Social Justice in an Open World: The Role of the United Nations
tween women and men, and the creation of a favourable international environment. Particular emphasis is placed on the link between full employment and poverty reduction. The Millennium Declaration makes no specific mention of employment, unemploymerlt or underemployment, though there is a reference in the "secondtier" commitments of section Ill to the development and implementation of "strategies that give young people everywhere a real chance to find decent and productive work" (para. 20); this constitutes a specific target under the eighth Millennium Development Goal and has not been neglected. The United Nations, the ILO and the World Bank are collaborating on a project to address this issue. While this is a start, the critical issue of productive work and employment requires far more attention, particularly in this age of global markets. Much of the present analysis has focused on the content of the conference texts under review; it is also essential to undertake a critical examination of the choices made with regard to language and expression in these texts. The Millennium texts take the reader from a rather elevated evocation of the principles of equity and social justice to a sequence of "dry" targets. The introductory section of the Millennium Declaration not only lists six "fundamental values" but is also rich in concepts and expressions such as "shared future", "common humanity", "culture of peace and dialogue among all civilizations", "prudence", "responsibility", and "equity and social justice", evoking the language of the Summit and proceeding from the same political philosophy that inspired the authors of the Charter of the United Nations and of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Millennium Declaration is actually more readable and more consistently elegant and inspiring than the Copenhagen Declaration, as it was subjected to much less negotiation. The section on development and poverty eradication, for example, includes only one reference to equity (within the trading system), one reference to equality (between men and women), and no reference to social justice, but in its first paragraph, the simple, straightforward commitment to "freeing the entire human race from want" essentially encapsulates all the dimensions of justice for humanity. Conversely, the Millennium Development Goals and the accompanying targets and indicators are articulated in the sober, non-philosophical language of economists and statisticians. For advocates of the Millennium Declaration and Goals, this deductive progression from values and principles to precise targets is precisely how international agreements, which are not treaties but are nonetheless more than a catalogue of good intentions, should be structured. Is there a better way to express the commitment to equity and social justice than to pledge to reduce poverty in the world by half? Why is it necessary to produce a long text characterized by the endless repetition of values and principles that are very general and on which there is, in any case, universal agreement? If there is no consensus on the understanding and practical implications of some of these values and principles, what purpose is served