Full Text of UN Permanent Five Summit Document

The following is the full text of the P5 Summit Document issued Thursday at the end of the historical summit meeting of the top leaders of the five permanent member countries of the UN Security Council.

We, President Jiang Zemin of the People's Republic of China, President Jacques Chirac of the Republic of France, President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin of the Russian Federation, Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and President William Jefferson Clinton of the United States of America have met in New York on 7 September 2000 and hereby state the following:

Mindful of the special responsibilities of the Permanent Members of the Security Council in regard to the maintenance of international peace and security, we share a solemn commitment to ensuring that the UN is stronger, more effective and more efficient than ever before as it enters the 21st Century.

The challenges facing the UN and the world community are daunting. To meet such challenges, the world community's response must be quicker, more targeted, and better coordinated than ever before. As the world's only truly universal organization -- in terms both of its mandate and its membership -- the UN has an essential role in the 21st Century.

The UN can only be as effective, as creative and as authoritative as its members will it to be. Moving into the next century, the Permanent Members of the Security Council pledge, together with the entire membership, to strengthen the UN, ensuring the authority of the Security Council and uphold the Purposes and Principles of the Charter. Bearing primary responsibility under the Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security, the Security Council, in particular its Permanent Members, has an abiding interest in ensuring that the UN is equipped to meet the challenges it faces.

We therefore commit ourselves to strengthen the operational capabilities of the Security Council in this area. Only by strengthening our dedication to the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter, and by endowing the UN with the means to deliver on its many mandates, can we fulfill our obligations to ensure that the UN can achieve its full potential.

To this end, we will focus our efforts on the following priority areas:

Enhancing leadership for Peace and Security -- The UN's leadership role, particularly in maintaining international peace and security, must be strengthened to reflect the organization's changing challenges and priorities. This evolution must take into account both the shifting face of the world community and the types of conflicts the UN must confront today. We commit ourselves to foster a more transparent and broadly representative UN Security Council to enhance its effectiveness as the leading body in the field of international peace and security.

Strengthening Peacekeeping -- The nature and number of international conflicts demanding UN involvement has shifted fundamentally over the past decade, a change that has yet to be reflected in structural reforms to equip the UN to fulfill the array of mandates it now faces. We pledge to move expeditiously to endow the UN with resources -- both operational and financial -- commensurate to the tasks it faces in its peacekeeping activities worldwide. Enhancing the United Nations peacekeeping capacity should strengthen the UN's central role in conflict prevention and settlement. We look to the recommendations of the Secretary General's Expert Panel on Peace Operations as an important element to be considered in order to ensure the UN's effectiveness in this vital arena.

Revitalizing Management -- The breadth, scope, and complexity of the UN's activities demand effective leadership. We pledge to support steps to empower the Secretary General with a mandate to modernize and streamline the Secretariat further, to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of programs, and to focus the organization's resources on priority areas, while bringing closure to activities that no longer warrant continued investment.

Replenishing Human Resources -- The UN's most valuable resource is its people. The skill, vision, and dedication of the UN Secretariat staff has made possible all that the UN has accomplished to date, and will determine the organization's future. We pledge to support prompt steps to ensure that the UN's base of human capital, particularly in the field of peacekeeping, can be fortified through a process that is transparent, equitable, and designed to attract the very best talent available from all corners of the globe.

Reaffirming Financial Commitment -- As enshrined in the Charter, the UN's financial base must accurately reflect the capabilities and responsibilities of every Member State. We pledge to support measures to broaden the resource base of this institution through financial structures that are equitable, transparent and reflective of current realities for the regular budget and the peacekeeping budget, and the financing of UN activities. We recognize the need to adjust the existing peacekeeping scale of assessments, which is based on the 1973 system, in light of changed circumstances, including countries' current capacity to pay. Taking into account our special responsibilities as Permanent Members of the Security Council, and the duty of all Member States to meet their financial obligations to the UN, we commit to creating a more stable and equitable financial foundation for current and future UN operations, including through adjustments to the peacekeeping scale of assessment to reflect the role of all Member States, and especially the role of all Permanent Members in peacekeeeping financing.

In each of these areas we pledge to work together in coming months and years to ensure that the UN is imbued with the resources, the vision and the support it needs. As Permanent Members of the Security Council, we will continue to fulfill our obligations under the Charter and commit to making UN organization stronger and more effective. To this end, we agree to have more regular exchanges of views on important international issues at all levels.

We express our appreciation and support for UN Secretary General for the role he plays in the service of peace, development and strengthening the United Nations.

As we move into the next century, we pledge to work with the entire UN membership to bridge differences and agree on new measures to build on the promise of the UN's first 55 years.

People's Daily Online --- http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/