CONCLUSION the Millennium Development Goals enjoy the status of customary international law and are thus binding on all governments. Alston, P. A Human Rights Perspective on the Millennium Development Goals, paper prepared as part as a contribution to the work of the Millennium Project Task Force on Poverty and Economic Development. The work of the Task Force is available at: www.unmillenniumproject.org. 10 The current mandate is ‘to consider options regarding the elaboration of an optional protocol and not actually to begin drafting’. CHR Res. 2003/18, para. 13, see also, the Report of the open-ended Working-Group to consider options regarding the elaboration of an optional protocol to ICESCR, UN doc. E/CN.4/2004/44. 11 See further, Report of the Expert’s Roundtable Concerning Issues Central to the Proposed Optional Protocol to the ICESCR, International Commission of Jurists, Sept. 2002. Available at: www.icj.org 12 For useful information on the benefits of, inter alia, a complaints mechanism under ICESCR see, The Coalition for an Optional Protocol to ICESCR, Advocacy Kit, 2004. Available at: www.nwjc.org.au/avcwl/lists/info/op-icescr.html. 13 For information and recent developments related to the establishment of the African Court see www.interights.org 14 ACHPR resolution on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Africa, adopted at the 36th Ordinary Session, 2004; see also the Workshop Statement on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Africa, Sept. 2004 (www.interights.org) which informed the Commission’s resolution. 15 See generally, CESCR General Comment No. 9 on the Domestic Application of the Covenant, UN doc. E/C.12/1998/24. See further, CESCR Concluding Observations on Kuwait, UN doc. E/C.12/1/Add.98, 2004, para. 27; CESCR Concluding Observations on Ecuador, 2004, op.cit., para. 59; CESCR Concluding Observations on Moldova, UN doc. E/C.12/1/Add.91, 2003, para. 30; CESCR Concluding Observations on Trinidad and Tobago, UN doc. E/C.12/1/Add.80, 2002, paras. 9, 32. 16 CRC Concluding Observations on Brazil, UN doc. CRC/C/15/Add.241, 2004, paras. 20, 21, 23 where reference is made in particular to children of African descent and indigenous children. 17 See Beijing +5 Outcome document, UN doc. A/S-23/10/Rev.1 (SUPPL. NO. 3 para. 93(d). ‘… Governments, regional and international organizations, including the United Nations system, and international financial institutions and other actors … Undertake appropriate data collection and research on indigenous women, with their full participation, in order to foster accessible, culturally and linguistically appropriate policies, programmes and services’. ; see also Banda, F. and Chinkin, C., Gender, Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, London, Minority Rights Group International, 2004. 18 The HRC noted in Ilmari Lansmann v. Finland: ‘A State may understandably wish to encourage development or allow economic activity by enterprises. The scope of its freedom to do so is not to be assessed by reference to a margin of appreciation, but by 99