|
UN General Assembly President Ping Releases
Draft Outcome Document
On June 8, 2005 UN General Assembly President
Ambassador Jean Ping announced
that he would be presenting a Draft
Outcome Document to the UN General Assembly. The Draft
Document is the result of consultation with Member States
and attempts to reflect their concerns on four main areas:
development, peace and security, human rights and the rule
of law, and strengthening the United Nations. The draft document
was discussed among Member States and a first
revision was presented on July 22, 2005.
Kofi Annan Releases Report Calling for Reform
of the UN
On March 21, 2005 Kofi Annan released a report,
In
Larger Freedom, outlining the reforms he believes
need to be made to acheive the Millenium Development Goals
by 2015. The report focuses on 3 areas: development, security
and human rights and sets out priorities for action for each
area as well as institutional reform of the UN.
Annan has called on the 191 governments in the
UN to adopt his proposals as a single package this year. The
NGO Coalition has issued an open letter
calling on governments to support this report.
| |
The Democracy Coalition Project Analyzes
Democratic Countries' Voting Patterns for 2004 UN General
Assembly
At the 59th UNGA, the NGO Coalition followed
the progress of several democracy and human rights resolutions
through the 3rd Committee and onto the floor of the General
Assembly. These bills, and how democratic countries voted
on them, were analyzed
by the Democracy Coalition Project. The relevant resolutions
that were voted on in the third committee were:
Resolution
on human rights in Zimbabwe
Resolution
on the situation of human rights in the Sudan
Resolution
on the situation of human rights in Myanmar
Resolution
on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of
Iran
Resolution
on the situation of human rights in Turkmenistan
Resolution
on the situation of human rights in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo
Resolution
on the situation of human rights in Belarus
Resolution
on enhancing the role of regional, subregional and other organizations
and arrangements in promoting and consolidating democracy
Of the eight resolutions that the Coalition
followed, the resolutions on Burma, Iran, Democratic Republic
of Congo, Turkmenistan and Regional Organizations made it
to the General Assembly. All five resolutions passed in the
General Assembly.
| |
UN Democracy Caucus Recommends that Members
of the Community of Democracies Give Positive Consideration
for Four Resolutions at the 2005 UN General Assembly
At the November 1, 2004 meeting of the UN Democracy
Caucus, participating governments agreed to recommend that
all members of the Community of Democracies give four resolutions
a positive consideration when they are voted on at the UN
General Assembly. These four draft resolutions are:
Torture and other inhuman or other degrading treatment or
punishment” submitted by Denmark;
Promotion and cooperation among religions,” submitted
by the Philippines;
Enhancing the role of regional and subregional and other organizations
and arrangements in promoting and consolidating democracy,”
submitted by Romania, United States, Peru and Timor-Leste;
and
Improvement of the status of women in the UN system,”
submitted by Australia.
| |
Governments Pass Landmark Resolution on Democracy
Promotion at 2000 UN General Assembly
In October 2000, a first effort was made at
the UN to convene a gathering of states participating in the
Community of Democracies (CD) process. Some sixty states sent
representatives to the meeting. Later that year, with the
active support of those states, the UN General Assembly approved
a landmark Resolution on Promoting
and Consolidating Democracy (Res A/55/96), the first comprehensive
resolution adopted by the UNGA to set forth core elements
of democratic governance.
|
