Millennium Forum Report at the United Nations, 22-26 May 2000
DECLARATION AND AGENDA FOR ACTION
Strengthening the United Nations for the 21st Century: Recommendations of delegates at the Millennium Forum at the United Nations, 22-26 May 2000
Report By
Dr Chan Ngai Weng
President
Water Watch Penang (WWP)
10 Brown Road, 10350 Penang
Tel: 04-2283306
Fax: 04-2267042
Email: nwchan@usm.my
Introduction
From May 22 to 26 2000, 1,350 representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other civil society organizations from more than 100 countries, met and deliberated on an agenda for action at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York. This agenda is the result of the week-long forum called “The Millennium Forum”. Dr Chan Ngai Weng, representing Water Watch Penang (WWP) and the only representative from Malaysia, was one of the representatives who contributed to this agenda. The agenda includes a vision covering various vital issues confronting humanity in the new millennium such as: Poverty Eradication and Debt Cancellation; Peace, Security and Disarmament; Globalization, Equity, Justice and Diversity; Human Rights; Sustainable Development and the Environment; and the Strengthening and Democratization of the United Nations and International Organizations. The agenda is a comprehensive well-thought out strategy that would ensure the continued survival and prosperity of human society and planet Earth for the future. The agenda for action is as follows:
DECLARATION AND AGENDA FOR ACTION
We, 1,350 representatives of over 1,000 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other civil society organizations from more than 100 countries, have gathered at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York from 22 – 26 May 2000 to build upon a common vision and the work begun at civil society conferences and the UN world conferences of the 1990’s, to draw the attention of governments to the urgency of implementing the commitments they have made, and to channel our collective energies by reclaiming globalization for and by the people.
Our Vision
Our vision is of a world that is human-centered and genuinely democratic, where all human beings are full participants and determine their own destinies. In our vision we are one human family, in all our diversity, living on one common homeland and sharing a just, sustainable and peaceful world, guided by universal principles of democracy, equality, inclusion, voluntarism, non-discrimination and participation by all persons, men and women, young and old, regardless of race, faith, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity or nationality. It is a world where peace and human security, as envisioned in the principles of the United Nations Charter, replace armaments, violent conflict and wars. It is a world where everyone lives in a clean environment with a fair distribution of the earth’s resources. Our vision includes a special role for the dynamism of young people and the experience of the elderly and reaffirms the universality, indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights – civil, political, economic, social and cultural.
The Challenges
We begin the new millennium facing grave and interconnected challenges. As actors in the struggle for peace, justice and the eradication of poverty, NGOs encounter daily the human impact of rising violence and armed conflicts, widespread violations of human rights, and unacceptably large numbers of people who are denied the means of a minimal human existence. At the same time, new and emerging diseases such as HIV/AIDS threaten to devastate entire societies.
Globalization and advances in technology create significant opportunities for people to connect, share and learn from each other. At the same time, corporate-driven globalization increases inequities between and within countries, undermines local traditions and cultures, and escalates disparities between rich and poor, thereby marginalizing large numbers of people in urban and rural areas. Women, indigenous peoples, youth, boys and girls, and people with disabilities suffer disproportionately from the effects of globalization. Massive debt repayments are still made by the poorest nations to the richest, at the expense of basic healthcare, education and children's lives. Trafficking in women, sexual exploitation, drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and the flow of small arms promote insecurity. States are becoming weaker, while an unaccountable, transnational private sector grows stronger. A single-minded focus on economic growth through uncontrolled free markets, combined with the adjustment and stabilization policies of international financial institutions controlled by the rich creditor nations are crippling many national economies, exacerbating poverty, eroding human values and destroying the natural environment.
Globalization should be made to work for the benefit of everyone: eradicate poverty and hunger globally; establish peace globally; ensure the protection and promotion of human rights globally; ensure the protection of our global environment; enforce social standards in the workplace globally. This can happen only if global corporations, international financial and trade institutions and governments are subject to effective democratic control by the people. We see a strengthened and democratized United Nations and a vibrant civil society as guarantors of this accountability. And we issue a warning: if the architects of globalization are not held to account, this will not simply be unjust; the edifice will crumble with dire consequences for everyone. In the end, the wealthy will find no refuge, as intolerance, disease, environmental devastation, war, social disintegration and political instability spread.
