http://www.millenniumforum.org/html/papers/mfd26May.htm

We the Peoples Millennium Forum

Declaration and Agenda for Action

Strengthening the United Nations for the 21st Century

(My heading are in caps, the rest is UN text. Can't wait to read your comments.--dj)

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.

DISARM COUNTRIES AND POSITION UN ARMY OF "PEACEKEEPERS" (IE RAPISTS AND CHILD MOLESTERS)

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...

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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.

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ASSUME TOTAL CONTROL OF COMMERCE:

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.

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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.

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ELIMINATE FISCAL SOVEREIGNTY AS WELL AS CONTROL TAXATION THEREBY CONTROLING FUNDING OF GOVERNMENTS:

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6. To make serious commitments to restructure the global financial architecture based on principles of equity, transparency, accountability, and democracy, and to balance, with the participation of civil society organizations, the monetary means to favor human endeavor and ecology, such as an alternative time-based currency. To give particular attention to eradication of unequal taxation, tax havens, and money-laundering operations and to impose new forms of taxation, such as the Tobin tax, and regional and national capital controls. To direct the international financial institutions to eliminate the negative conditionalities of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs).

7. To reform the international financial institutions (IFIs) and the World Trade Organization to ensure greater transparency and democracy and to support the establishment of a consultative mechanism with civil society. To ensure that the IFIs provide capital for sustainable development to vulnerable people. Sustainable funds could be raised through a currency transfer tax, which could also help to reduce currency speculation, and a tax on the rental value of land and natural resources.

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· Stop imposing economic sanctions, which deprive people of their basic economic, social, and environmental rights and which make their struggle for survival, as well as for civil and political rights, more difficult.

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ELIMINATE NATIONAL BORDERS BECAUSE THEY VIOLATE THE UN DEFINED HUMAN RIGHT OF "SELF-DETERMINATION", AND FURTHER SEPARATE THE "HAVES" FROM THE "HAVE NOTS":

The unequal economic development between countries promotes forced migration to developed countries. The human rights of these economic migrants, especially those labeled as alien or undocumented, are systematically violated without consideration of their significant contribution to the host country economy.

The goal of ending all forms of colonization in the world remains as yet unachieved and the right to self-determination is far from universally realized, especially for peoples living under occupation. (snip)

The Forum urges The United Nations

· To strengthen the existing international human rights system to ensure full recognition, respect for and realization of human rights for all; and implement all those UN resolutions calling for self-determination and an end to military occupation.

· To protect the rights of people under military occupation.

· To strengthen the monitoring of human rights violations of migrant workers and their families.

· To establish a fair and effective International Criminal Court (ICC).

Governments

· To take all steps, including affirmative action where necessary, to remedy the continuing neglect of people whose human rights are yet unrealized; and move urgently to sign and ratify the ICC treaty.

· To provide effective redress and remedies for the victims of human rights violations, ensuring that the burden of proof does not fall on the victim.

Civil society

· To fortify its advocacy role in pressing for recognition and realization of human rights for all and to encourage all states to sign and ratify promptly the ICC treaty.

COMPLY WITH RIO AGENDA 21 TO STEAL FROM THE RICH TO GIVE TO THE POOR

Eight years have passed since Rio, and there is a feeling of frustration by civil society over the slow progress or non-implementation of commitments by national and international bodies. The spirit of Rio is diminishing. The commitment of developed nations to allocate 0.7% of their GNP to overseas development assistance to developing nations has been met by very few countries.

The Forum urges The United Nations

1. To strengthen its capacity to monitor governments and require their compliance with Agenda 21, their commitments in Rio, commitments made during the CSD meetings, the Copenhagen Declaration, and the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on Climate Change.

2. To make a global assessment of unsustainable development and its impacts on environment, human settlements and social development, thereby building upon the studies made by UNDP, UNCTAD, and other UN agencies and CSOS. On the basis of these studies and policy proposals, it should play an active role in promoting a world solidarity fund and in regulating international financial institutions, trade bodies and corporations to ensure that they adhere to principles and programmes adopted in Rio and Copenhagen.

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4 To encourage its organs, especially UNEP and UNDP, to actively support the establishment of sustainability centres to advise local governments on the implementation of Agenda 21 in local communities through comprehensive, integrated development policies and strategies.

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6. To establish a Global Habitat Conservation Fund to purchase comprehensive protection of threatened, critical ecological habitat world wide. The fund should accrue revenues from a nominal (0.5%-1.0%) royalty on worldwide fossil energy production -- oil, natural gas, coal -- collecting at least $5 billion to $10 billion annually.

