They have not been easy for our world to address. To do so has meant reconciliation of international enforceability with national sovereignty; the assurance of State security within globally regulated weapons regimes; the right, and responsibility, of an individual to be seen as a human being as much as a member of a distinct community or citizen of a specific country.Within States, democracy is governed by numbers and a periodic, predictable reaffirmation of the majority's mandate. The United Nations General Assembly was designed, and has admirably served, as democratic expression of the world's wish and intent. It was not intended, nor has sought, to be the enforcer of that will. But for more than half a century, it has provided remarkable, often anonymous, auspices for the negotiation and deliverance of a series of agreements binding upon signatories who recognize their essentiality to the regulation, conduct and enhancement of the quality of international life.

It has done so in matters of law and trade, freedoms and civil rights, energy and the environment. And now, at century's edge, when terrors and errors of the past threaten to recur rather than recede, it is doing so again, tackling threats, whose repeated realization has maimed our civility and times. Today, like chemical weapons before them, landmines are being sought to be legislated into lawlessness. Today, in the fiftieth anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the constitution of an International Criminal Court is sought to give some of its most vital provisions the sanction of judicial redress.

The world will continue seeking innovative means to squarely confront the daggers of mind and heart whose presence has until now prompted expressions of anxiety and anguish, condemnation and concern. But the world is changing. And in this searching season, it has begun to prove that the brutality of man to man, whether anonymous or specific, deliberate or random, is no longer simply domestic or deplorable. It is international and illegal.