We, representatives of the countries, cultures and civilizations from across the world, on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War and the foundation of the United Nations, the eightieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the enduring relevance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to human identity in the face of contemporary challenges—informational, cognitive, biomedical, social and other technological—emphasize the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and affirm that human dignity and rights constitute not a mere invention or construct, but a discovery by humanity, partly through the atrocities witnessed during the First and Second World Wars. The significance of this discovery must not be reconsidered. Social, cultural, and technological changes serve to develop the values and principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Recognizing the unity of humanity and affirming that the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are universal and reflect traditional values, the profound aspirations of peoples of all nations and cultures, and considering that the achievement of the aims and effectiveness of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights may be enhanced by the articulation of a comprehensive framework for understanding human identity, the nature and origins of humanity, universal history, fundamental problems, as well as the higher purposes, values and principles for further development, hereby submit the following provisions for deliberation. We express the hope that the forthcoming extensive discussion will provide a foundation for their future consideration by the General Assembly in 2028:

I

Human identity is shaped through intellectual inquiry in the domains of religion, philosophy and science. Humanity has developed mythological, religious, philosophical and scientific theories regarding its origin. Polemic and dialogue.

II

However, a universal significance lies in the fact that, through various avenues of inquiry concerning human origin, individuals have discerned the ideas of the unity of humanity and the unity of human nature, including the unity of the spiritual nature of humankind. Endorsing these as guiding and universal concepts—considering the human being a subject endowed with a unique status, possessing reason, liberty, purpose and creativity, and as custodian of culture and higher values—serves to mitigate doctrinal, ideological and intercivilizational discord. This endorsement promotes dialogue among diverse worldviews and cultures and advances progress towards a shared future.

III

The concepts of the unity of human origin and of human nature, including spiritual nature, are fundamental presumptions. These presumptions permit affirmation of the premise that individuals are born free and equal in dignity and in rights, and that relations among individuals ought to be conducted in the spirit of fraternity.

The necessity of legal and political guarantees for the protection of human dignity, liberty and rights, as well as the sovereign development of peoples and civilizations, arises from the duality of human nature; the latter comprises destructive tendencies and is manifested in the abuse of political, economic and cultural power. History thus becomes replete with suffering, inequality and injustice.

IV

Reason and conscience, which must guide conduct toward others and toward the environment, constitute essential manifestations of spiritual nature. These manifestations confirm that the principle of spiritual priority over material considerations forms the foundation of ethics and the constitutive principle of existence, both at the individual and at the social and international levels.

V

The concepts of the unity of origin and nature of humankind are the foundation of a concept of the unity of historical destiny, as attested by: – universality of culture, religion and ethics; – universal adoption of inventions and discoveries originating in prehistoric times—that are still used with gratitude, such as the controlled use of fire, domestication of animals, cultivation of plants, and the wheel; – continuous exchange of spiritual and material wealth among nations and peoples since antiquity; – near-contemporaneous emergence of fundamental philosophical concepts among ancient civilizations: pertaining to humanity and inner life, to society, state and law, to culture, to the integrity and lawful structure of existence—such concepts represent intellectual patrimony and an enduring basis for social and cultural development; – an uninterrupted increase in the mutual interconnectedness and interdependence of cultural and social development among nations, culminating in the present era, in which a new informational-technological order allows the shaping of a future world system.

VI

Acceptance of the concepts of unity of origin, unity of human nature, and unity of historical destiny assures the correct comprehension of cultural-historical and ethnic diversity. Such diversity must not be interpreted as evidence for unbounded relativism, which in turn would foster new forms of racism and nationalism. Diversity bears testimony to the infinite creative capacity inherent in human nature, realized through historically contingent spatial and temporal circumstances. This creativity produces a mosaic of cultures, civilizations, value systems and models of development. The unity of humankind presupposes civilizational diversity rather than negates it.

The relation between unity and diversity may be expressed metaphorically: Humanity, like the Great River, issues from a single source and, dividing into many streams, flows towards one Ocean of the future.

VII

Endorsement of the concepts of unity of origin, unity of nature, unity of historical destiny, and the principle of spiritual priority necessarily entails the recognition of an essential unity of higher purposes of human existence, achieved through varied methods and diverse forms, at the personal and societal levels.

VIII

The higher purposes of the human person are as follows: – creation of personal identity and an inner world; – attainment of convictions, values and ideals; – participation in the acquisition of knowledge and the creativity of culture; – inheritance and transmission of culture to subsequent generations; – creation of family and nurturing of children; – development of legal consciousness; – engagement in purposeful and productive economic activity; – engagement in the life of society and the state; – engagement in solving global problems; – realization of moral, intellectual and cultural advancement.