We wish to put forward a series of concrete steps to strengthen cooperation among all actors at the international, national, regional and local levels to make this vision a reality. Our Agenda for Action includes steps that should be taken by civil society, governments, and the United Nations.
A. ERADICATION OF POVERTY: INCLUDING SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND DEBT CANCELLATION
Poverty is a violation of human rights. With some 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty, it is the most widespread violation of human rights in the world. Poverty exists not only in the developing countries, but is also a dramatic and hidden reality in the industrialized countries. Particularly affected are disadvantaged and underrepresented groups - indigenous people, people with disabilities, women, children, youth, and the elderly. Hunger and the HIV/AIDS pandemic are also highly related to poverty. Processes of impoverishment inherent in the global economic system are resulting in increasing inequity, social injustice and violence worldwide.
Eradication of poverty has become a matter of urgency. Poverty eradication is not an automatic consequence of economic growth; it requires purposeful action to redistribute wealth and land, to construct a safety net and to provide universal free access to education. We call on our governments, and the United Nations to make poverty eradication a top political priority.
The Forum urges
The United Nations:
1. To act as an independent arbitrator to balance the interest of debtor and creditor nations and to monitor how debt cancellation funds are spent.
2. To introduce binding codes of conduct for transnational companies, and effective tax regulation on the international financial markets, investing this money in programmes for poverty eradication.
3. To immediately establish at the United Nations, a Global Poverty Eradication Fund, which will ensure that poor people have access to credit, with contributions from governments, corporations, and the World Bank and other sources.
4. To adopt cultural development as the focus theme of one of the remaining years of the International Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1996-2007).
Governments:
1. To implement fully the commitments made at the World Summit for Social Development in 1995, in partnership with all actors of civil society in an integrated and holistic framework. Governments should focus their efforts and policies on addressing the root causes of poverty and providing for the basic needs of all, giving special priority to the needs and rights of disadvantaged and underrepresented. We further call on the governments to anchor the Copenhagen goals in their national statutes and to introduce national anti-poverty strategies that provide safety nets and basic livelihood allocation as a right.
2. To strengthen the entrepreneurial capacity of women, indigenous people and people in the informal productive sector, ensuring access to credit, to enable them to become self-employed. This is the sure way of creating jobs for all and a sustainable way of eradicating poverty.
3. To support the efforts of the poor to keep families together, with particular attention to disadvantaged and underrepresented groups including indigenous people, people with disabilities, women, children, youth, and the elderly. Effective action and resources are essential for those affected by migration.
4. To address the incidence, impact and continuing human costs of HIV/AIDS. To increase spending for health research and to ensure that the fruits of this research reach the people.
5. To recognize the special potential of people with disabilities and ensure their full participation and equal role in political, economic, social and cultural fields. To further recognize and meet their special needs, introduce inclusive policies and programmes for their empowerment, and ensure that they take a leading role in poverty eradication. To urge all states to apply the UN standard rules on the equalization of opportunities for persons with disabilities.
6. To review, adopt and maintain macro-economic policies and development strategies that address the needs and efforts of women in poverty, particularly those with disabilities. To develop gender-based methodologies to address the feminization of poverty and to recognize the leading role of women in eradicating poverty, as outlined in the declaration of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.
7. To provide universal access to "education for all," prioritizing free basic education and skills training for poor communities to improve their productive capacities. We call on governments to increase budgets for education, to reduce the technology gap, and to restructure educational policy to ensure that all children (girls and boys) receive moral, spiritual, peace and human rights education, while acknowledging, through programmes for families, adult literacy and the elderly, that education is a lifelong process. Special attention must be paid to the girl child. And higher education must be attainable on merit and not only on ability to pay.
8. To move towards economic reforms aimed at equity: in particular, to construct macro economic policies that combine growth with the goal of human development and social justice; to prevent the impoverishment of groups that emerged from poverty but are still vulnerable to social risks and exclusion; to improve legislation on labor standards including the provision of a minimum legal wage and an effective social system; and to restore people’s control over primary productive resources as a key strategy for poverty eradication.
9. To introduce and implement programmes to eradicate corruption in governments and civil society at large, and to promote good governance, accountability, democracy and transparency as the foundation for public ethics.
10. To adopt comprehensive, integrated policies so that priorities of such government departments as trade and defense are in line with the policies for international sustainable development.
