Third Conference of the World Movement for Democracy. STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE TRANSNATIONAL RADICAL PARTY ON THE CREATION OF A “DEMOCRACY GROUP” AT THE UNITED NATIONS.

(www.radicalparty.org) DOCUMENTS ON: GLOBALISE DEMOCRACY / DOC.TYPE: EVENTS/DEMONSTRATIONS

06/02/2004 | Third Conference of the World Movement for Democracy. STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE TRANSNATIONAL RADICAL PARTY ON THE CREATION OF A “DEMOCRACY GROUP” AT THE UNITED NATIONS.

Delivered by Mr. Matteo Mecacci on the occasion of the Third Conference of the World Movement for Democracy, Durban, South Africa – 1- 4 February

The establishment of a Democracy Group at the United Nations is an objective on which various NGOs have been working over the last few months (The group of NGOs is composed by the Campaign for UN Reform, Council for a Community of Democracies, he Democracy Coalition Project, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, the International League for Human Rights, the Open Society Institute and the Transnational Radical Party). The UN Democracy Group is a Group that in our idea should have as members the countries which are part of the Community of Democracies’ process. In this way we believe that the Democracy Group could greatly contribute to the promotion of democracy through multilateral institutions and in particular the UN.

The Community of Democracies was born in 2000 and today includes more than 100 countries that at least abide to the principles of electoral democracy. My organization, The Transnational Radical Party, an NGO with Members in more than 20 countries and with Consultative Status with ECOSOC at the United Nations, believes that the Community of Democracies represents the ideal forum for the advancement of democracy all over the world.

Today the UN, which over the last 50 years has adopted universal declarations, international treaties and declarations of intent sanctioning human, civil and political rights for all the inhabitants of this planet, should face a reality where many of its Members States systematically violate the rules and laws they have agreed to respect. In fact, even if it is true that over the last decade there has been an increased number of countries that have chosen the path to democracy, we are also witnessing an alarming and systematic erosion of the basic principles of democracy and of the rule of law in many parts of the world.

To be able to enforce its fundamental rules such as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights the UN should become a World Organization of Democracies, an organization capable to operate both in democratic and undemocratic countries: the Community of Democracies represents a good starting point in this perspective.

To be a genuine locus of international legitimacy, the U.N. should become a different organization, one secure in its own legitimacy and able to function without the endless delays, vetoes and unwillingness to ensure respect for its decisions and laws.

The commitment to establish a Group of Democratic Countries at the UN is not just an idea of a group of NGOs. In fact, both in 2000 and in 2002 the Community of Democracies endorsed this idea in the documents that were adopted by consensus by all the participants.

Building on such commitments a group of NGOs and eminent persons have started to meet last spring in New York to develop a strategy aimed at reaching this goal.

After a series of non-governmental initiatives the Chilean Government held on September 26, 2003, a meeting of the Convening Group of the Community of Democracies at the UN headquarters in New York to discuss the creation of a UN Democracy Group.

As a result of the September 2003 meeting, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the 10 Convening Group countries (Chile, the Czech Republic, India, the Republic of Korea, Mali, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, the United States) and invited participants (Italy, Romania and Peru) issued a joint statement in which they reaffirmed the importance of establishing a Democracy Group inside the UN system, stating among other things that:

“ The members of the Convening Group recalled the Warsaw Declaration commitment that the Community of Democracies will collaborate on democracy-related issues in existing international and regional institutions, forming coalitions and caucuses to support resolutions and other international activities aimed at the promotion of democratic governance…

In close consultation and cooperation with the Community of Democracies’ interested participants, the Convening Group encourages the formation of coalitions and caucuses within the UN and other multilateral fora to support democracy. The Convening Group members will consult and coordinate actions, as appropriate, at the UN General Assembly, the ECOSOC and the Commission of Human Rights…

[…] they would meet during the 58th session of the UN General Assembly.”

This declaration reinforces and is consistent with the view contained in the UN Secretary General’s 2003 Report on the “Implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration”, namely that “Democracy and human rights, though distinct concepts, are closely interlinked. Democracy, as a human right in itself, is implied in article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but it only functions in its fullest sense when other human rights are respected.”

We believe that for the UN Democracy Group to become a reality the member of the Community of Democracies should take the following steps:

1) To agree that membership in the UN Democracy Group, as a permanent Group, should consist of States formally invited to take part in the Community of Democracies meeting in Seoul as full participants . The Convening Group must be vigilant, on an ongoing basis, and apply its agreed-upon criteria for Community of Democracies membership, to ensure that democratizing States are added to the Group, and that backsliding States - particularly states that commit significant human rights violations - are removed from the Group and the Community.

2) To establish procedures through the UN Democracy Group to govern its activities. The Group should be convened by the Chair of the Convening Group during the sessions of all the relevant bodies of the UN that deal with issues related to the promotion and protection of democracy and human rights (e.g. General Assembly, Commission on Human Rights, ECOSOC, etc.).

3) Meetings of the UN Democracy Group should also be held at a regional level, as an integral part of the implementation of the Seoul Plan of Action, and should be convened by the members of the Convening Group from each region.

4) To consider expanding the membership of the Convening Group to ensure that it is broadly representative of democracies around the world and of those nations that have taken concrete steps towards democratic governance.

5) To meet on a regular basis with NGOs that have been active in advocating the establishment of the UN Democracy Group to facilitate an exchange of views about how best to build, strengthen, and shape its work.

We at the Transnational Radical Party are in particular working in Europe and in Africa to broaden the knowledge of the Community of Democracies’ process and to ask other Governments and NGOs to get more involved. We can say that as a result of our work, the Italian Government has recently taken some initiatives to ask the Convening Group and in particular the Chilean Government to convene the UN Democracy Group at the next session of the Commission of Human Rights. We believe that this can really happen this time and we encourage you to contact your Government (if it is a Member of the CD, which is not unfortunately always the case) to undertake some actions along those lines. We can provide you all the information you might need in this respect.
If you are interested in this initiative you can sign an appeal that will be published in the next weeks and which has already been signed by a list of personalities that is in this room.

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