The Executive Committee of Liberal International, assembled at Interlaken, Switzerland, on November 9, 1998, almost 50 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed by the UN General Assembly, December 10, 1948,

• emphasises the universal significance of this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the two International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights resp. On Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted in 1966 and as a consequence hereof the establishment of regular UN Human Rights sessions and the Vienna Conference;

• recognises the progress made in recent years, specially the  establishment of the UN High Commission on Human Rights, the appointment of a High Commissioner for Minorities by the OSCE and the endorsement of the International Criminal Court in Rome;

• welcomes progress made in several countries which still lack freedom and democracy – like the release of General Olusegun Obasanjo and other political prisoners in Nigeria and the steps forward to a democratic solution of the East Timor question.

At the same time, the liberals

• are gravely concerned about the serious violations of Human Rights which continue in many countries of the world and include flagrant cases of genocide as in Rwanda/Burundi;

• insist that further violence in Kosova can be avoided only if substantial autonomy is specified clearly and rapidly;

• ask the UN member states who have not yet ratified basic human rights conventions or treaties to do so as quickly as possible;

• urge states that have signed the Rome Treaty to establish an International Criminal Court to ratify the treaty and work to ensure its effective operation on a global basis;

• invite the USA, the strongest military power in the world, and India, the most populated democracy,  and the other 5 states who did not endorse the Rome Treaty to establish the International Criminal Court to sign the treaty and to participate in the struggle to establish worldwide a minimum standard of human rights to be guaranteed beyond the sovereignty of states;

• urge the worldwide abolition of the death penalty.