11. To promote the use of indigenous crops and traditional production skills to produce goods and services.
12. To explore the feasibility of a legally binding Convention for Overcoming Poverty, to be drafted in effective consultation and partnership with people living in poverty themselves.
13. To cancel the debts of developing countries, including odious debts, the repayment of which diverts funds from basic needs. To improve measures to ensure that funds from debt cancellation are spent in consultation with the impoverished sections of society within the indebted nations. To direct international financial institutions to cancel 100% of the debt owed to them and to establish an arbitration process that balances the interests of debtor and creditor nations, with an independent arbitrator who will ensure discipline and transparency.
14. To call the World Trade Organization (WTO) to rectify urgently, the agriculture agreements that put pressure on developing countries to liberalize food imports, threatening their rural livelihoods, employment, natural resources, indigenous knowledge and food production and security in general.
Civil Society:
1. To monitor and pressure governments to ensure that all the ten commitments made at the World Summit on Social Development become a reality for all. To assume our own responsibilities to help formulate and implement the national strategies for poverty eradication and to ensure the participation of the poor and marginalized communities. To create or strengthen mechanisms to monitor organizations that work against the interests of the poor.
2. To develop new relations and partnerships among community institutions, educators, scientists, researchers, local authorities, businesses, labor and NGOs in a constructive dialogue and planning process so that all can contribute their best. To pay special attention to those who have suffered most from poverty and to those who have the least opportunity to be heard by others. The poor must see themselves as real partners and must be empowered to enhance and employ their own abilities and resources in order to be of service to themselves, their families, their communities and their common home.
3. To exert our best efforts to implement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - affirming the universality, indivisibility and interdependence of ALL rights, civil, political, social, economic and cultural - and to join the global movement for human dignity.
4. To improve conditions for decent work, capacity building and participation. To encourage the media to help monitor the commitments that governments have made.
5. To dedicate attention to the special needs of the young and the elderly, especially those from the South, and to provide opportunities for them, including access to information, and all forms of health care and education, which are essential to the eradication of poverty.
6. To direct special action to decrease high levels of youth unemployment to all global stake-holders at local, national, regional and international levels.
B. PEACE, SECURITY, AND DISARMAMENT
The UN and its member states have failed to fulfill their primary responsibility of maintaining peace and preserving human life. Organized armed violence is depriving millions of people all over the world -- 95% of them civilians -- of their lives, and many
millions more of their right to peace.
The victims of Hiroshima/Nagasaki A-bombs and of the century's other warshave vehemently warned us that the errors of the 0th century must not be repeated in the 21st. However, the killing is continuing. Six million people have died in over 50 wars in the last decade. There have been some successes, but many of these conflicts have lasted for decades with millions of dead. The cycle of violence begins with cultures that glorify violence and warrior virtues, and may be manifest in domestic violence.
Despite over fifty years of effort, no decisive progress has yet been made in eliminating nuclear weapons, still capable of destroying all life on this planet, and the circle of their possessors is expanding. For mainly commercial reasons, there is no adequate verification for treaties prohibiting biological weapons, while knowledge of how to produce them spreads. Rape continues to be used as a weapon of war. Space has been militarized, and space weapons are being actively developed. For the moment, the problem is centered in a small group of eight states that are claiming for themselves the right to possess weapons that could destroy all of humankind.
Disarmament alone is not the way to peace; it must be accompanied by genuine human security. It is imperative that NGOs be included in the dialogue for peace. The world community -- civil society, including younger and older people, and governments -- has the resources and knowledge to move from a culture of violence to a culture of peace.
The time has come to carry out the primary mission set forth in the United Nations Charter, “to preserve future generations from the scourge of war,” and to apply the principle of non-use of force, which is fundamental to the UN Charter. Working together, both civil society and governments can make armed conflict increasingly rare and can move, step by step, to the abolition of war.
The Forum urges
The United Nations:
1. To carry out the objective of moving toward the abolition of war by practical means, the UN Secretariat and interested governments, or a separate group of governments, should develop a draft proposal for global disarmament to be discussed in a fourth Special Session of the General Assembly for Disarmament. This proposal would be aimed specifically at reducing the level of armed violence throughout the world through continuing improved conflict prevention, peace keeping, conventional disarmament, and nuclear weapons abolition, in a program designed to be promoted by a broad coalition of civil society organizations, particularly youth organizations, as well as by interested governments.
