A/HRC/23/45 develop the mandate further and raise awareness of the right to international solidarity. The present report is submitted in accordance with the requests in Council resolution 21/10. A. Human Rights Council interactive dialogue 7. At the twenty-first session of the Human Rights Council, held in September 2012, the Independent Expert presented her first annual report (A/HRC/21/44). She also presented to the Council a summary of an expert workshop on human rights and international solidarity held in Geneva in June 2012 (A/HRC/21/44/Add.1). In her statement to the Council, the Independent Expert described how she had divided the work plan of the mandate into three stages with a view to developing a draft declaration on the right of peoples and individuals to international solidarity. The past work of her predecessor, Rudi Muhammad Rizki, constituted Stage One, in which international solidarity had been affirmed in various ways, including as a fundamental conception of mutually reinforcing relations among persons, groups and nations; as an essential binding element that underpins global partnerships; as a key approach to poverty eradication; and as an indispensable component of the efforts to realize all human rights, including the right to development and the Millennium Development Goals. 8. Stage Two involves the application of empirical methods in exploring and examining issues, principles, standards and norms, and in consulting with States and various stakeholders, civil society, and people at the grass-roots level. Stage Three will be devoted to consolidating and analysing the results of Stages One and Two, and to elaborating the draft declaration, culminating in its submission to the Human Rights Council in 2014. The activities described in the first report of the Independent Expert, including its addendum, as well as in the present report, are all part of Stage Two. International solidarity was defined and redefined in the course of Stage One as inspired by and drawn from the historical and philosophical foundations of the concept or principle of international solidarity and, to a certain extent, its value in international relations was thus established. 9. Stage Two is aimed at building the momentum necessary to move further beyond the field of international cooperation and assistance, which, in the view of the Independent Expert, have held back and constrained for too long the elaboration of a right to international solidarity. The Independent Expert stresses that paragraph 2 of Human Rights Council resolution 18/5 and paragraph 58 of the 2010 report of the previous mandate holder (A/HRC/15/32) are the touchstones that ground Stage Two of her work plan, and define what the mandate of human rights and international solidarity is all about. In effect, Stage Two has shifted the focus from the concept or principle of international solidarity to a right to international solidarity. 10. At the twenty-first session of the Human Rights Council, the Independent Expert shared some preliminary considerations emerging from Stage Two, with regard to what the draft declaration would include. Those considerations had been drawn from various sources, including the activities described in her first report and its addendum, as well as from her informal consultations with various actors, personal research and engagements with global civil society. However, she underscored that those considerations should not be misconstrued as pre-empting the flow of her work plan; rather, they could serve as the starting points in elaborating a draft declaration on the right to international solidarity. Those considerations are as follows: (a) The draft declaration will embark from a level playing field mirroring the current international political and economic realities which have blurred the previous stereotyped relationships between developed and developing countries and economies. In this regard, the Independent expert stresses that a right to international solidarity reaches 4