United Nations
A/RES/58/162
General Assembly
Distr.: General
2 March 2004
Fifty-eighth session
Agenda item 116
Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 22 December 2003
[on the report of the Third Committee (A/58/507)]
58/162. Use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights
and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to
self-determination
The General Assembly,
Recalling its resolution 57/196 of 18 December 2002, and taking note of
Commission on Human Rights resolution 2003/2 of 14 April 2003, 1
Recalling also all of its relevant resolutions, in which, inter alia, it condemned
any State that permitted or tolerated the recruitment, financing, training, assembly,
transit and use of mercenaries with the objective of overthrowing the Governments
of States Members of the United Nations, especially those of developing countries,
or of fighting against national liberation movements, and recalling further the
relevant resolutions and international instruments adopted by the Security Council,
the Economic and Social Council and the Organization of African Unity, inter alia,
the Organization of African Unity Convention for the elimination of mercenarism in
Africa, 2
Reaffirming the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United
Nations concerning the strict observance of the principles of sovereign equality,
political independence, the territorial integrity of States, the self-determination of
peoples, the non-use of force or of the threat of use of force in international
relations and non-interference in affairs within the domestic jurisdiction of States,
Reaffirming also that, by virtue of the principle of self-determination, all
peoples have the right freely to determine their political status and to pursue their
economic, social and cultural development, and that every State has the duty to
respect this right in accordance with the provisions of the Charter,
Reaffirming further the Declaration on Principles of International Law
concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the
Charter of the United Nations, 3
_______________
1
See Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 2003, Supplement No. 3 (E/2003/23), chap. II,
sect. A.
2
United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1490, No. 25573.
3
Resolution 2625 (XXV), annex.
03 50430