Follow-up to the Copenhagen Summit on Social Development
Doc. 7492
16 February 1996REPORT[1]
Rapporteur: Mr GROSS, Switzerland, Socialist Group
Summary
Poverty, underdevelopment and growing inequalities are virtual time bombs.
Because they are convinced that this is the case, the heads of state and government of 117 countries made ten undertakings in Copenhagen in an effort to end this unacceptable state of affairs.
The Council of Europe's role in this endeavour is twofold:
within its own member states, to maintain a high level of economic and social development and to protect human rights � all human rights � social as well as civil and political;
in its relations with developing countries, to implement the undertakings made in Copenhagen to help the least developed countries.
Many of these undertakings call for increased awareness and political commitment rather than a financial contribution. There is therefore no reason for their implementation to be deferred.
I. Draft recommendation
1. The Assembly is pleased that a World Summit on Social Development was held for the first time from 9 to 13 March 1995 in Copenhagen and wishes to thank those who initiated and organised this summit.
2. It recalls the undertakings made by the heads of state and government:
i. to create favourable conditions for social development;
ii. to eradicate poverty through action at national level and international co-operation;
iii. to provide acceptable living conditions through full employment;
iv. to achieve social integration and the participation of all in society;
v. to achieve equality and fair treatment between men and women;
vi. to foster the economic, social and human development of Africa and the least developed countries;
vii. to incorporate the aims of social development and the eradication of poverty into structural adjustment programmes;
viii. to make better use of the resources earmarked for social development;
ix. to reinforce international co-operation in social development.
3. The Assembly considers that since Europe has made the most progress in human rights protection, it should ensure that this high level of protection is maintained for civil/political and social rights.
4. It possesses the appropriate legal instruments, in particular the European Social Charter, a revised version of which is due to be adopted very shortly and which should be opened for ratification by the European Union.
5. It considers that, as the Parliamentary Assembly of a European organisation whose aims include social progress, it has a role of regional liaison to ensure that these undertakings are made good.
6. It reaffirms that the human dimension is and should be the key element in social development.
7. The Assembly also believes that social development calls for both the recognition of women and a political commitment to help women develop their potential.
8. It refers to the numerous texts which it has already devoted to North-South relations � Resolutions 981 and 982 (1992) and 1006 (1993); to development co-operation � Resolution 1060 (1995); and to social policies � Resolution 1056 (1995) based on the work of the Prague Conference.
9. It notes that, in spite of repeated requests to developed countries to allocate 0,7% of their GNP to development aid, the majority of Council of Europe member states have not only failed to reach this target, but have actually reduced their aid.
10. The Assembly is aware that poverty and social exclusion are also taking their toll in Council of Europe member states and that measures need to be taken to help developing and the least developed countries as well as Council of Europe member states, since such measures are not mutually exclusive as interdependence is the key to inter-state relations.
11. Therefore, the Assembly recommends that the Committee of Ministers:
i. adopt the revised Social Charter as soon as possible;
ii. invite the European Union to become a Contracting Party to the revised Social Charter;
iii. ask for a study on the consequences of the globalisation of social rights;
iv. include a clause on equality between men and women in an additional protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights;
v. invite the governments of member states:
a. to re-establish a policy of full employment by various means including the reduction of working hours;
b. to introduce social policies based on solidarity, in particular through distributive fiscal policies;
c. to maintain a system of universal social protection; and, in the context of their relations with developing countries:
d. to reduce the debt of the least developed countries;
e. to allocate 0,7% of their GNP to development aid, possibly tying it to conditions such as allocating these sums to social development, education and health;
f. to adopt 20/20 pacts, (that is to say, 20% of the budgets of developing countries and 20% of aid should be devoted to essential needs) if necessary accompanying them with specific clauses on women's access to education and employment, equal right of access to property and, in general, equality in fact and in law;
g. to study the possibility of instituting a tax on short-term monetary transactions in order to stabilise the financial markets and limit speculation, as proposed by the Nobel Laureate James Tobin.
II. Draft order
on a debate on the European Social Charter
1. The Assembly refers to its Recommendation ... (1996) on the follow-up to the Copenhagen Summit on Social Development.
2. It recalls its Resolution 967 (1991) on renewal of the Council of Europe's Social Charter in which its Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee expressed readiness to hold a major social policy debate on operations under the European Social Charter.
3. It therefore instructs its Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee to organise such a debate in 1996.
III. Explanatory memorandum
by Mr GROSS
Introduction
For the first time, a world summit was devoted to social development in Copenhagen from 6 to 12 March 1995.
