Promoting and encouraging respect for human rights is a core purpose of the United Nations and defines its identity as an organization for people around the world. 

Member States have mandated the Secretary-General and the UN System, through the Charter and successive General Assembly resolutions to help them meet the standards expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In carrying out these responsibilities, the UN System is to use all the resources at its disposal, including its moral authority, diplomatic creativity and operational reach.

Six actions, in particular, can make a qualitative difference in the way the UN System meets its responsibilities:

• Action 1: Integrating human rights into the lifeblood of staff so that they understand what the UN's mandates and commitments to human rights mean for their Department, Agency, Fund or Programme and for them personally.
   
• Action 2: Providing Member States with candid information with respect to peoples at risk of, or subject to, serious violations of international human rights or humanitarian law.
   
• Action 3: Ensuring coherent strategies of action on the ground and leveraging the UN System’s capacities in a concerted manner.
   
• Action 4: Adopting at Headquarters a “One-UN approach” to facilitate early coordinated action.
   
• Action 5: Achieving, through better analysis, greater impact in the UN’s human rights protection work.
   
• Action 6: Supporting all these activities through an improved system of information management on serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law.”