Press release of the Inter-Parliamentary Union
Beijing, 20 September 1996
N° 6

IPU CONFERENCE ADOPTS MOTIONS ON ANTI-PERSONNEL MINES, HUMAN RIGHTS AND FOOD SECURITY

The 96th Inter-Parliamentary Conference concluded its five-day session in Beijing on 20 September, by adopting resolutions calling for parliamentary action towards a comprehensive ban on anti-personnel mines, to promote rights for women and children, and on the right to food.

The resolutions were all adopted without a vote by the Conference which brought together 589 MPs from 118 member-countries of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) -- the world organization of parliaments which brings together parliamentarians from around the world every six months to exchange ideas and make calls for action on issues of international interest.

The Conference was hosted by the National People's Congress of China and chaired by the Vice-Chairman of its Standing Committee, Mr Tian Jiyun. It took place from 15 to 20 September.

The resolution entitled “Worldwide ban on anti-personnel mines and the need for mine clearance for humanitarian purposes”, called on the IPU with other international organizations “to work towards a comprehensive ban on anti-personnel mines”.

According to the resolution, parliamentarians should “urge their governments to ban anti-personnel mines, develop comprehensive programmes for destroying existing stockpiles, and support international efforts to achieve a binding international agreement on a global ban”.1

The Conference also called on states to “accede at least” to the most recent protocol on land mines which was adopted at the Review Conference last May in Geneva of the 1980 UN Convention on the Prohibition or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (CCW).

The Conference requested the United Nations to “strengthen its efforts” to eliminate anti-personnel land mines and called in the meantime on the international community, through the UN, to draw up a register of transfers of and trade in anti-personnel mines.

The resolution also called for more financial and technical assistance for mine clearance, for more assistance to humanitarian organizations such as the International Red Cross “to make the civilian population aware of the dangers posed by mines”, and to provide “aid to victims of anti-personnel mines”.

The resolution also urged all IPU members “to supply promptly” information requested by the IPU's Committee to Promote Respect for International Humanitarian Law which is conducting a survey on parliamentary action to ensure the national application of international humanitarian law.

The resolution entitled “Promoting greater respect and protection of human rights in general and in particular for women and children”, called on parliaments and governments to take “emergency measures” to protect the rights of children, and “effective measures” to promote women's rights.

In reference to children, it cited in particular “girls, abandonned children, street children, children who are victims of economic and sexual exploitation, including child pornography, child prostitution or trafficking in human organs, trafficking in children for purposes of adoption, children suffering from disease including AIDS, refugee and displaced children, detained children, children suffering owing to armed conflict, famine, drought and harm caused by other emergency situations”.

It also called for an “open in-depth debate” on measures to tackle the root causes of child labour.

The Conference said the rights of women and girls could be promoted by urging all governments to take “effective measures to implement fully the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (September 1995), and all parliaments to follow up on the commitment they undertook in the Beijing Parliamentary Declaration to implement the recommendations of the Beijing Conference”.

The Conference recommended that parliaments and governments “adopt and implement a programme setting out standards for the protection of women and children living in zones of national or international conflicts, of which they are the main victims”.

The resolution also recommended “emergency action” by parliaments and governments to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, such as sexual aggression during armed conflicts, and said the United Nations should “further extend the powers of the international tribunals to ensure that states and individuals are held accountable for such crimes”.

The resolution urged governments “to end forced sterilization of women and forced abortion, which in all cases constitute a grave violation of the women's personal integrity and in some cases are also used for suppressing peoples and minorities”.

It also urged industrialized countries' governments “to end cuts in official development assistance” and instead to try to meet the UN target of 0.7-1.0% of GNP because “poverty is often the cause of the difficult human right situation of women and children”.

Overall, the resolution rejected “any coercive or unilateral measures, whether political or legal, applied by one country against another, since such measures ultimately penalize men, women and children who are alien to political controversies and interests and should therefore be regarded as an infringement of human rights”.

The third resolution that was adopted by the Conference was entitled “Policies and strategies to ensure the right to food in this time of globalization of the economy and trade liberalization”.

The resolution stressed that the right to food is one of the basic fundamental human rights and the Conference “rejects any use of the food issue by one or more countries or international bodies to exert political and economic pressure on other countries”. The resolution urged the World Food Summit, due to take place in November this year in Rome, to “adopt practical decisions guaranteeing that all persons and all countries benefit from the strengthening, protection and exercise of the right to food as a fundamental human right”.

It also called on the Summit to give the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) a mandate to draft an “international code of conduct ensuring the application of the policies and plans of action adopted at this Summit”.

The Conference also endorsed the decision of the IPU to organize a “Parliamentarians' Day” on the occasion of the Food Summit and urged parliamentarians from around the world to participate in this event.

The Conference noted with concern that “close to 800 million people in developing countries suffer from chronic undernutrition, and almost 200 million children under five from protein and energy deficiencies and that as many as 88 nations fall in the category of law-income and food-deficit countries”.

The resolution called on states to propose solutions to the lack of world food security “based on the principles of democratization and transparent and accountable govenance, peace, sustainable development and respect for human rights”.