The UN Millennium Declaration and Millennium Development Goals include the halving of the number of those living in extreme poverty and promoting women's equality by 2015. It would be desirable for many if the goals, in this regard, could be seen as a stepping stone toward broadening the range of economic and social rights applicable to all, as well as to providing the context for the promotion of transnational human rights that should in turn enhance international decision-making on policy and practice in the areas of debt, aid and trade.

Makarim Wibisono (Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Indonesia to the UN in Geneva): Although human rights are universal, the dynamics of human rights issues in multilateral and international forums is very complex and highly political. To these complex and highly political deliberations, we can actually add "a harmonious world" as a new, but perhaps more objective and neutral, parameter. Internal or domestic implementations of human rights should be conducted in a way that fosters harmony at the national level. Meanwhile, international deliberations on human rights issues should also be conducted in a way that fosters harmony at the bilateral, regional and global level.

What can we say about the relation between human rights and a harmonious world? I believe that respecting human rights is of significant importance for the creation and maintenance of harmony in the era of globalization. Indeed, human rights are one of the most tangible issues of globalization. The reason for this is that the wave of globalization has empowered individuals in every country reached by it. As individuals have become empowered, they want human rights to be strengthened and implemented. The communication revolution that has brought about globalization has also made individuals aware of each other's state of human rights fulfillment as well as of each other's struggle to achieve the highest fulfillment. The cause of human rights has therefore been promoted and strengthened by globalization and in turn, globalization has disseminated it and made it a global issue.

Xu Xianming (President of the China University of Political Science and Law): Compared with traditional human rights, the right to harmony stresses innovation instead of revival, transcendence instead of existing achievements, and cooperation instead of rivalry.

The claim of the right to harmony will profoundly change the relationships between people and state, between individuals and between man and nature. It will involve not only the relationships in the aspect of law, but also in the aspect of ethics.

In the relationships between people and state, the right to harmony requires more public rights than it did in any previous ages. The freedom of conscience, the freedom of belief and the equal respect for the value and dignity of human beings are all the basis to realize harmony between an individual's mind and body, and thus it becomes the first important obligation for a state to conduct good governance and guarantee that every individual receives proper treatment.

In the relationships between individuals, the right to harmony means that every individual enjoys his/her "right to the world," which requires society and other individuals to respect that person and treat him/her properly. No person is inferior in terms of personality and dignity because of inborn gifts from nature and acquired position in society. Everyone should receive equal, proper treatment and equal respect; especially, the equal proper treatment of and equal respect for minorities and disadvantaged people suggest a fundamental direction that the right to harmony has decided for the transformation of the social system.

In the relationships between man and nature, the right to harmony will change the traditional simple subject-object relationship between human beings and nature. The ecology, environment and resources that we have today are not inherited from our ancestors, but borrowed from our future generations. The harmony between different generations should become an indispensable dimension in the vision of human rights, and the idea that human beings are obliged to safeguard nature should substitute for the theory that they are entitled to exploit it. That is an ethical foundation for human beings to reach the summit of life that integrates heaven with mankind.

The right to harmony requires the public duty to properly regard every individual on the one hand, and on the other hand, it demands people's self-discipline when they claim their own human rights. That is, every individual is obliged to respect others' human rights and benefit the realization of public interests as he/she exercises his/her own. Meanwhile, mankind as a whole should also take the proper treatment of nature as a moral limit when it develops human rights.