A/HRC/19/45 Annex III Statement on the importance and relevance of the right to development, adopted on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights The 4th of December 2011 marks the 25th anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Declaration on the Right to Development. a On this occasion, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the Committee) wishes to emphasize the close relationship and the complementarity existing between the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the Covenant) and the Declaration on the Right to Development (the Declaration). The Committee recalls that the UN Charter obliges States to take action, individually and jointly, for the promotion and respect of human rights and economic and social progress. Article 55 specifies that the promotion of full employment and development is integral to such efforts.b In 1948, the General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Its articles 22 to 27 proclaim various economic, social and cultural rights, particularly the rights to work, to social security, to an adequate standard of living including the rights to food and to housing, to health, to education, and to enjoy and freely participate in cultural life. Subsequently, these rights were enshrined and elaborated in the Covenant of 1966. The substantive articles 1 to 15 of the Covenant inspired and shaped numerous fundamental elements of the right to development. Notwithstanding this incorporation of fundamental components of the right to development in the Covenant, the implementation of the right to development faced many structural obstacles. Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes: “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.” Responding primarily to the special needs and concerns of developing countries, the General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Right to Development in 1986 and expressed its concern about the “serious obstacles to development, as well as to the complete fulfillment of human beings and of peoples, constituted, inter alia, by the denial of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, and considering that all human rights and fundamental freedoms are indivisible and interdependent”. The Declaration emphasizes that in order to promote development, “equal attention and urgent consideration should be given to the implementation, promotion and protection of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights and that, accordingly, the promotion of, respect for, and enjoyment of certain human rights and fundamental freedoms cannot justify the denial of other human rights and fundamental freedoms.” The Declaration also highlights that development is a multifaceted and participatory process. Specifically, the Declaration provides that development is “…a comprehensive economic, social, cultural and political process, which aims at the constant improvement of the well-being of the entire population and of all individuals on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in development and in the fair distribution of benefits resulting therefrom”. Furthermore, the Declaration proclaims that the right to development a b 12 General Assembly resolution 41/128, annex. See the Preamble and Articles 1, 55 and 56 of the Charter of the United Nations.