Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity

Abstract

UESCO’s governing body—the General Conference U has adopted the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, a text about which Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura expressed hope that it can ‘one day acquire as much force as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’.Mr Matsuura declared: ‘At a time when some might see a clash of cultures in the current international situation, UNESCO’s Member States, convening for the Organization’s 31st General Conference, adopted by acclamation today the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, reaffirming their conviction that intercultural dialogue is the best guarantee of peace, thus categorically rejecting the idea that conflicts between cultures and civilisations are inevitable.‘This is the first time the international community has endowed itself with such a comprehensive standard-setting instrument, elevating cultural diversity to the rank of ‘common heritage of humanity—as necessary for the human race as bio-diversity in the natural realm’—and makes its protection an ethical imperative, inseparable from respect for human dignity.‘UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, along with the main lines of an Action Plan, is a determining instrument to humanize globalization. UNESCO is honoured to be at the forefront of a movement that involves all of humanity.‘This Declaration now counts among the basic texts of new ethics UNESCO is advocating at the beginning of the 21st century. I hope that it will one day acquire as much force as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.’The full text is presented here: