by Piyaporn Hawiset
22 September 2000
A declaration that was adopted at the end of the UN Millennium Summit, held in early September 2000, pledged that world leaders would "spare no effort" to free their people from the scourge of war, poverty and environmental degradation. It vowed a similar effort to promote democracy and strengthen respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, "including the right to development" - a key demand by Third World countries. The so-called Millennium Declaration was adopted by consensus by more than 150 heads of state and government at the September 6-8 summit, the largest gathering of world leaders in history.
While the declaration committed world leaders to tough targets in eradicating poverty, promoting education and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, it only addressed the issue of ending war in general terms. Noting that more than 5 million people lost their lives in conflicts between 1990 and 2000, the leaders said "we will spare no effort to free our peoples from the scourge of war". The leaders pledged in the declaration to make the United Nations more effective in maintaining peace and security by giving it the resources and tools it needs to prevent and resolve conflicts and carry out peacekeeping operations.
But the issue of how to protect innocent civilians from humanitarian disasters, such as the Rwanda genocide or the mass mutilations and killings in Sierra Leone, was not addressed. And UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's suggestion in 1999 of possible military intervention in humanitarian crises was not mentioned. Instead, the declaration strongly reaffirmed the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of all countries. In effect, the status quo remained, despite the grandiose claims of the declaration, claims made before using different words, but which have never come to pass.
The nine-page declaration focused mainly on poverty and the effects of the growing global economy and communications revolution that have connected much of the industrialised world - but bypassed most of the developing world.
"We believe that the central challenge we face today is to ensure that globalisation becomes a positive force for all the world's people," the declaration said. "For while globalisation offers great opportunities, at present its benefits are very unevenly shared, while its costs are unevenly distributed."
The leaders pledged in the declaration to try to make globalisation "fully inclusive and equitable" through broad and sustained international efforts to meet the needs of developing countries.
"We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected," the declaration said. "We are committed to making the right to development a reality for everyone, and to freeing the entire human race from want."
The declaration set a number of specific targets for world leaders:
An entire section of the declaration was dedicated to Africa, with leaders resolving to help the continent eradicate poverty and promote development. The United States balked at calls on the world's wealthy countries to cancel all the official debts of the poorest countries and to adopt policies of duty-free and quota-free access for exports from the least developed countries. But the declaration called on industrialised countries to adopt, preferably by May 2001, a policy of duty- and quota-free access for essentially all exports from the least developed countries. It also called on industrialised countries to quickly implement a program of debt relief for the poorest countries and agree to cancel all their bilateral debts if they made commitments to reduce poverty.
On another contentions issue - sanctions - leaders pledgd in the declaration "to minimise the adverse effects of United Nations economic sanctions on innocent populations". Russia, China, France and other nations maintain that UN economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait have seriously affected the health and education of Iraqi children - but the United States maintains Iraq's leader Saddam Hussein is to blame.
The leaders also pledged to act against international terrorism, redouble efforts to counter the world drug problem and intensify the campaign against cross-border crime.