2005 World Summit - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The 2005 World Summit, 14–16 September 2005, was a follow-up summit meeting

Summit (meeting)

A summit meeting is a meeting of heads of state or government, usually with considerable media exposure, tight security and a prearranged agenda.Notable summit meetings include those of Franklin D...

to the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

' 2000 Millennium Summit

Millennium Summit

The Millennium Summit was a meeting among many world leaders lasting three days from 6 September to 8 September 2000 at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. Its purpose was to discuss the role of the United Nations at the turn of the 21st century. At this meeting, world leaders...

, which led to the Millennium Declaration

United Nations Millennium Declaration

On 8 September 2000, following a three day Millennium Summit of world leaders at the headquarters of the United Nations, the General Assemblyadopted the Millennium Declaration....

of the Millennium Development Goals

Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals are eight international development goals that all 193 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015...

(MDGs). Representatives (including many leaders) of the then 191 (now 193) member states

United Nations member states

There are 193 United Nations member states, and each of them is a member of the United Nations General Assembly.The criteria for admission of new members are set out in the United Nations Charter, Chapter II, Article 4, as follows:...

met in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

for what the United Nations described as "a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take bold decisions in the areas of development, security, human rights and reform of the United Nations."

Summit

The summit was billed as the "largest gathering of world leaders in history," and featured appearances of numerous heads of state

Head of State

A head of state is the individual that serves as the chief public representative of a monarchy, republic, federation, commonwealth or other kind of state. His or her role generally includes legitimizing the state and exercising the political powers, functions, and duties granted to the head of...

and heads of government

Head of government

Head of government is the chief officer of the executive branch of a government, often presiding over a cabinet. In a parliamentary system, the head of government is often styled prime minister, chief minister, premier, etc...

. The majority of those present addressed the U. N. General Assembly

United Nations General Assembly

For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...

, and gave speeches reflecting on the U. N.'s past successes and future challenges. All 191 of the then member states gave an address in some form- if the head of state or government was not present the nation's foreign minister

Foreign minister

A Minister of Foreign Affairs, or foreign minister, is a cabinet minister who helps form the foreign policy of a sovereign state. The foreign minister is often regarded as the most senior ministerial position below that of the head of government . It is often granted to the deputy prime minister in...

, vice president

Vice president

A vice president is an officer in government or business who is below a president in rank. The name comes from the Latin vice meaning 'in place of'. In some countries, the vice president is called the deputy president...

, or Deputy Prime Minister

Deputy Prime Minister

A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some counties, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president, but is significantly different, though both...

usually sufficed. The meetings were presided over by the Prime Minister

Prime Minister of Sweden

The Prime Minister is the head of government in the Kingdom of Sweden. Before the creation of the office of a Prime Minister in 1876, Sweden did not have a head of government separate from its head of state, namely the King, in whom the executive authority was vested...

of Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, Göran Persson

Göran Persson

Hans Göran Persson was the Prime Minister of Sweden from 1996 to 2006 and the leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1996 to 2007. Conceding defeat in the September 2006 general election, he announced that he would resign as party leader, and Mona Sahlin was elected to succeed him as...

.

The pre-summit negotiations were blown sharply off course by the appearance in early August at the U. N. of United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Ambassador to the U. N.

United States Ambassador to the United Nations

The United States Ambassador to the United Nations is the leader of the U.S. delegation, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. The position is more formally known as the "Permanent Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations, with the rank and status of Ambassador...

John Bolton

John R. Bolton

John Robert Bolton is an American lawyer and diplomat who has served in several Republican presidential administrations. He served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations from August 2005 until December 2006 on a recess appointment...

, appointed as a recess appointment

Recess appointment

A recess appointment is the appointment, by the President of the United States, of a senior federal official while the U.S. Senate is in recess. The U.S. Constitution requires that the most senior federal officers must be confirmed by the Senate before assuming office, but while the Senate is in...

by U.S. President

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

. The position had been vacant since January, with responsibilities handled by professional U.S. diplomats. Bolton swiftly issued a list of new demands http://www.reformtheun.org/index.php?module=uploads&func=download&fileId=804 (including dropping the use of the words "Millennium Development Goals"), which days before the summit had still not been settled. Some observers contended that on the eve of the summit the U.S. struck a more conciliatory tone than expected, something partly credited as a consequence of the outpouring of international support for the U.S. after Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...

.

