The first World Citizens Assembly was held in Lille (France) from December 2 to 10, 2001. Attended by four hundred participants representing a fair balance of the different regions of the world and of the different socioprofessional spheres, the Assembly foreshadowed a World Parliament. This was not an isolated event, but the culmination of a large number of international workshops that had been organized according to themes, regions or socioprofessional networks within the framework of the Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World. These workshops resulted in the drafting of sixty Proposal Papers, which were presented for the first time in Lille, then at the World Social Forum of Porto Alegre in January 2002. The World Assembly identified common priorities for change on the basis of the concerns of the different socioprofessional groups and the different regions of the world, and outlined the contents of a strategy for change for the twenty-first century. It also discussed and amended the Charter of Human Responsibilities, the indispensable complement to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Charter of the United Nations. It demonstrated that there exists a will for dialogue within the global society that is beginning to take shape and it calls for subsequent action in different regions of the world and in different circles.
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