International Day of Living Together in Peace

News

On 16 May, the UN General Assembly declared the International Day of Living Together in Peace in order to establish the constant mobilization of international community efforts on the encouraging peace, polite, unity, mutual understanding and solidarity of people all over the world. Living together in peace presupposes the recognition of distinctions, the ability to listen to, understand, respect and appreciate others, as well as the ability to live in peace and cohesion.

Peaceful coexistence in the international format is a type of relations between states with different social order, culture, history, traditions, which suggests the rejection of war as a mean to solve controversial issues between states, as well as observation of other principles in relations, enshrined in international law documents.

The General Assembly proclaimed the year 2000 as the “International Year for the Culture of Peace” as early as 1997, and in the following year, it proclaimed the period of 2001-2010 as the “International Decade for the Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World”. In October 1999, the General Assembly adopted the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace, which are a universal mandate for the international community, especially the UN system, in the tasks of promotion of the culture of peace and non-violence.

This declaration has become a result of the development of conception on “thoughts about a war appear in the humans’ minds, that’s why the idea of the protection of the world should be engrained”. Since the world is not only the absence of a conflict, but also the positive, dynamic process of the participation, in which the dialogue is encouraged, and conflict is solved with mutual understanding and cooperation. Thus, it is necessary to eliminate all forms of discrimination and intolerance in the society, inter alia on the basis of race, skin colour, gender, language, religion, political or other beliefs, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or another status.