A/HRC/11/10 page 22 76. It can therefore be argued that international financial institutions which are specialized agencies of the United Nations are obliged at a minimum to respect human rights in their operations. This implies that they should ensure that their development cooperation activities (including debt relief measures and aid conditionalities) do not undermine human rights. H. The principle of shared responsibility 77. A fundamental principle in the Millennium Declaration is that of shared responsibility. The Declaration underscores that the responsibility for managing global economic and social development must be shared among the nations of the world and should be exercised multilaterally. In a similar vein, paragraph 47 of the Monterrey Consensus of the International Conference on Financing for Development emphasizes that “debtors and creditors must share the responsibility for preventing and resolving unsustainable debt situations”.45 78. The independent expert considers that it is important, as a key aspect of the shared responsibility of debtors and creditors, that generally agreed criteria for the definition and treatment of illegitimate debt be developed. IV. AREAS OF FOCUS FOR THE PERIOD 2009-2010 79. In the coming year, the independent expert intends to focus on the development of the draft general guidelines on foreign debt and human rights. He will also explore the linkages between debt and trade, as well as the issue of illegitimate debt. A. Draft guidelines on foreign debt and human rights 80. It will be recalled that, in its resolutions 2004/18 and 2005/19, the Commission on Human Rights called upon the previous mandate holder (Bernards Mudho) to develop guidelines on economic reform policies and human rights and that, in February 2008, Mr. Mudho informally presented a preliminary draft of the guidelines to the Human Rights Council. In his report (A/HRC/7/9), the previous mandate holder stated that the guidelines required further work and consultations. 81. In its resolution 7/4, the Council requested the current mandate holder to continue work on the development of the draft guidelines with a view to presenting an update thereon to the Council in 2010. In accordance with the request of the Council and in the light of the redefined focus of the mandate from “economic reform policies and foreign debt” to “foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States”, the independent expert intends to revise the guidelines to ensure, inter alia, that: (a) they take the form commonly adopted by other guiding principles prepared by other special procedures of the Council; and (b) they include 45 Report of the International Conference on Financing for Development, Monterrey, Mexico, 18-22 March 2002 (A/CONF.198/11, chapter 1, resolution 1, annex).