A/HRC/17/39 cause of peace requires the maximum participation of women on equal terms with men in all fields.5 8. The Convention on the Rights of the Child has an optional protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict.6 9. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities reaffirms the crucial role of human rights in general for creating fair and equal societies founded upon freedom, justice, development and peace.7 10. Article 23 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights unambiguously recognizes that all peoples “shall have the right to national and international peace and security”. 11. The Charter of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations of 2007 reiterates the common desire of its member States to live in peace (in its preamble) and to maintain and enhance peace (several times in articles 1 and 2 and in its provisions calling for the peaceful settlement of disputes). 12. Civil society organizations, especially the Spanish Society for International Human Rights Law, and many other non-governmental organizations have also recognized the existence of a right to peace in numerous documents prepared by experts and endorsed by hundreds of non-governmental organizations. The Santiago Declaration on the Human Right to Peace of December 2010 was the result of a four-year world campaign of the Society that brought together inputs from all regions of the world. The initiative is noteworthy in its deliberate effort to seek universal values by drawing upon local and international law from Western and non-Western legal traditions. An international observatory of the human right to peace was also created. More than 900 civil society organizations and cities have endorsed the United Nations documents submitted through the Society. 13. In 1998, more than 200 non-governmental organizations drafted an Asian human rights charter over a three-year discussion process. The Charter asserts that “all persons have a right to peace so that they can fully develop all their capacities, physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual, without being the target of any kind of violence”.8 III. Approach proposed by the Advisory Committee 14. In its resolution 14/3, the Human Rights Council requested the Advisory Committee to prepare a draft declaration on the right of peoples to peace, in consultation with Member States, civil society, academia and all relevant stakeholders. 15. In its resolutions 8/9, 11/4 and 14/3, the Council recognized the right to peace; a number of Member States voted against the resolution. 16. The Advisory Committee suggests a focused approach to clarify the right to peace and to enhance its implementation. 17. The Advisory Committee therefore proposes that peace should be conceived as both the absence of organized violence within a country or between countries and the 5 6 7 8 4 Ibid., vol. 1249, 13. Ibid., vol. 2173, 222. General Assembly resolution 61/106. Miscellaneous authors, Asian Human Rights Charter, para. 4.1. Available from www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/452678304.html.