Hon’ble Mr Justice Alfonso Chaves Ramirez addressing the 8th International Conference of Chief Justices of the World

In the first place, I would like to thank the organizers of this International Conference on behalf of the Supreme Court of Costa Rica and on my personal behalf for the invitation to participate in this important forum, and especially for allowing me to express some ideas on safeguarding the future of the world and protecting millions of children and the future generations who will be responsible for leading and looking after the preservation of all the structures of this planet. I'd also like to express the great responsibility falling on us especially on those who have the great responsibility to ensure the maintenance and application of appropriate legislation for the conservation, harmony and coexistence of all the inhabitants of the planet earth which would allow all of us, especially the children a healthy and dignified life ensuring growth in a climate of peace and happiness.

We live in an unprecedented epoch in so far as accumulation of wealth and knowledge is concerned and despite having necessary resources for reducing poverty and inequalities, these latter continue to increase which does not permit access to human rights of people and limits, as a result, their option of development and their access to resources and public services. This is especially critical for those population groups which have historically suffered marginalisation and lack of attention, children being especially some of them.

The inequality is a common condition in the whole world and in Costa Rica we feel that the judicial power has the moral duty and urgent need to contribute, from the position of its institutional mission, defending concrete policies and actions that may contribute to strengthen the rights and duties of children.

The Judicial Powers who are responsible for the administration of justice, should commit themselves to make all efforts so that in the services they offer, they recognize the special need of the disadvantaged groups. And for this it is essential that they define with clarity the relevant mechanisms and procedures in such a manner that the services which are offered are appropriate, efficient, and effectively fulfill the rights and responsibilities of everyone, especially those of children.

Pope John Paul II, during the International Year of the Child in the General Assembly of the United Nations held on2nd Oct. 1979, said the following:

"No country in the world, no political system can think of its own future in a diverse manner other than through the images of these new generations who would inherit from their parents the multiple patrimony of values, of duties, of aspirations of the nations they belong to, together with the whole human family. What the child demands, even before he or she is born, from the very first moment of its conception and in continuation during the years of infancy and youth, is the primary and fundamental verification of the relation of human beings between themselves. That is why what more could be wished for each nation and the whole of humanity and of all the children of the world other than a better future in which respect for human rights may become a full reality?"

Today in this forum we must commit ourselves to find, from our own positions and capacity, the possible solutions to safeguard the future of the world, especially that of the millions of children who live in this planet.

From the Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child in 1924 and in the declaration on the Rights of the Child adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 20th Nov. 1959, as well as in other important documents relating to this subject we find the expression of a deep concern to offer protection and special care, including the due legal protection in the pre as well as the post natal stages. However, as we find now after almost 100 years of the Geneva Declaration, in this forum we are again analyzing this subject due to the serious problem at the world level increasingly faced by the children because poverty, absence of education, mal treatment, violence, wars, and other scourges constitute the challenges facing the corresponding institutions and practically the whole of the international community so as to promote and assure children regarding the possibility of growing up in a climate of peace and happiness.

Recognizing the importance of international meeting to find effective solutions for improving the quality of life of inhabitants of the planet, especially children, I feel that the responsibility that we must assume in this forum is to:

• Promote a declaration for obligatory compliance of all judicial powers to ensure that in their resolutions and actions there is always a respect for the inalienable rights of the children to live in harmony, peace and development.

• Issue declarations in favor of the nature conservation and equilibrium of the planet so as to offer our children and future generations a better world, which may allow them to live in the best possible manner.

As jurists and people responsibile for implementing the rights in the most objective and balanced manner, it is necessary to establish a code for the administration of justice whose central concern should be to ensure human development and the family of children, especially those that lead to the strengthening of their rights.

As we know the statute of the International Court of Justice in its article 36 stipulates that the power of this court covers, besides the cases which parties may bring to it, those matters which are specially laid down in the charter of the United Nations or in the treaties and conventions in force. As we have seen amongst these international instruments, we have the Geneva Declaration and the Declaration on the Rights of the Child which means therein lies the power of International Court, through its judgments and consultative opinions, to safeguard the future of the world and of two billion children and the future generations yet to be born.

Therefore, the declarations in pro of children and the care for nature which we may issue in this forum would permit the international court of Justice to count on other points of view to so as to make respective resolutions, opinions relating to the promotion of measures for the protection of children at the world level in the permanent search for a more just and egalitarian society.