Tuesday, March 30, 2004

STATES HAVE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROMOTE RIGHT TO DEVELOPMENT


VATICAN CITY, MAR 30, 2004 (VIS) - On March 24 Archbishop Silvano Tomasi,  Holy See permanent observer to the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland, addressed the 60th session of the Human Rights Commission on Item 7: The Right to Development.  The session began March 15 and ends April 23.

  He began by stating that the Holy See views the current discussion "as an especially important and timely dialogue within the United Nations at this time when the gap between incomes in the richest and poorest countries seems widening. Globalization has allowed the emergence of a true planetary conscience more sensitive to injustice, to poverty, to discrimination, to degradation of the environment."
 
  "The Declaration on the Right to Development adopted by the General Assembly in 1986 is unique among other international human rights standards in that it identifies the individual person as the focus and beneficiary of the right, with the State as the primary duty bearer. At the same time, it makes an explicit connection between this right and the obligation for international cooperation to assist individual States in their duties as the primary promoter and protector of the individual's right to development."

   Globalization "imposes greater responsability on the international community" in allocating resources to help those people who, as Pope John Paul notes, are "perhaps the majority today, (and who) do not have the means which would enable them to take their place in an effective and humanly dignified way within a productive system in which work is truly essential."

   The nuncio underscored that "the interdependence of rights and responsibilities among individuals, families, the State and international community is a frequent theme in the social teaching of the Holy See. ... However, we believe that States have the primary responsibility to promote, protect and implement the Right to Development."
DELSS/DEVELOPMENT/UN:GENEVA:TOMASI        VIS 20040330 (300)


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