7. To examine how it should restructure to implement the changes necessary to give clear priority to sustainable human development.

8. To encourage UNEP and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to create an appropriate legal framework for the protection of marine life.

Governments

1. To comply with and implement the declarations, conventions, and treaties they have signed and meet the commitments they have made, including those in Agenda 21. They should ratify the important protocols of the Multilateral Environmental Agreements, including

- Agreements which set frameworks for the reduction of global warming (These should be ratified by 2002) ;

- the Biosafety Protocol; and

- the agreement by donor governments to allocate .7% GNP for official development assistance.

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3. To assess negative environmental and social impacts of unsustainable development and focus on how these could be redressed. Their development programmes should promote sustainable development, such as the conservation of water resources, sustainable agriculture, development of renewable energy sources, and support for the sustainable development knowledge and practices of indigenous peoples, women, and farmers, while eliminating military and unsustainable infrastructure projects.

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TO BRAINWASH YOUR CHILDREN:

4. To support the establishment of sustainable development training centres, owned, operated and managed by youth for youth. To support their involvement, especially youth from the South, in all fora and at all levels as integral partners and leaders in these processes, giving them ownership. To encourage the development of a global youth fund co-financed by donor governments and/or agencies and managed by the CSD NGO steering committee.

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DICTATE GLOBAL VALUES TO CONTROL NATIONAL CULTURES:

4. To actively promote awareness of the fact that once basic needs have been met, human development is about being more, not having more. Fundamental changes in human values are the best means to transform the culture of consumerism.

5. To adopt and disseminate the Earth Charter as a tool for promotion of values and actions which will create sustainable development.

6. To ensure that an appropriate liaison be developed between the CSD/NGO Steering Committee and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Sports and Environment Commission to harmonise implementation of the IOC’s Agenda 21 for Sports and the Environment within the UN system.

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AND IF THAT IS NOT ENOUGH, TO SECURE OUR DOMINATION "THE FORUM URGES THE UN":

1. To strengthen the coordinating role of the UN General Assembly to ensure that it can fulfill the mandates it already has according to the UN Charter.

2. To make the Security Council more representative of the world. Permanent membership in the Security Council is problematic because it blocks change and fails to accommodate evolving realities. Thus, the UN should begin to phase out the existing permanent membership in favor of a more flexible and accountable system. The Council should be immediately enlarged with newly elected members drawn from the member states from different regions of the world on a rotational basis.

3. To limit and move toward eliminating the use of the veto.

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5. To make the International Court of Justice (ICJ) the locus of a more effective, integrated system of international justice. The compulsory jurisdiction of the World Court must be accepted by all states. In the absence of voluntary compliance, the Security Council should enforce ICJ decisions and other international legal obligations under Article 94 of the UN Charter.

6. To consider the creation of a UN parliamentary body related to the UN General Assembly. One proposal that should be considered is the creation of a consultative Parliamentary Assembly. Any parliamentary body established at the United Nations should have its membership selected through an election process, and should conduct its business in an open, democratic manner.

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AND WHERE IS YOUR CHECKBOOK FOR THIS NEW GLOBAL GOVERNMENT AND POLICE FORCE THAT YOU AMERICA DID NOT VOTE FOR?

Governments

1. To increase substantially the regular and peacekeeping budgets of the United Nations. The UN cannot carry out its many urgent tasks without substantially more resources and more staff. This budget could be doubled immediately, to very good effect. The UN’s budget problems have had a serious negative effect on peacekeeping. Additionally, the budgets of UN agencies should be increased to better support their work.

2. To pay UN dues on time, in full and without conditions. UN discussion of global taxes and fees has been stifled by the threat of a funding cutoff by a single member state. This blackmail must be rejected, and the UN must vigorously explore the possibilities of alternate funding from such sources.

3. To move towards creation of alternative revenue sources for the United Nations. The UN should set up expert groups and begin the necessary intergovernmental negotiations towards establishing alternative revenue sources, which could include fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees on foreign exchange transactions (i.e. the Tobin Tax), and a tax on the carbon content of fuels.

4. To ensure that a gender perspective is integrated at all remaining stages of the process to establish the International Criminal Court and at all stages of the proceedings of the functioning Court and that the particular needs of children, the elderly, and persons with disabilities are considered.

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SO AMERICA, HAS THE UN BEEN GIVING US OUR MONEY'S WORTH???