Summit
The summit was billed as the "largest gathering of world leaders in history," and featured appearances of numerous heads of state and heads of government. The majority of those present addressed the U. N. General Assembly, and gave speeches reflecting on the U. N.'s past successes and future challenges. All 191 of the then member states gave an address in some form- if the head of state or government was not present the nation's foreign minister, vice president, or Deputy Prime Minister usually sufficed. The meetings were presided over by the Prime Minister of Sweden, Göran Persson.
The pre-summit negotiations were blown sharply off course by the appearance in early August at the U. N. of United States Ambassador to the U. N. John Bolton, appointed as a recess appointment by U.S. President George W. Bush. The position had been vacant since January, with responsibilities handled by professional U.S. diplomats. Bolton swiftly issued a list of new demands (including dropping the use of the words "Millennium Development Goals"), which days before the summit had still not been settled. Some observers contended that on the eve of the summit the U.S. struck a more conciliatory tone than expected, something partly credited as a consequence of the outpouring of international support for the U.S. after Hurricane Katrina.
As well as discussing progress on the Millennium Development Goals and re-iterating the world's commitment to them, the summit was convened to address the possible reform of the United Nations; much of this was eventually postponed to a later date. An exception was the endorsement of the "responsibility to protect" (known by the acronyms RTP and R2P), a formulation of the "right of humanitarian intervention" developed by a U.N. commission and proposed by Kofi Annan as part of his In Larger Freedom reform package. The "Right to Protect" gives the world community the right to intervene in the case of "national authorities manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity". There was also broad agreement at the summit to set up a new Human Rights Council.
During the summit, the United Nations Convention Against Corruption received its thirtieth ratification, and as a result entered into force in December 2005.
The inaugural session of the Clinton Global Initiative was held in New York City to coincide with the 2005 World Summit, and attracted many of the same world leaders.
Read more about this topic: 2005 World Summit
Famous quotes containing the word summit:
“The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry into their secrets, and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there. Simple races, as savages, do not climb mountains,—their tops are sacred and mysterious tracts never visited by them. Pomola is always angry with those who climb the summit of Ktaadn.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)