Balance and equality are basic factors iw a harmonious world with human rights achievements, experts said in Beijing Thursday.

Equality was a basic principle of human rights, which should be considered and implemented to achieve harmonious and stable development, said Pham Phuong Dong, a researcher with the Vietnamese Institute for Human Rights.

It was also the foundation of a civilized, democratic and progressive society, Pham Phuong Dong said at the ongoing Symposium on Respecting and Promoting Human Rights and Constructing the Harmonious World.

"The tasks for developing countries are how to take advantage of the economic achievements to solve issues concerning imbalance, inequality and social evils," Pham Phuong Dong said.

Xu Xianming, president of the China University of Political Science and Law, said, "Freedom and equality, sympathy and tolerance, and benevolence and humanism are the foundation of harmony."

Indonesian Makarim Wibisono, chairperson of the 61st United Nations Commission on Human Rights, said harmony and a harmonious world in the context of human rights should be a world in which all categories of human rights can be considered and implemented in a balanced manner.

"Only if this balance is always in the minds of all actors, be it in the political sphere, in the public sphere or in the private sphere, can a true state of harmony be achieved," he said.

If such conditions prevailed -- and this was of course a Utopia-- the interests of all could be preserved and enhanced, and a peaceful state established favoring development and accelerating progress, he said.

"Internal or domestic implementations of human rights should be conducted in a way that fosters harmony at the national level. Meanwhile, international deliberations on human rights issues should also be conducted in a way that fosters harmony at the bilateral, regional and global level," he added.

(Xinhua News Agency November 23, 2006)