THE DOHA DECLARATION

UN General Assembly Resolution 59/111, calling for protection of the family as the “natural and fundamental group unit of society,” was adopted December 6, 2004, in New York.  The resolution, co-sponsored by 148 nations (including the United States), was adopted by consensus.  

Introduced by the Government of Qatar, the resolution welcomed the Doha International Conference for the Family and took note of the outcomes of the conference – including the Doha Declaration.  The December 6 action of the UN General Assembly places the Doha Declaration in the formal canon of normative documents that comprise international law.  The Declaration’s reaffirmation of widely shared international values related to marriage, parents, children and human life will provide an important starting point for future international scholarship and legal negotiations related to family life.

In a statement supporting the Doha Declaration, US representative Wade Horn, Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told the UN General Assembly that “the family remains a universal and irreplaceable community rooted in human nature,” the “vital means of preserving and transmitting social values” that transform “helpless babes into independent adults.”