From May 4 to 6, 2009 (B.E. 2552), the 6th United Nations Day of Vesak celebration was held at Buddhamonthon in Nakhon Pathom Province and the ESCAP Hall, United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok. The event brought together 1,300 participants from 80 countries and regions. Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University hosted the celebration with support from the Thai Government and received blessings from the Supreme Sangha Council.

His Royal Highness Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn (now His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn Phra Vajiraklaochaoyuhua) graciously appointed Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana Rajakanya (now Her Royal Highness Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana Rajakanya) to preside over the Opening Ceremony and deliver the inauguration speech at Mahachulalongkorn- rajavidyalaya University. H.E. Abhisit Vejjajiva, then Prime Minister of Thailand, honored the celebration with a closing remark at the ESCAP Hall, United Nations Conference Centre, Bangkok.

The celebration centred on the theme with H.E. Choosak Sirinil, Minister Attached to the Prime Minister’s Office of Thailand, delivering the keynote speech. Panel discussions addressed three sub-themes:

• Buddhist Response to Environmental Crisis
• Buddhist Response to Economic Crisis
• Buddhist Response to Political Crisis and Peace Development

The original International Organizing Committee (IOC) founded the International Council for the Day of Vesak (ICDV), which assumed responsibility for overseeing the organization of future United Nations Day of Vesak celebrations.

The participants reached the following agreements in the Bangkok Declaration:

• To acknowledge the unprecedented impact of the global economic crisis on every nation and also being aware of the inter-relatedness between economic, political, environmental, social crisis and spiritual vacuum, to double the efforts in promoting spiritual values that will help redress the current global crises; 
• To encourage a transparent and caring financial and economic system as an urgent social responsibility, the value of which includes integrity, diligence, harmlessness and sharing in order to achieve social and economic stability and sustainable development;
• To encourage good governance and maintain ethical and social justice in conflict resolution as well as in peace development and harmony in society;  Being mindful of the consequences of our behavior in this interconnected world and of the need to protect the planet earth, to actively promote awareness of the Buddhist concept of causality; 
• To promote better understanding of Buddhist principles amongst the wider public by compiling a common Buddhist text, which will reflect the richness of the Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist tradition as well as the needs of today’s society; 
• To develop the IABU on the basis of ever-increasing membership participation in bottom-up initiatives to promote: academic collaboration; staff and student exchanges; and joint fundraising; 
• To salute the groundbreaking work of the IABU Electronic Resources Group in: following up the report of the Hanoi UNDV conference on Major Digital
• Projects in Buddhist Studies; bringing together leading specialists from 23 institutions in 16 countries in a group with generous impulse to share metadata; and forming a common plan of work to develop the first Union Catalogue of Buddhist Texts (UCBT), which will bring together the vast body electronic resources
available in individual canonical languages (Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian) for common access via a unified portal; 
• To endorse the registration as a legal entity of the International Council for the United Nations Day of Vesak (UNDV), previously known as the International Organizing Committee (IOC); and, 
• The venue for the 2010/2553 UNDV is the United Nations Conference Centre, Bangkok and to be co-hosted by Thailand and Japan.