A/HRC/23/20 cooperation were being explored. In all exchanges, the Council of Europe strove to achieve coherence, which was essential to cooperation. 11. From the floor, the African Union pointed out that the lack of development, the persistence of conflict and weak institutions all hampered the effective realization of human rights, and international cooperation must not be dissociated from these phenomena. Due attention needed to be paid to economic, social and cultural rights, with cooperation extending to all areas across the three pillars of the United Nations system. Cooperation should be neither politicized nor subject to political conditionality, since suspension of cooperation had negative effects for human rights, especially economic, social and cultural rights. Cross-fertilisation between regional and international mechanisms enhanced cooperation. B. Setting the concepts: definition, scope, legal framework and the role of international cooperation for the effective promotion and protection of all human rights 12. The members of the Advisory Committee addressed the legal basis of international cooperation, which rested on well-established principles, and challenges in translating theory into reality. 13. As discussed in the study of the Advisory Committee, the concept of international cooperation is firmly embedded in the Charter of the United Nations, Article 1 of which states that one of the purposes of the United Nations is to achieve international cooperation, and contains a further number of references thereto, in particular Articles 13, 55, 56, 57 and 71. These provisions demonstrate that the scope for international cooperation is much broader than that of human rights, but that the broad vision of economic and social cooperation (chapter IX of the Charter) clearly encompasses human rights. The duty of States to cooperate was further clarified in the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and in the international instruments specific to human rights. Taken together, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the two covenants demonstrated clearly the extent of the commitment to cooperate for the promotion of human rights, with more explicit references in more recent instruments, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Lastly, the numerous references to international cooperation in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, which by clarifying further the commitments and the role of international cooperation in the promotion and protection of human rights set out in Article 56 of the Charter marked a turning point, the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action and the mandate of the Human Rights Council all demonstrated the value afforded to this concept, but also brought to light the host of diverse meanings attributed to it. 14. In the multiple facets of international cooperation, a first parameter to be considered was the multiplicity of actors involved, which, besides bilateral and multilateral cooperation between States, also involved inter-institutional cooperation with organizations of the United Nations family but also increasingly with regional organizations and financial institutions; national institutions, which are at the intersection of public authorities with civil society; and economic actors representing business and trade unions, and civil society actors. The aims of international cooperation were varied and cross-cutting as well and, if for a long time associated mainly with economic development, different forms of cooperation had emerged, such as cooperation in the establishment of the rule of law, human rights and development in the context of the development of legislation; the codification and development of international law; cooperation on judicial and police 5