A/HRC/9/10
page 10
rights instruments, such as the Committee on Economic, Social and Economic Rights and the
Committee on the Rights of the Child, have also made specific recommendations on
development cooperation, urging Governments to meet internationally agreed targets, including
the United Nations target for international development assistance of 0.7 per cent of gross
domestic product (GDP).
24. In terms of international solidarity and the areas of focus in the independent expert’s
mandate, more attention will be given to international cooperation to achieve the Millennium
Development Goals and respond to natural disasters. There is an emphasis within that context on
the mobilization of resources and the need to ensure that countries which are authentically
committed to achieving the Goals and have done all within their power to do so will be provided
with the additional resources necessary to enable them to meet the Millennium Development
Goals.10 At some point, the reiteration of commitments to achieve the Millennium Development
Goals in documents such as the Millennium Declaration, the Johannesburg World Summit on
Sustainable Development and the Monterrey Consensus, will start to provide a strong argument
that such obligation has crystallized into customary law.11 In response to natural disasters, the
obligation of international cooperation is cemented in human rights law. The Committee on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights stated that States and international organizations have a
joint and individual responsibility to cooperate in providing disaster relief and humanitarian
assistance in times of emergency.12 In disaster relief and emergency assistance, priority is to be
given to Covenant rights.13 The independent expert will in future work concentrate on the global
response to natural disasters, specifically international cooperation in the light of natural
disasters and the promotion and protection of human rights.
II. PRELIMINARY STEPS TOWARDS DEVELOPMENT
AND PREPARATION OF A DRAFT DECLARATION
ON THE RIGHT OF PEOPLES AND INDIVIDUALS TO
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY
25. The independent expert has been mandated with the task of preparing a draft declaration
on the right of peoples and individuals to international solidarity. Human Rights Council
resolution 6/3 also took into account the urgent need to further develop guidelines, standards,
norms and principles with a view to promoting and protecting the right of peoples and
individuals to international solidarity.
10
Philip Alston, A Human Rights Perspective on the Millennium Development Goals, Paper
prepared as a contribution to the work of the Millennium Project Task Force on Poverty and
Economic Development, 2003.
11
Alston, 2003.
12
ICESCR Committee, 2000, para. 40; 1999, para. 38.
13
ICESCR Committee, 2002, para. 34.
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