A/HRC/21/19 rights and development. Recalling the mandate of the Working Group, the speaker noted that the drafters of the Declaration had realized the legal protection gap with regard to the right to development, which still existed today. That called for the establishment, within the United Nations system, of a mechanism to evaluate how the United Nations system incorporated the right to development in its work. As the Working Group continued to work on the refinement and final endorsement of the criteria and sub-criteria, those standards should evolve into a basis for the consideration of an international legal standard of a binding nature through a collaborative process of engagement. 13. Cuba emphasized that the right to development was a universal and inalienable right of individuals and peoples, and remained a priority for the country. There was a need for a favourable environment and international cooperation. Despite many efforts by developing countries, progress was hampered due to international barriers, including major protectionist barriers, unfair trade and failure to observe official assistance agreements. The economic, trade and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba constituted a massive and systematic violation of human rights and the right to development. There were many incongruences and inconsistencies in the right-todevelopment criteria and operational sub-criteria as elaborated by the task force. Cuba opposed any attempt to reinterpret the right to development or to introduce progressivity; the purpose was to make the Declaration operational. Wars and the bellicosity of the United States and NATO-allied Governments constituted the most immediate and present threat to the right to development. Without peace there could be no development and without development there could be no peace. Disarmament was needed to free up resources for development. There was a need to fight underdevelopment, hunger and disease, and a need for armies of teachers and doctors, not armies sowing fear. 14. The United States underlined the need for more shared consensus on the definition and nature of the right to development. It stated its belief that the right-to-development criteria, sub-criteria and indicators provided potential common ground to advance work on the right to development. The United States supported the overall structure set forth by the task force, comprising goals and their component parts with benchmarks of progress, much the same way the Millennium Development Goals were structured around goals, targets and indicators, and ultimately all three components had to be considered as a package. It would be important to draw on expert guidance, as the process continued, to involve civil society and the private sector. Furthermore, there was a need to ensure that the criteria, sub-criteria and indicators complemented, rather than duplicated, the statistics of development and statistical agencies and the work done to monitor the Millennium Development Goals. The speaker underscored that the Working Group should focus on the human person as the right holder, as well as affirm the universality of human rights and that the State had the primary obligation to protect and promote human rights. 15. Morocco stressed that the Declaration on the Right to Development provided for a balanced sharing of national and international responsibilities in the area of development. States as well as the international community had a common moral obligation to make the right to development a priority in order to emancipate people from need and vulnerability and to address the growing gap between developed and developing countries. While States had the primary responsibility to create favourable conditions for the realization of the right to development, the international community had to fully assume its responsibility through, inter alia, cooperation and development assistance. 16. Pakistan pointed to recent developments at the international economic, financial and energy fronts, which called for increased and mutually beneficial cooperation. It supported all efforts aimed at transposing the right to development from the conceptual domain to operational reality. The elaboration of the right-to-development indicators was not within the mandate of the task force and lacked legal basis; however, Pakistan remained open to 6