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Student Conference on Human Rights
at the United Nations
In December 1998, the United Nations Department of Public
Information invited 400 students from around the world to
a conference at UN Headquarters in New York to help celebrate
the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. The conference goal was to produce the Youth Declaration
of Human Rights.
This program at the UN was so successful that students lobbied
to make the conference an annual event that would be scheduled
each year to coincide closely with Human Rights Day on December
10th. The UN Department of Public Information agreed to host
the conference. The Carol Baur Foundation, Global Education
Motivators, InterConnections 21, LePage Educational Consultants,
United Nations International School (UNIS), UNA-Dominican
Republic, and UNA-USA are all co-sponsors of this event. A
total of 6 such annual conferences have taken place since
1998.
The goal of this annual event is to promote awareness and
learning and prompt action among student leaders about human
rights in general and to encourage them to focus on specific
rights and related themes from year to year. The conference
is also an opportunity for student leaders to network and
develop important leadership skills such as public speaking,
team and consensus building, negotiating, and research and
drafting. Finally, the conference provides participants with
first-hand experience in using many recent information technologies
such as video conferencing and web casting.
Subsequent to the September 11, 2001 tragedy, the format
of the conference changed. Instead of convening 400-500 participants
in New York, now some 40-50 students representing the cosponsoring
agencies gather at the UN over a two-day period to take the
lead in drafting a document concerning a different human rights
theme each year. Students from around the world contribute
to these efforts on the second day through videoconference
hook-ups to and a web cast of the proceedings in New York.
This year’s conference will take place on December
2-3, 2004. The theme will be “HIV/AIDS: From Awareness
to Action”. Students will draft a Plan of Action that
they will present to the President of the UN General Assembly
(GA) at the end of the Conference. In past years, the President
of the General Assembly has, in turn, presented the document
prepared by the Student Conference to the General Assembly.
Program for December 2-3, 2004 |
