CODE OF ETHICS AND DECLARATION OF INTENT

The commitment entered into by the signatories of this Code, which is open to all Local and Regional Authorities seeking to act in the spirit of basic human and civil rights, is that of being peace makers. To be a peace maker is the commitment made by Local and Regional Authorities; those authorities are understood not only as being emanations of the State with varying types of local powers, but a direct democratic expression of the communities which place great stress on the local area itself; they are not merely bureaucratic and administrative structures but the very place where citizens’ participation and their will are exercised and implemented; at the same time they are the place that provides those citizens with a number of essential services. From that standpoint, the Local and Regional authorities signing this Code acknowledge the importance of: 

• paying special attention when interpreting the mood of citizens, when calling upon them to be public spirited and to be aware of local, national and international (continental and worldwide) citizenship and when referring to the great values which must be the foundation of society’s strength; 

• broadening the proper distribution of information to foster the development of a common awareness of being an interdependent part and having shared responsibility not only in local and national issues, but also in continental and international-global issues in a world which has now become a ‘global village’ in which everything and everyone is affected, whether directly or indirectly; 

• supporting the development of knowledge and fostering behaviour and initiatives for encouraging compliance with basic rights, civil society and therefore peace with a view to building a new humanism; 

• fostering all forms of civic and intercultural education and in particular education in basic human and civil rights and responsibilities. The signatories to this Code, aware of the importance of the foregoing and of the great effort needed to build peace using peaceful means in accordance with the law, consider greater cooperation between Local and Regional authorities to be crucial to being able freely to express their own expectations, formulate their own requests and make their own contributions both to the cause of the processes for continent-wide unification and to the establishment, through an appropriate restructuring of the UN, of a new internationalism based on the rule of law so as to promote and protect effectively basic human and civil rights throughout the world and therefore peace. They therefore consider participation in the “United Peacers – The world Community for a New Humanism” to be of particular relevance.

DECLARATION OF INTENT

In relation to this Code of Ethics the undersigned_________________________________________________ representing_________________________________________________________________(Local authority) declares: – that its statute and/or regulations already contain an explicit reference to its commitment to peace and compliance with basic human and civil rights or there is a commitment to insert such a reference into its statute and/or regulations; – that it undertakes to hold at least one event a year for peace and basic human and civil rights possibly linking it to a specific training course; − that it will play an active role in the work of the “United Peacers – The World Community for a New Humanism” by undertaking to publicize and encourage participation in it by its own citizens through at least one specific event a year; − that it will cooperate on publicity to increase awareness of information and guidance given each year by the Forum and the World Register of Peace Makers.