2. To establish a corps of at least 50 professionally trained mediators for more effective conflict prevention, to assist in conflict warning, mediation, and conflict resolution.
3. To authorize, through the General Assembly, the establishment of an international, non-violent, inclusive, standing Peace Force of volunteer women and men to deploy to conflict areas to provide early warning, facilitate conflict resolution, protect human rights, and prevent death and destruction.
4. To draw on legal systems for conflict prevention and resolution, such as those of indigenous peoples which have conflict resolution mechanisms of their own.
5. To ensure that no “non-discriminatory” weapons, such as landmines and sub-munitions, are used by any military force, in particular by any force or coalition acting under a UN mandate.
6. To assist the Security Council on conflict prevention in a more flexible way, the General Assembly should establish an open-ended Conflict Prevention Committee to serve a rapid action conflict prevention and early warning function. It should give the world public, civil society, the UN, and national governments balanced, timely information on potential conflicts and promote possible solutions.
7. To respect national sovereignty and the prohibition of the use of force, which are fundamental in the UN Charter. This principle must not be undermined. In the solution of conflicts, all peaceful methods in accordance with Chapter 6 of the UN Charter must be tried before measures of force are undertaken in accordance with Chapter 7. The UN General Assembly should set up a broad commission to analyze standards for forceful action in cases where crimes against humanity, war crimes, or genocide are committed.
8. To expand the UN Arms register in order to show production and sale of small arms and light weapons. It should include specific names of their producers and traders.
9. To reopen the Peace Education Unit in the Department of Political Affairs (UN-DPA) with provisions for continuous liaison with NGOs.
10. To establish a humanitarian commission composed of independent experts to work with the Security Council and Secretary General and other UN agencies. The mandate of this commission would be to assess humanitarian needs and recommend protective measures for civilian populations in times of armed conflicts.
11. To establish ready police and peacekeeping forces. Sensitivity and respect for civilians, especially women and children, should be included in the training of all peacekeepers.
12. To establish an annual youth peace prize for signal accomplishments in this field.
Governments:
1. To promptly carry out their obligations in the Non-Proliferation Treaty to eliminate all nuclear weapons and to ban them. For this purpose, governments should, by the beginning of the year 2001, convene the conference to eliminate nuclear dangers, as proposed by Secretary-General Annan. Governments should immediately undertake to close laboratories that research and develop new nuclear weapons, to de-alert nuclear weapons, and to withdraw nuclear weapons from foreign states.
2. Together with nearly all governments that participated in the recent Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, Forum participants consider that unilateral deployment of nationwide missile defense by any country could have dangerously destabilizing effects and create pressures to permanently retain high levels of nuclear weapons or even to increase existing levels. The deployment of theater missile defenses in Asia or other regions could have serious regional destabilizing effects. Such plans should be relinquished in favor of a worldwide missile launch warning system and a conference to review methods of ending production of long-range surface-to-surface missiles and long-range bombers.
3. To expand the network of nuclear free zones until they cover all areas other than territory of weapons states and to complement that network by maritime measures that close ports to naval vessels unless they certify that they are not carrying nuclear weapons. Civil society should energetically promote all these measures to control nuclear weapons.
4. To initiate a worldwide freeze on armed forces and a 25% cut in production and export of major weapons and small arms, and, to this end, to adopt an international Code of conduct on arms exports, as the beginning of worldwide build-down of conventional forces.
5. To implement the International Anti-Personnel Landmines Convention of 1997, also known as the Ottawa Treaty, to ban antipersonnel landmines.
6. To establish a commission at the UN to devise ways of stopping the technological development of new and more advanced weapons that create new imbalances in global power relationships. The Conference on Disarmament should also establish a working group on this subject.
7. To establish peace education, including coping with domestic conflict, covering all ages from young children to older adults, at all levels from pre-school through university and non-formal community education. Education for peace and conflict avoidance is essential for moving toward sustainable peace. Implementation of this obligation of each national government should be assured by an appropriate treaty.
8. To increase their efforts to promote and to comply with international humanitarian laws, limiting the methods and means of war and protecting non-combatants, civilian populations and humanitarian personnel.
