UN General Assembly
1997

State should shirk its individual responsibility. One of the challenges facing the international community is to ensure the effective promotion and full observance of all human rights and fundamental freedoms. The advancement and protection of human rights are central concerns of the Peruvian Government. The concept of human development, which underlies the entire economic and social policy of our State, focuses on a revalorization of life and of the human being. The cooperation of the United Nations is essential, through a realistic approach that takes due account of regional and national characteristics and that is geared primarily to achieving a culture of human rights. Many countries, including Peru, are currently facing a cyclical, worldwide natural phenomenon known as El Niño, whose severe economic, environmental and social consequences are drastically changing the marine environment, which is a source of food and employment for broad sectors of humankind. The damage that these large-scale oceanic and atmospheric changes did in the past prompted my country some decades ago to promote the study of this phenomenon. Thus in 1974 a regional