Twenty-five years after the International Conference on Human Rights in Teheran, the 1993 World Conference in Vienna marked a significant step forward in the attempt by the international community to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms everywhere. The Vienna Declaration and Program of Action, emanating from the conference, represents the basis for common future efforts by the international community for the universal enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The agenda of the conference, as set by the General Assembly in 1992, included identifying obstacles to further progress in the field of human rights and ways to overcome them; the relationship between development, democracy and the universal enjoyment of all human rights; new challenges to the full realization of human rights; and ways of strengthening international cooperation in the field of human rights, of enhancing the effectiveness of United Nations activities and mechanisms and of securing financial and other resources for such activities.

The preparatory process reflected differences between developing and industrialized countries on various issues, such as the universality of human rights versus regional particularity, the interlinkage and indivisibility of all human rights, the interdependence between the right to development and civil and political rights, the threat of terrorism to the enjoyment of civil and political rights and the question of implementation machinery, monitoring and prevention. It was only at the last preparatory session that some progress was visible.

The conference was marked by an unprecedented degree of participation by governments, United Nations agencies and bodies, national institutions and 841 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The Vienna Declaration and Program of Action was adopted by consensus by 171 states and endorsed by the General Assembly in December 1993. The Assembly called for further action to fully implement the recommendations of the conference.

The conference's achievements include:

Recommending the establishment of a High Commissioner for Human Rights;

Reinforcement of the universality of human rights;

Recognition for the first time, by consensus, that the right to development is an inalienable right;

Integration of economic, social and cultural rights as indivisible and interlinked with civil and political rights;

Recognition of democracy as a human right, thus opening the way to the strengthening and promotion of democracy, democratization and the rule of law;

Recognition that the acts, methods and practices of terrorism aim at the destruction of human rights; and

Reinforcement of policies and programs to eliminate racism and racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance.

The Vienna Declaration and Program of Action also focuses on massive violations of human rights, especially genocide, ethnic cleansing and systematic rape; on self-determination, referring for the first time to "a government representing the whole people belonging to a territory without distinction of any kind;" on the environmental needs of present and future generations; on groups "rendered vulnerable," including migrant workers, disabled persons and refugees; and on the human rights of women and the girl child, including the establishment of new policy guidelines to bring the human rights of women into the mainstream of United Nations human rights activities.

The Declaration and Program of Action also recognizes that organizations, agencies and organs of the United Nations system, as well as regional organizations and financial and development institutions, should have an enhanced role in promoting and protecting human rights.

From Basic Facts About the United Nations. Published by United Nations Department of Public Information. Copyright 1995 United Nations.