IX

The higher purposes for peoples and civilizations are defined as follows: – preservation and enhancement of particular historical and cultural heritage, as well as the heritage of humankind; – enrichment of collective consciousness; – utilization of the resources of cultural heritage and conscious awareness for comprehensive development, intellectual and cultural improvement at the levels of individual, society and the state; – autonomous formulation of fundamental questions regarding the existence of individuals, society and the state, and autonomous selection of appropriate responses; – determination and implementation of aims for sovereign development; – participation in establishing the purposes and agenda of human development, through proposing own understandings of rights and liberties, and criteria for responsible socio-economic and political development.

X

The inherent duality of human nature—combining the aspirations towards good and creativity as well as destructiveness—serves as the cause of the refusal of individuals and communities to pursue higher purposes. Such refusal is the fundamental source of historical catastrophes, imperfection and inequality in social and cultural advancement.

XI

Contemporary manifestations of the refusal by individuals and human communities to pursue the higher purposes of personal and societal human existence, which constitute a fundamental threat to the future of humanity, primarily include attempts to realize utopian notions of human development that involve the use of achievements in scientific and technological progress to achieve unlimited concentration of political, economic, and cultural power at the global level.

Such notions include:

– the notion of the possibility of total calculability and quantitative reduction of phenomena in private and public human life;

– the notion of complete predictability of the future and the de facto lack of alternatives in social development trends;

– the notion of the admissibility of total control over the conditions and parameters of human and societal existence.

Acceptance of such concepts, which may be characterized as radical technological determinism, as principles guiding social programming, leads to dehumanization of project design and implementation, abandonment of alignment between societal development and spiritual nature, and exclusion of the human from the sphere of decision-making regarding goals and methods of societal progress.

XII

Radical technological determinism gives rise to visions of the future which prompt reasonable concern, constructed upon the following axioms: – the human being, dignity and rights are historically transitory values, whose emergence is attributable to social, economic and technological advancement and may accordingly be sacrificed; – new forms of existence may require substantial reconsideration or even renunciation of traditional notions of dignity, liberty and human rights; – subsequent advancement will require profound transformation of established communities through technological influences, along with selection and ranking; – further social and historical advancement entails radical augmentation of dependency by the individual, society and the state upon the technosphere, and is assured exclusively by maximum inclusion in the logic and algorithms of technological systems, and maximal avoidance of risks associated with autonomy or sovereignty; – the future is not the emergent result of interaction, cooperation and competition among autonomous personalities and groups, but an object of social engineering, predetermined by advance planning.

This vision fails to correspond to the aspirations of billions around the world, who hope for a just and multipolar world through multilateral governance.

XIII

A model of global prosperity corresponding to these aspirations must: – harmonize with the ideas of unity in origin, human nature and historic destiny, all of which are expressed through diversity and distinctiveness of peoples, cultures and civilizations; – further realization of higher purposes of human existence.

XIV

Achievement of higher purposes, affirmation of unity in origin, nature and destiny, and preservation of diversity and distinctiveness must be enabled through the principles of universal development, which establish the intellectual foundation of a viable multipolar world and mechanisms for equitable multilateralism: – recognition of human dignity, liberty and rights as discoveries of enduring intellectual value, whose persistence remains inviolable; – recognition of attainment of higher purposes and realization of rights and freedoms as the principal goal of ongoing social and historical advancement, to be realized by autonomous beings endowed with reason, will and responsibility to society and humanity, and inheriting cultural values; – recognition of history as a domain of free, variational development by free persons and communities; – recognition of the necessity to maintain relative autonomy of individuals and society in relation to technology, and the value of freely developing human faculties; – recognition of the factual impossibility and ethical impropriety of total quantification of private and public life; – recognition of the factual impossibility of complete prediction of the future and ethical inadmissibility of assertions on the inevitability of development trends; – recognition of total control over conditions and parameters of life as ethically unacceptable and dangerous with respect to the infinite potential of humans; – universal rejection and condemnation of world domination and monopolism as ethically incompatible with human goals and values; – general and equal rejection of all forms of domination and global monopolism: political, economic, technological, informational and cultural.

XV

Progress towards higher purposes in the context of universal development and formation of a common future for humanity—designed to maintain diversity and multipolarity, while affirming unity of historical destiny—must be facilitated by adherence to the principles of global dialogue and solidarity among nations, civilizations and states:

– the principle of subjectivity (identity), entailing responsible and transparent expression by participants of identity, fostered by affiliation with the profound values of their own culture and civilization, and not by opposition to others;

– the principle of substance, ensuring that the dialogue agenda is limited to matters of genuinely universal significance, which emerge from collective action in global development and require mutual resolution;

– the principle of productivity, whereby participants focus their efforts on achieving tangible cumulative outcomes, expressed in the resolution of global challenges with consensus among a maximal number of stakeholders.