A/HRC/39/31 situation of young people in that context, and emphasized that the recent recognition by the Security Council of the powerful potential role of youth for peace and prevention should be matched by the Council’s commitment to leading States to better appreciate the importance of respecting the right of young people to a future of sustainable peace. The median age of the populations of countries at war was under 25 years, whereas the populations of countries supplying arms were middle aged and aging rapidly. The Sustainable Development Goals would not be realized without the engagement of youth. The greatest moral, social and political challenge for humanity was to mobilize the energy, creativity and vision of youth in pursuit of peace. III. Overview of panel presentations and discussions A. Means to build peace within and between societies 7. The first panel focused on article 2 of the Declaration on the Right to Peace, looking at means to build peace within and between societies, including by ensuring equality and non-discrimination, justice and the rule of law and freedom from fear and want. The panel was chaired by the President of the Human Rights Council, Vojislav Šuc. The panellists were Christian Guillermet-Fernández, Director-General of Foreign Policy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Costa Rica and former Chair-Rapporteur of the open-ended intergovernmental working group on the draft United Nations declaration on the right to peace (2012–2015), and Maya Brehm, an adviser at the non-governmental organization “Article 36”. 8. Mr. Guillermet-Fernández thanked the Deputy High Commissioner for her inspiring opening statement and he acknowledged the contributions by diplomats, representatives of civil society and academics on the long walk that had ultimately led to the adoption of the Declaration on the Right to Peace in 2016. He noted that the Council had been working on the promotion of the right of peoples to peace since 2008, following up on previous resolutions on that subject adopted by the General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights. 9. Mr. Guillermet-Fernández presented the history of the Declaration. In its resolution 20/15, the Council had established an open-ended intergovernmental working group with the mandate to negotiate a draft declaration on the right to peace, on the basis of a draft submitted by the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee. He had been elected Chairperson-Rapporteur of the working group. At its first session, the working group had noted that the text submitted by the Advisory Committee (A/HRC/20/31) did not have sufficient support, even from those Member States that had actively supported the process within the Council. In order to maintain the important work done by the Advisory Committee, he had decided to revive the spirit of Council resolutions 14/3 and 17/16, which recalled the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace adopted by the General Assembly in its resolution 53/243. He had highlighted that all the main elements of the right to peace identified by the Advisory Committee had been elaborated previously by Member States, international organizations and non-governmental organizations in various declarations and programmes of action, and had argued that the right to peace and the culture of peace were two sides of the same coin. 10. On 1 July 2016, by its resolution 32/28, the Council had adopted the Declaration on the Right to Peace by a majority of its member States and, on 19 December 2016, the General Assembly had adopted the Declaration by its resolution 71/189. The Declaration had been the result of three years of work with various stakeholders, including civil society organizations. However, all States and regional groups within the Council and the General Assembly had been unable to reach full consensus, owing to the lack of agreement on the title and article 1, both of which referred to “the right to peace”. 11. Mr. Guillermet-Fernández stressed that the Declaration followed the line of Renaissance humanism. Erasmus of Rotterdam had been the pre-eminent representative of that intellectual and ethical philosophy and, for example, had recognized the right to peace in his book The Complaint of Peace in 1517. Other recognized philosophers, poets and 3