The right to development itself was the topic of a resolution that was approved by the Assembly, by a vote of 123 in favour to 4 against (Denmark, Israel, Japan, United States), with 44 abstentions (Annex V). In the draft, the Assembly underlined that, in the process of realizing the right, special attention should be given to persons belonging to minorities, whether national, ethnic, religious or linguistic, as well as to persons belonging to vulnerable groups, such as elderly people, indigenous people, persons with disabilities, children and persons infected with HIV/AIDS.
Further, the resolution recognized that, for many developing countries, the realization of the right to, among other things, food, health and education may be important development entry points to the realization of the right to development.
In stressing the importance of the right to food, in a text adopted today by a vote of 169 in favour to 2 against (Israel, United States), with 2 abstentions (Australia, New Zealand) (Annex IX), the Assembly reaffirmed that hunger constituted an outrage and a violation of human dignity and, therefore, required the adoption of urgent measures at the national, regional and international levels for its elimination. It was intolerable that 826 million people, most of them women and children, throughout the world, and particularly in developing countries, did not have enough food to meet their basic nutritional needs, which infringes upon their fundamental human rights, and, at the same time, can generate additional pressure on the environment in ecologically fragile areas.
The Assembly, by the resolution, stressed the need to make efforts to mobilize and optimize the allocation and utilization of technical and financial resources from all sources, including external debt relief for developing countries, to implement sustainable food security policies. The Assembly also
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General Assembly Plenary - 1c - Press Release GA/10001
88th Meeting (AM) 19 December 2001
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