A/HRC/21/44 I. Introduction 1. The Human Rights Council appointed Virginia B. Dandan as Independent Expert on human rights and international solidarity, effective 1 August 2011. In its resolution 18/5, the Human Rights Council took note of the work plan she presented at its eighteenth session and requested her to continue to identify areas to be addressed, the main concepts and norms that could form the basis of a framework, and good practices to inform the future development of law and policy with regard to human rights and international solidarity. 2. The Human Rights Council requested the Independent Expert to continue her work in the preparation of a draft declaration on the right of peoples and individuals to international solidarity and in further developing guidelines, standards, norms and principles with a view to promoting and protecting this right by addressing, inter alia, existing and emerging obstacles to its realization. It further requested her to take into account the outcomes of all major United Nations and other global summits and ministerial meetings in the economic, social and climate fields and to seek views and contributions from governments, United Nations agencies, other relevant international organizations and non-governmental organizations in the discharge of her mandate. 3. The Human Rights Council took note of the steps taken by the drafting group established by the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee and reiterated its requests to the Advisory Committee to consider the issue of human rights and international solidarity, and to prepare, in close cooperation with the Independent Expert, inputs for elaboration of the draft declaration on the right of peoples and individuals to international solidarity, and to the further development of guidelines, standards, norms and principles with a view to promoting and protecting this right. 4. In the same resolution 18/5, the Human Rights Council requested all States, United Nations agencies, other relevant international organizations and non-governmental organizations to mainstream the right of peoples and individuals to international solidarity into their activities, and to cooperate with the Independent Expert on human rights and international solidarity in her mandate, to supply all necessary information requested by her and to give serious consideration to responding favourably to her requests to visit their country, to enable her to fulfil her mandate effectively. 5. Further, the Human Rights Council requested the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to convene in 2012, prior to the twenty-first session of the Human Rights Council, a workshop for an exchange of views on, inter alia, the gender implications of international solidarity, the impact of a right to international solidarity in achieving the Millennium Development Goals and the realization of the right to development, with the participation of representatives from all interested States, the Independent Expert, the members of the Advisory Committee dealing with this issue, and civil society. 6. The Independent Expert acknowledges with appreciation, the previous work done by her predecessor Rudi Muhammad Rizki, who passed away in 2011, which will be taken into account in her own work. The outcomes of her own activities will be consolidated with his past work to comprise the empirical basis of a draft declaration on the right of peoples and individuals to international solidarity to be submitted to the Council by 2014. 3