United Nations
General Assembly
A/RES/57/196
Distr.: General
25 February 2003
Fifty-seventh session
Agenda item 108
Resolution adopted by the General Assembly
[on the report of the Third Committee (A/57/555)]
57/196. 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 56/232 of 24 December 2001, and taking note of
Commission on Human Rights resolution 2002/5 of 12 April 2002, 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, 2002, Supplement No. 3 (E/2002/23), chap. II,
sect. A.
2
United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1490, No. 25573.
3
Resolution 2625 (XXV), annex.
02 55124