A/RES/51/83 Page 2 Convinced that it is necessary for Member States to ratify the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries,1 adopted by the General Assembly in 1989, and to develop and maintain international cooperation among States for the prevention, prosecution and punishment of mercenary activities, 1. Takes note of the report of the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the use of mercenaries as a means of impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination2 concerning the use of mercenaries and mercenary-related activities to topple sovereign Governments and to violate the human rights of peoples and impede the exercise of self-determination despite resolution 50/138; 2. Reaffirms that the use of mercenaries and their recruitment, financing and training are causes for grave concern to all States and violate the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations; 3. Urges all States to take the necessary steps and to exercise the utmost vigilance against the menace posed by the activities of mercenaries and to take necessary legislative measures to ensure that their territories and other territories under their control, as well as their nationals, are not used for the recruitment, assembly, financing, training and transit of mercenaries for the planning of activities designed to destabilize or overthrow the Government or threaten the territorial integrity and political unity of sovereign States or to promote secession or fight the national liberation movements struggling against colonial or other forms of alien domination or occupation; 4. Calls upon all States that have not yet done so to consider taking necessary action to sign or to ratify the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries; 5. Urges all States to cooperate with the Special Rapporteur in the fulfilment of his mandate; 6. Requests the Centre for Human Rights of the Secretariat, as a matter of priority, to publicize the adverse effects of mercenary activities on the right to self-determination and, when requested where necessary, to render advisory services to States that are affected by the activities of mercenaries; 7. Requests the Special Rapporteur to report, with specific recommendations, his findings on the use of mercenaries to undermine the right of peoples to self-determination to the General Assembly at its fifty-second session. 82nd plenary meeting 12 December 1996 1 Resolution 44/34, annex. 2 See A/51/392.