9. The international community -- civil society, governments and the UN -- has a responsibility to stop promptly any genocide, war crimes, or any massive violations of human rights. All those involved should seek to avoid any confusion between humanitarian help and military intervention.
10. To immediately adopt measures to implement the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, so that children up to the age of 18 will be prohibited from participation in armed conflict.
Civil Society:
1. To give special attention and support to those disabled and injured by violent conflict, to children, and the elderly, and to the re-integration into society of former combatants. Protection of war-affected children in conflict zones must become a world-wide campaign.
2. To maintain the impartiality and independence of all NGOs working for peace, security, disarmament and humanitarian issues from political, military and economic powers and institutions. At the same time NGOs should organically link with popular movements promoting equity, justice, and diversity (such as the labor movement, women’s movements, and civil rights movements).
3. To protect the humanitarian principles that are linked with human rights and reject all attempts to transform the field of humanitarian assistance into a new market open to private companies.
C. FACING THE CHALLENGE OF GLOBALIZATION: EQUITY, JUSTICE AND DIVERSITY
"Globalization" needs defining. To some, it is an inevitable process driven by new technologies in electronic communication and transport, enabling information, persons, capital and goods to cross borders and reach the most remote corners of the globe at unprecedented speed. It is transforming our world into a global village with consequent political and economic changes that open unprecedented possibilities of prosperity to all its inhabitants.
To most, globalization is a process of economic, political and cultural domination by the economically and militarily strong over the weak. For example, the combined assets of the top 200 corporations in the 1960s were 16% of world Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This increased by the early 1980's to 24% and in 1995 had risen to 34%. In this process not only does the gap between the "have's" and "have-nots" widen, the ranks of the poor are swelling, civil societies are being threatened, pushing an increasing number into extreme poverty, and governments are becoming dependent. The present globalization process is not inevitable; it is the result of decisions taken by human beings. It can and must be redirected to become a democratic process in which the people are at the center as participants and beneficiaries. We, of all ages - in particular our future generation the youth - claim a space for that transnational civil society that even now is rising on the world scene with unprecedented ties, networking, exchanges, and common action among peoples, groups, communities, and organizations. Before us is an emerging new consciousness worldwide that affirms shared values of peace, equity, social justice, democracy, and human rights.
Indigenous peoples are deeply concerned that the on-going process of globalization and trade liberalization is, in many instances, leading to the denial of indigenous peoples’ rights to their ancestral territories and violating their rights to the security of their land tenure, including their spiritual perspective on land and development, their traditional knowledge, their culture, and their political and socio-economic systems.
The Forum urges
The United Nations:
1. To reform and democratize all levels of decision making in the Bretton Woods institutions and the World Trade Organization (WTO) and integrate them fully into the United Nations system, making these institutions accountable to the Economic and Social Council.
2. To develop a legally binding framework for regulating the actions of transnational corporations (TNCs), respecting the international labor, human rights, and sustainable environmental standards set by the United Nations and its relevant Specialized Agencies. The regulatory mechanism should include the active participation of workers and communities directly affected by TNC operations in order to prevent abuses and to subordinate TNCs to democratic civil authority and community-based modeling of socio-economic systems.
3. To exempt developing countries from implementing the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) from the WTO and to take these rights out of any new rounds of negotiations, ensuring that no such new issues are introduced.
4. To examine and regulate transnational corporations and the increasingly negative influence of their trade on the environment. The attempt by companies to patent life is ethically unacceptable.
5. To move towards democratic political control of the global economy so that it may serve our vision.
6. To recognize and enshrine legislatively the right of self-determination of Indigenous Peoples and to acknowledge their sovereign right to their languages, knowledge, educational systems, living spaces, intellectual property and biological security.
Governments:
1. To recognize that aspects of globalization seriously threaten environmental sustainability, and cultural diversity and heritage, as well as the common good.
2. To exclude fresh water, food, education, health care and other human essential common goods from private monopolization and to regulate them with the view to protecting and expanding the global commons.
3. To educate all people, particularly youth, about the dynamics of globalization and how their behavior, for example consumption and purchasing habits, can affect them and their country’s economy and perpetuate the negative effects of globalization. To support this education with measures to reduce the market practices aimed at inducing resource-intensive consumption.
4. To protect Indigenous peoples' rights through legislation, in the face of corporate transgressions of these rights.
5. To develop migration policies, both emigration and immigration.