As well as discussing progress on the Millennium Development Goals and re-iterating the world's commitment to them, the summit was convened to address the possible reform of the United Nations

Reform of the United Nations

Since the late 1990s there have been many calls for reform of the United Nations . However, there is little clarity or consensus about what reform might mean in practice. Both those who want the UN to play a greater role in world affairs and those who want its role confined to humanitarian work or...

; much of this was eventually postponed to a later date. An exception was the endorsement of the "responsibility to protect

Responsibility to protect

The responsibility to protect is a norm or set of principles based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege, but a responsibility. RtoP focuses on preventing and halting four crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing, which it places under the generic...

" (known by the acronyms RTP and R2P), a formulation of the "right of humanitarian intervention

Humanitarian intervention

Humanitarian intervention "refers to a state using military force against another state when the chief publicly declared aim of that military action is ending human-rights violations being perpetrated by the state against which it is directed."...

" developed by a U.N. commission and proposed by Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan

Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...

as part of his In Larger Freedom reform package. The "Right to Protect" gives the world community the right to intervene in the case of "national authorities manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity". There was also broad agreement at the summit to set up a new Human Rights Council

United Nations Human Rights Council

The United Nations Human Rights Council is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations System. The UNHRC is the successor to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights , and is a subsidiary body of the United Nations General Assembly...

.

During the summit, the United Nations Convention Against Corruption received its thirtieth ratification, and as a result entered into force in December 2005.

The inaugural session of the Clinton Global Initiative was held in New York City to coincide with the 2005 World Summit, and attracted many of the same world leaders.

World Summit outcome

At the end of the 2005 Summit the contents of a document, known as the World Summit Outcome Document, was agreed to by the delegations that attended.

It was brought before the United Nations General Assembly

United Nations General Assembly

for adoption as a resolution on 16 September where ambassadors made last minute statements and reservations. For example, John Bolton

John R. Bolton

said: "I do wish to make one point clear: the United States understands that reference to the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the use of the phrase 'reproductive health' in paragraphs 57 (g) and 58 (c) of the outcome document do not create any rights and cannot be interpreted to constitute support, endorsement or promotion of abortion."

The pressure group The United Nations Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UNA-UK) contend that:

World leaders agreed on a compromise text, including the following notable items:

the creation of a Peacebuilding Commission
Peacebuilding Commission
The Peacebuilding Commission was established in December 2005 by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council acting concurrently...

to provide a central mechanism to help countries emerging from conflict
an agreement that the international community has a "responsibility to protect
Responsibility to protect
The responsibility to protect is a norm or set of principles based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege, but a responsibility. RtoP focuses on preventing and halting four crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing, which it places under the generic...

" - the duty to intervene in when national governments fail to fulfill their responsibility to protect their citizens from atrocious crimes
a Human Rights Council
United Nations Human Rights Council
The United Nations Human Rights Council is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations System. The UNHRC is the successor to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights , and is a subsidiary body of the United Nations General Assembly...

(established in 2006)
an agreement to devote more resources to UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services
United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services
The United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services is a United Nations organ whose primary purpose is to perform world-wide audit, investigation, inspection, programme monitoring, evaluation and consulting services to the United Nations Secretariat and the rest of the United Nations...

(OIOS);
several agreements to spend billions more on achieving the Millennium Development Goals
Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals are eight international development goals that all 193 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015...
a clear and unambiguous condemnation of terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

"in all its forms and manifestations"
a democracy fund
an agreement to wind up the Trusteeship Council
United Nations Trusteeship Council
The United Nations Trusteeship Council, one of the principal organs of the United Nations, was established to help ensure that trust territories were administered in the best interests of their inhabitants and of international peace and security...

due to the completion of its mission

UN Security Council and the protection of civilians in armed conflicts

The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1674

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1674

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1674, adopted unanimously on April 28, 2006, after reaffirming resolutions 1265 and 1296 concerning the protection of civilians in armed conflict and Resolution 1631 on co-operation between the United Nations and regional organisations, the Council...

, adopted by the United Nations Security Council

United Nations Security Council

The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...

on April 28, 2006, "Reaffirm[ed] the provisions of paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document regarding the responsibility to protect populations from genocide

Genocide

Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...

, war crime

War crime

War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...

s, ethnic cleansing

Ethnic cleansing

Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....

and crimes against humanity

Crime against humanity

Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings...

" and commits the Security Council to action to protect civilians in armed conflict.

Summit

World Summit outcome

UN Security Council and the protection of civilians in armed conflicts

Further reading