Strategy for an Era of Application
of International Law - Action Plan
Adopted
by the Senior Management Group and Approved by the Secretary-General,
June 2000
 Download Action Plan in PDF
6. Informing the General Public about International Law and about Means
of Recourse Against Violations of this Law
Background
The best guarantee of the application of international law is a general public
which is informed about at least the most significant of the rules of international
law that have been developed for their benefit. The general public should,
therefore, have readily available to it the necessary information to be able
to advocate and secure its proper implementation. Electronic communications
are increasingly facilitating the realisation of this objective.
Issue
The UN maintains a large number of webpages containing information on treaties
and other international legal matters. They may not be sufficiently interlinked
and may not contain links to the sites of the specialized agencies or of other
UN-system organizations. In general, they do not contain links to outside,
non-UN sources.
Action
The Secretariat, Programmes,
Funds and Agencies should include on their websites treaty texts and other instruments
and documents of international legal significance. This might be done, inter
alia, by interlinking those sites, as well as by linking them, to the extent
possible and permissible, with the sites of UN-system organizations and of relevant
NGOs enjoying consultative status with ECOSOC (11);
To the extent possible, the Organization's
websites should aim to provide pertinent information and assistance to those
who wish to know how to take steps towards securing the rights and benefits
for which international law provides or obtaining redress for violations
of those rights or denial of those benefits;
The international law homepage on the
UN Website should include;
 A new sub-site entitled "Calendar
of Events" linking to UN-system conferences,meetings, workshops being organized
in all parts of the world;
A new sub-site entitled "Proceedings
of meetings and conferences", which would post major presentations or reports
presented at conferences or meetings organized by the UN Secretariat, Programmes,
Funds and Agencies;
Public information campaigns
should be launched on a country-specific basis to promote awareness of specific
treaties, in particular those that are the subject of the campaign described
in Section 1 of this Plan;
Seminars and briefing sessions on specific
treaties might be organized and run for the private sector, where appropriate.
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