The Council of Europe was represented by an ad hoc sub-committee of the Assembly comprising Mrs Robert (Switzerland), Mrs Albrink and Mrs Degn (Denmark), Mr Hegyi (Hungary) and Mr Laanoja (Estonia).
The sub-committee appointed Mrs Robert as spokesperson; it also agreed that the summit should be followed up by an Assembly report, of which this is a preliminary draft.
Why hold a world summit on social development?
The figures speak volumes:
One billion three hundred million people live in a state of absolute poverty, and one billion five hundred million are denied access to the most basic health care. The annual WHO report refers to destitution as the world's most fatal illness. Pauperisation is growing in all the developed countries, including among the working population.
The UNDP 1995 world report on human development states that no country in the world treats women as well as men.
This applies to the world as a whole but Council of Europe member states are not exempt from phenomena of poverty linked to unemployment or social exclusion of all kinds, which are sources of potential or existing social conflict.
We live in an age marked by conflicts between factions within one and the same country on the pretext that the richest or most developed parts do not wish to provide for the needs of the poorest or least developed.
The aim of the Copenhagen Summit was therefore to lead heads of state to make undertakings in the form of a declaration of principles and a programme of action. It is worth underlining that this summit, unlike others previously requested by non-governmental organisations, was desired by the heads of state themselves.
As the Director of the International Labour Office pointed out, the summit was to be about fighting complacency over a state of affairs which was neither inevitable or irreversible.
None of these facts are new, so why it is only now that something is being done?
The United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Boutros-Ghali, gave the reasons for the Summit a few days beforehand: "The time has come to act, for the co-operation possibilities have never been so great".
Like other recent summits or world conferences organised by the United Nations, the World Summit for Social Development has been a viable proposition only since the end of the cold war. The phenomenon of globalisation is making it possible to take a universal approach to problems and should also help to solve them. It is a rare opportunity, which must be fully exploited.
On the other hand, globalisation of the economy implies an international competition which is more and more tough and which undermines social rights. Such an evolution is detrimental to social development both in developing and in developed countries, where some reactions of refusal started, as was shown by social outbursts in France in November and December 1995.
These problems will be dealt with in another report on the new World Trade Organisation (WTO) and social rights and working conditions.
But even more important than globalisation is interdependence, which is referred to in the 1995 report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). This is a matter of urgency.
The Copenhagen Summit was the initiative of the Chilean Ambassador, Mr Somavia, and it was his personal commitment that made it possible. In his words, "there was a time when the abolition of slavery seemed as improbable as the eradication of poverty does now", which indicates the determination with which he has set to work and his conviction that there can be no question of failure. The rapporteur pays tribute to him here and to the Danish authorities for their faultless organisation of the summit.
Over one hundred heads of state and government took the floor to denounce the intolerable phenomena of absolute poverty, unemployment and discrimination conditioned by people's origins in the rich "North" or the poor "South" or by whether they are born man or woman, to parody an idea of Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex.
The summit closed with the adoption of a declaration and an action programme. The declaration lists the undertakings made by the heads of state and government, and the action programme sets out the measures to be taken by the governments.
Undertakings: declaration and programme of action
The undertakings may be summarised as follows:
1. to create all favourable conditions for social development,
2. to eradicate poverty through action at national level and international co-operation,
3. to provide acceptable living conditions through full employment,
4. to achieve social integration and the participation of all in society,
5. to achieve equality and fair treatment between men and women,
6. to foster the economic, social and human development of Africa and the least developed countries,
7. to incorporate the aims of social development and the eradication of poverty into structural adjustment programmes,
8. to make better use of the resources earmarked for social development,
9. to reinforce international co-operation in social development.
The programme of action comprises five sections devoted to:
a favourable environment for social development;
the eradication of poverty;
productive employment and reduction of unemployment;
social integration;
the implementation and follow-up of the programme.
A second world summit for social development should be held in 2005, to take stock of programme implementation and decide on other measures.
It is pointed out in the programme's introduction that numerous points in it have already been covered in greater detail by earlier world conferences, on the status of women, child welfare, population and health. The significance of the present programme of action lies in its integrated approach, which combines different lines of action to eradicate poverty, create jobs and achieve social integration.
Clearly, the list of undertakings is both broad and ambitious while also vague; some are aimed at states, while others target international organisations.
Moreover, it is more of a catalogue of remedies � from which the protagonists may produce their own concoction � than a real analysis of the causes underlying the disorders identified.
