Beijing Consensus
At the Beijing Women’s Conference in 1995, Rights and Humanity successfully forged inter-state consensus by referring to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The benefit of our proposal was that the wording of the Convention on the Rights of the Child had already been agreed by all the States present at the Beijing Conference.
The Chairman of the group of countries responsible for drafting the text on controversial issues surrounding sexual and reproductive health for girls asked our President to join a small negotiating group comprising representatives from the EU, Iraq, Canada and a few other countries.
This smaller informal group readily accepted our President’s formulation. Each delegate sought consensus within their own regional grouping. It was eventually agreed that one paragraph should contain the agreed formulation of the balance between children’s and parents’ rights, and that other paragraphs in which the issue was raised should refer back to the key formulation below:
