August 16, 2000
US President Bill Clinton will be the first speaker at the "Millennium Summit of the United Nations" next month, at which the world's leaders are expected to reaffirm their "faith" in the UN and its constitution. Clinton will have five minutes to speak, as will the more than 130 presidents and prime ministers to come after him at the three-day summit at UN headquarters that begins September 6.
Diplomats have been hammering out the final declaration the leaders are expected to adopt. A draft of it called for reaffirming faith in the organization and the UN Charter, which it says has proved "timeless and universal."
The leaders will reaffirm a "collective responsibility to uphold the principles of equality and equity at the global level" apart from their national duties. They will reaffirm "on the historic occasion" of the summit that the UN is the "indispensable common house of the entire human family" through which all human aspirations should be received.
As with a three-ring circus where actions take place simultaneously, the attendees will be divided into four roundtable discussion groups, each with separate topics to debate. The main speeches at the plenary session in the UN General Assembly continue meanwhile. But the overarching theme for the Millennium Summit will be "the role of the UN in the 21st century."
Gathering such a great number of presidents and prime ministers into group discussions is a feat never before undertaken by UN organizers. But as with other big events at UN headquarters, those leaders are expected to fall into place. While they take turns using up their allotted five minutes in the plenary session, the four discussion groups will be chaired by African, Asian, Eastern European, Latin American and Caribbean states.
The UN, founded in 1945 after World War II by 50 countries for the purpose of saving "succeeding generations from the scourge of war," has neither achieved nor been equipped for attaining that high ideal. With 189 members, the UN is overwhelmed by demands and crises, and has undergone numerous reforms. The summit is to transform the UN for the 21st century.
The declaration the heads of state and government will adopt on September 8 points to various areas that have made world headlines: globalization, management of the world economy, peace and security.
It deals with basic human freedoms: freedom to live and raise children in dignity, freedom from hunger, from fear and violence, oppression or injustice.
It calls for equality among nations and individuals, for tolerance and respect of nature.
The declaration calls for implementation of programmes by specific target dates: the halving by 2015 of the current 22 per cent of world's population living on less than one dollar a day; halving the current 20 per cent of people without drinking water; and giving equal access to boys and girls to all levels of education.
By 2020, programmes to improve the lives of 100 million slum dwellers should be implimentachieved in developing and transitional countries.
It calls on world leaders to resolve to observe and uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to strive for the full protection and promotion in all countries of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.
It says civilians must be protected in "complex emergencies," and women must be protected from all forms of violence.
The leaders have already received a compendium of multilateral treaties that have been adopted in past decades. Governments that have not signed or ratified those treaties are urged to do so. Those treaties range from human rights, civil and political rights to the destruction of anti-personnel landmines.
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