After-conference documents:

• Statement of the First World Forum on Democracy to the Warsaw Meeting of Foreign Ministers
• Statement on Chechnya to the Foreign Ministers Meeting of the Community of Democracies
• List of attendees
• Conference program

Speeches by:

• Mr. Jerzy Buzek, Prime Minister of Poland
• Mr. George Soros, Chairman of Open Society Institute
• Mr. Bronisław Geremek, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Poland
• Ms. Madeleine K. Albright, US Secretary of State
• Mr. Aleksander Smolar, Chairman of the Board, Stefan Batory Foundation
• Latin American humble contribution for the construction of democracy in East Europe by Raul Alfonsin
• Culture, power, and closed societies by Mahnaz Afkhami

Summaries:

• Remarks of Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations
• Plenary discussion "Democracy and dealing with an authoritarian past"
• Plenary discussion "National sovereignty, humanitarian intervention and democracy"
• Plenary session "Threats to democracy and international responses"
• Opening and Keynote remarks
• Panel discussion "Human Rights and the Right to Democracy in International Relations"

Photos from the conference

World Forum on Democracy

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STATEMENT OF THE FIRST WORLD FORUM ON DEMOCRACY TO THE WARSAW MEETING OF FOREIGN MINISTERS

We, the participants in the First World Forum on Democracy, celebrate the unprecedented expansion of democracy over the last quarter century. But we are also cognizant of the many challenges that confront the world's democracies.

These challenges suggest an urgent need for a cohesive alliance of democratic and open societies rooted in freedom. Such an alliance should unite the democracies, transcending cultural, economic, and historical differences.

This alliance should establish rigorous minimal standards for membership based on the criteria of free and fair elections, freedom of expression, and freedom of association. It should have a dual purpose: to foster improved conditions for freedom and democracy within individual countries, and to promote an open society based on the rule of law. Such an alliance could also work to ensure more effective cooperative development efforts focused on democratic change.

The World Forum on Democracy believes that the Community of Democracies should ensure that its members abide by basic international norms guaranteeing human and democratic rights, including the Geneva conventions, and other norms governing the use of force against civilians.

Further, we call for the establishment within international institutions of effective mechanisms to promote democracy and freedom. As a concrete step in this process, we call on the ministerial meeting to endorse and establish a caucus of democracies at the United Nations.

The World Forum on Democracy welcomes the spirit of dialogue between democratic governments and authoritative voices outside government that was manifested in Warsaw. In order to deepen our exchanges, we call on democratic governments to establish a permanent working group that will meet regularly with a working group from the World Forum on Democracy and other international civil society structures.

The momentum generated by the Warsaw process must be sustained so that we can look forward to an open, more prosperous, and more peaceful world.

Let us work together for a world in which all states are democratic.

Warsaw, Poland
June 27, 2000

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