A/HRC/14/38 right of States to self-defence and on their duty to maintain international peace and security. Therefore, if the right to peace were to be determined in absolute terms, it might not be consistent with the right to self-defence or military steps which might be taken by the Security Council under chapter VII. 23. Mr. Sareva indicated that there was an important disarmament dimension in realizing, promoting and clarifying the right to peace. There was a distinct connection between national security and the right to life. Even during armed conflict, States had the responsibility to protect their peoples, especially civilians. Over centuries, prohibitions had been made on certain kinds of weapons which did not distinguish between civilians and combatants, and severe restrictions had been laid on Governments in the use and development of weaponry. That had become part of international customary law and international humanitarian law. For example, with regard to weapons of mass destruction, concerns about the right to life had found their way into many multilateral treaties governing such weapons. Bans had been instituted on chemical weapons and biological weapons in international treaties that were close to being universally ratified. 24. Mr. Sareva concluded that there remained serious challenges in clarifying the content and scope of the right to peace, in particular from the disarmament perspective, in which national security concerns were of paramount importance to States. Given the complex relationship between the right to peace and the right to self-defence and the obligations to collective security, it would be necessary to take into consideration those potentially conflicting rights in clarifying the scope and content of the right to peace. 25. Mario Yutzis, former Chairperson of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, indicated that the right of peoples to peace, traditionally claimed by both the General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights in previous decades, had garnered new interest which might considerably enrich its content. Since the cold war, States had accepted that peace and security, development and human rights were the pillars of the United Nations system and the foundations of collective security and welfare. In parallel, the progressive development of international human rights law had favoured the emergence of solidarity rights. Among them, the States had codified the human right to development. For its part, in recent years civil society had also exhibited interest and had worked to develop the human right to peace. 26. Mr. Yutzis recalled that there was an inextricable relationship between solidarity rights and the human rights which were recognized 61 years ago in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. They include a set of rights that the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action characterized as universal, indivisible and interdependent, including the right to development. 27. Based on the developments and interest in recent years, Mr. Yutzis stated that it was possible to say that the right of peoples to peace had at least five new dimensions. First, it claimed the defence of the value of life, which was the most fundamental of human rights. That close relationship between the values of peace and life led to the assertion that there was a human right to peace, which both peoples and individuals held. In terms of positive law, the Human Rights Committee had affirmed the relationship between the right to life, prevention of war and the prohibition of propaganda for war, including the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Second, it involved the recognition of others, acknowledging the oneness of humankind overcoming all forms of prejudice, whether due to race, class, colour, nation, gender, degree of civilization or anything else that served in arguments to support and impose the superiority of people and/or social groups. Third, it was a valuable resource against violence arising from armed conflict and structural violence, because conflict was incubated in discrimination and undue restrictions on human rights. All forms of violence impeded the consolidation of peace. Fourth, other instruments of universal scope explained 8 GE.10-12138