One of the undertakings lends itself to implementation perhaps more readily than the others, since a large amount of work in the matter has already been accomplished in the form of recommended practical measures which need simply be extended to all countries. It concerns equality between men and women. There are convincing reasons for emphasis on this undertaking, as noted in Copenhagen where the large majority of speakers highlighted the essential present or potential role of women in development.
Equality is moreover the opening topic of the 1995 UNDP Human Development Report, four of whose six chapters deal with it.
Recognition of equal rights for men and women, and resolve to combat gender-based discrimination, are achievements of a significance comparing to that of the abolition of slavery or the end of colonialism, according to the report.
Human development would be effectively jeopardised were its female dimension disregarded; this is the message of the report, which makes a number of practical recommendations and observations to the effect that equality must be established as a fundamental right, and investment in the potential offered by women requires a political commitment more than huge financial resources.
What is the role of the Council of Europe?
Bearing in mind that the aims of the Council of Europe include social progress, it has a role of regional liaison for the undertakings made in Copenhagen.
It already has a number of activities in line with what is required to its credit.
It has drawn up the legal instruments necessary to implement its aims of upholding human rights, not only of a civil and political nature but also of a social and cultural nature. The two instruments concerned are the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Social Charter, supplemented and amended over the years. In the European Social Charter it possesses an unrivalled legal instrument securing social rights. The amendments which the Parliamentary Assembly deemed necessary to make it fully consistent with this goal of social protection have been embodied in a draft revised Charter now before the Committee of Ministers for approval. Of course, the acceptance and above all the application of these instruments by all member states must firstly be assured, and secondly further new rights must be added.
As to equality between women and men, the Assembly has repeatedly requested that it be enshrined as a fundamental right either in a protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights or in the actual text. The Committee of Ministers has not yet granted this request.
A distinction must be drawn therefore between concerns with the situation in individual Council of Europe member states on the one hand and co-operation with non-member states on the other hand.
Preliminary conclusions
Measures which the Parliamentary Assembly might recommend to the Committee of Ministers:
adoption, as soon as possible, of the text of the revised Social Charter, or rather the Charter on Social and Economic Rights;
acceptance of the European Social Charter by all member states;
invitation to the European Community to become a Contracting Party to the charter and proposal that the European Social Charter be adopted as a model for a world charter;
addition of a clause on equality to the European Convention on Human Rights itself or in an additional protocol.
Measures which the Parliamentary Assembly might recommend to member state governments:
reduction of Third World debt;
development aid amounting to 0,7% of the GDP, as advocated by the Assembly in its Recommendation 1260 (1995);
incorporation of social development into economic policies.
20/20 pact, that is the developing countries should make it their aim to devote at least 20% of their total budgets, and the donor countries at least 20% of their aid budgets, to essential needs such as basic education, health care, family planning services, drinking water, and food supply to the most underprivileged, these measures being accompanied as appropriate by specific clauses on women's education and equal right of access to ownership.
Reporting committee: Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee.
Budgetary implications for the Assembly: none.
Reference to committee: Doc. 7268 and Reference No. 2004 of 24 April 1995.
Draft recommendation and draft order unanimously adopted by the committee on 23 January 1996
Members of the committee: Mr Gusenbauer (Chairman), Mr Rathbone (Vice-Chairman), Mrs Albrink, Mrs Andnor, Mr Banks (Alternate: Cox), Mrs Belohorsk�, Sir Andrew Bowden (Alternate: Earl of Dundee), MM. Bugli, Buzatu, Christodoulides, Chyzh, Croze, Dees, Deguara (Alternate: Farrugia), Dionisi, Djerov, Mrs Fleetwood, Mrs Gatterer, Mr Geoffroy (Alternate: Birraux), Mrs Golemi, MM. Gross, Haack, Hegyi, Mrs H�egh (Alternate: Mrs Brenden), MM. Horn, Jacquat (Alternate: Daniel), J�nsson, Keller, Kollwelter, Kotlar, Kotsonis, Kouck�, Mrs Ku�nere, Mrs Luhtanen, MM. Maginas, Ma_achowski, Marmazov, Mrs Maximus, MM. Mazzone, Mozeti_, Nestor, Mrs Van Nieuwenhoven, MM. Palacios, Pattison, Paunescu, Mrs Poptodorova, MM. Ra�ka, Ra�kinis, Robles Orozco, Scaglioso, Valkeniers, Mrs Vermot-Mangold, Mr Wielowieyski.
N.B. The names of those members present at the meeting are printed in italics.
Secretaries to the committee: Ms Coin and Ms Meunier.
[1]. By the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee.