UN General Assembly
1999

vision towards which we should strive. At the time these documents were adopted, they reflected the international determination to ensure that the catastrophe occasioned by the rise of fascism and Nazism should never recur. We recall them today because we believe that the time has come for determined measures to be taken to ensure that they inform what happens in the common world we all share. The central message they contain is expressed in the words of the preamble to the Declaration: “the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom”. We believe that the time has come for all of us to ensure that we work together to reconstruct human society in a manner consistent with this perspective. We further believe that what we have said constitutes a particular and historic challenge to those who occupy positions of