Mr. President,
This august assembly of
world leaders is a unique occasion to celebrate and reaffirm our unity of purpose and our
support for the United Nations. Guided by the Secretary General's Millennium Report, we
are also called upon to explore the longer-term options and necessities of development in
our community of nations.
Arnold
Toynbee's theory of history as the result of “challenges” and the respective
“ responses” is a suitable conduit of analysis of the United Nations
Organisation. Built on the ashes of the disastrous Second World War, the Organisation's
agenda and mode of operation have evolved in response to the issues of each decade. It is
amazing how the world organisation over more than half a century has been able to provide
valuable leadership
• in promoting peace and security,
• in supporting successfully the
decolonisation process
• in promoting and protecting a global system
of human rights standards
• in transforming itself into a broad-based
programme of development co-operation
• in articulating and in addressing the new
global agenda, as it evolved dealing with population growth, human rights, social
development and the role of women in our societies, natural resources and sustainable
development, food and health, all of them issues that have been the subject of world
conferences during the past decade.
Mr. President,
This Summit offers also a
special opportunity to thank all those men and women who have served the United Nations
with great dedication and distinction - especially those who lost their lives in the
defence of the high goals and ideals. A special tribute is due to the Secretaries General
of the Organisation - from Trygve Lie, Dag Hammarskjöld, U Thant, Kurt Waldheim, Javier
Perez de Cuellar, Boutros Boutros-Ghali to
Kofi Annan. Coming from a country which is one of the main hosts of the United Nations and
its specialised agencies I should like to convey my profound appreciation for the
enthusiasm and idealism of the staff which has been a major resource for the development
of the world organisation.
Mr.
President,
One of the most significant
achievements of the recent past has been the increasing democratisation of global affairs.
The Secretary General, in allusion to the Charter has rightly entitled his report ,We the
peoples" and not ,We the governments". Over the past thirty years it was maybe
the people more than governments who have shaped and promoted the agenda of the United
Nations. Especially since the United Nations Conference on Human Environment, 1972 in
Stockholm, we have benefited from a dynamic inter-relationship between diplomatic
negotiations on the one hand and the articulations of international civil society on the
other. Today it might well be unthinkable to deal with any one of the global issues
without the participation and contributions by civil society. The way we address today the
issues of human rights, of the environment, of disaster relief and development
co-operation, of security and, in particular, of human security, to mention only a few,
has been characterised by new forms of dialogue, participation and commitment on the part
of civil society. The successful completion of the negotiations for the landmines treaty
as well as the Rome process towards an International Criminal Court would not have been
possible without the truly innovative and productive response on their part.
I
further should like to welcome the recent initiative by the Secretary General to develop a
new partnership with the business community. To face the challenges of globalisation, a
platform like the Global Compact - which emerged from the discussion at the World Economic
Forum in Davos - can certainly make a valuable contribution to addressing global issues
and to the broad societal responsibility they entail.
Over
the past decades the United Nations has shown impressive flexibility and ability for
institutional innovation. However, if we review the past development of UN organs and
organisations we will have to admit that much of it was rather sectoral, ad hoe and always
under the constraints of budgetary limitations.
In
short, I believe that the most important question put before us by the Secretary General
relates to the institutional development of the United Nations. It is there, where great
efforts are required and innovative responses will have to be found to make real a renewed
United Nations in a global neighbourhood of peace and development for all.
Mr.
President,
Keeping in mind the complex
interrelationships that today exist between the manifold dimensions of peace and security,
of economic and human-centered development and of. environmental sustainability, our
approach to the institutional challenge will have to be more comprehensive than in the
past. The new challenges in dealing with the global agenda require new inter-sectoral,
inter-disciplinary, broad-based institutional responses.
The
Millennium is a good moment to begin, this Summit an excellent occasion to gather the
necessary political will and momentum. No quick fixes are possible. Process-like
negotiations with the inclusion of all concerned, governmental representatives, our
democratically elected parliamentarians, civil society, academia and leaders from the
business community should be aimed at. Implementing the fundamental objectives of the
Charter we must search and attain the institutional responses appropriate to the agenda of
our time.
Thank
you for your attention.