discriminatory multilateral trading system, which guarantees special
and differential treatment of developing countries, and on corresponding
provisions to facilitate investments, transfer of technology and knowledge
as well as financial flows.
12. We also resolve to promote the special needs of the least developed
countries and towards that end, call on the industrialized countries to:
adopt, by the time of the 3rd United Nations Conference on the
Least Developed Countries, a policy of duty-free and quota-free access for
essentially all exports from the least developed countries; to implement
the enhanced program of debt relief for the heavily indebted poor
countries without further delay; to agree to cancel all official debts of
those countries in return for their making demonstrable commitments to
poverty reduction; and to grant more generous development assistance,
especially to countries which are genuinely making an effort to apply
their resources to poverty reduction.
13. We also resolve to address the debt problems of low and medium
income countries in a comprehensive and definitive manner.
14. We resolve further:
To halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of the world's people
(currently 22 per cent) whose income is less than one dollar a day.
To halve, by the same date, the proportion of people (currently 20 per
cent) who are unable to access, or to afford, safe drinking water.
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.
That by then we have halted, and begun to reverse, the spread of the
HIV/AIDS, the scourge of malaria and other major diseases which afflict
humanity.
That, at the same time, we will have reduced the maternal mortality by
three- fourths and under 5 infant mortality by two-thirds of their current
rates.
That, by 2020, we will have achieved significant improvements in the
lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers in the developing and
transitional countries, in accordance with the Cities Without Slums
initiative.
15. We also resolve:
- To promote gender equality in its own right, and as an
effective means of combating poverty, hunger and disease, and of
stimulating development.
- To develop and implement successful strategies that give
young people everywhere the opportunity of finding decent and
productive work.
- To encourage the pharmaceutical industry to make essential
drugs more widely available and affordable to all people in developing
countries who need them.
- To ensure that the benefits of new technologies,
especially information technology, are available to all.
- To strengthen cooperation between the United Nations and
regional organisations in accordance with the provisions of Chapter
VIII of the UN Charter.
- To commit our governments to national policies and
programmes directed specifically at reducing poverty in the poorest
countries, to be developed and applied in consultation with civil
society.
- To develop strong partnerships with the private sector and
civil society organizations in pursuit of development and poverty
eradication.
- To provide special assistance to children orphaned by
HIV/AIDS, as well as those suffering from other diseases and their
effects.
IV. Protecting our Common Environment
16. 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 can no longer
provide for their needs.
17.We resolve, therefore, to adopt in all our environmental actions a
new ethic of conservation and stewardship and, as first steps agree:
- To adopt and ratify the Kyoto Protocol, so that it can
enter into force no later than 2002- 10 years after the Rio
Conference, and 20 years after the first United Nations Conference on
the Human Environment and to begin the required reduction of emissions
of greenhouse gasses, especially in developed countries.
- To press for the full implementation of the Convention of
Biological Diversity and the Convention to Combat Desertification.
- To arrest the unsustainable exploitation of water
resources by developing water management strategies at the regional,
national and local levels including pricing structures promoting 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 the information on the genetic
code, since this belongs to all humanity.
V. Good Governance, Democracy and Human Rights
18. We will spare no effort to promote democracy and strengthen the
rule of law, as well as the respect for all internationally recognized
human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to development.
19. We resolve, therefore:
- To fully observe 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.
- To support capacity building in all our countries to
implement the principles and practices of democracy and respect for
human rights including minority rights.
- To press for more inclusive and participatory political
processes in all of countries.
- To rectify the prevailing imbalance in global
decision-making, whereby rules to facilitate the expansion of markets
have become more robust and enforceable, while measures and
international cooperation that promote equally valid social
objectives- such as development and poverty eradication, human rights,
labour standards or environmental concerns- have lagged behind in
implementation.
- To ensure the right of the media to perform its essential
role of informing the public, and the right of the public to receive
ideas and information provided by the media.
VI. Protecting the Vulnerable
20. We will spare no effort to ensure that women and children and all
civilian populations who suffer disproportionately the consequences of
natural disasters and armed conflicts, are given every assistance and
protection to regain normal life.
We resolve, therefore:
- To expand the protection of civilians in complex
emergencies.
- To combat violence against women in all its forms,
- To encourage the ratification and full implementation of
the Convention of the Rights on the Child, as well as the Optional
Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the
Involvement of Children in Armed Conflicts.
VII. Meeting the Special Needs of Africa
21. Extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa affects a higher proportion
of the population than in any other region. It is compounded by a higher
incidence of conflict, HIV/AIDS and other hardships.
22. We resolve, therefore, that we will take special measures to
address these and other critical needs of Africa, including the need for
debt cancellation, improved market access and enhanced ODA and FDI flows
and give our full support to Africans in their struggle for durable peace
and sustainable development.
VIII. Strengthening the United Nations
23. We will spare no effort to make the United Nations a more effective
instrument for pursuing all of these priorities; 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.
24. We resolve, therefore:
To restore the centrality and enhance the effectiveness of the General
Assembly as the chief deliberative and representative organ of the United
Nations.
To call for the speedy reform and enlargement of the Security Council,
making it more representative, effective and legitimate in the eyes of all
the world's people.
To further strengthen the Economic and Social Council, building on its
recent achievements, so that it may be able to fulfill the role ascribed
to it in the Charter.
To ensure that the Organization is provided with adequate resources, on
a timely and predictable basis, so that it may carry out its mandates.
To urge the Secretariat to make the best use of those resources 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 priorities of Member States.
To ensure greater policy coherence and enhance cooperation amongst the
United Nations, its Agencies, the Breton- Woods Institutions, as well as
other multilateral bodies, with a view to securing a fully coordinated
approach to the problems of peace and development.
To give full opportunities to civil society, parliamentarians, the
private sector and other non-state actors to contribute to the achievement
of the Organization's goals and programs.
25. We request the General Assembly to review on a regular basis the
progress made in implementing the provisions of this Declaration and, in
cooperation with the Secretariat, issue periodic reports for information
and further action.
26. We solemnly reaffirm on this historic occasion that the United
Nations in the indispensable common house of the entire human family, and
through which it will be able to realise its universal aspirations for
peace, cooperation and development. We will therefore pledge our
unstinting support for the attainment of these common objectives.
