YouSaid · the spoken record

Spring

THE RECORD WRITES THIS SPEAKER AS SPRING

lines on the record: 102
first: 1993-09-24
most recent: 1995-09-24
sittings or episodes: 3
sources: un-general-debate

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“We must be prepared to avail ourselves in full of the functions bestowed by the Charter on the General Assembly, the Secretary-General and the Economic and Social Council, as well as on the Security Council. We must ensure that information on economic and social conditions likely to result in a threat to security or stability is brought quickly to the attention of the Organization, and in particular to the Security Council. We have the instrument for this in the Economic and Social Council. We should now act on the Secretary-General’s proposal that a reformed Economic and Social Council provide reports to the Security Council on those economic and social developments that may threaten peace and security. Beyond this, we must strengthen the United Nations capacity for mediation.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“In this way we could work for a result that reflects current geopolitical realities, that acknowledges that these realities can change over time and that recognizes that all Member States have the potential to contribute to international peace and security. Measures already taken to improve transparency are welcome, but more must be done to facilitate interaction between the Security Council and the general membership. And surely the time has also come when we can delete from the Charter references to enemies that no longer exist. The terrible crises in Rwanda and Somalia have shown that we need to look urgently and more closely at the role and capacity of the United Nations in preventing and defusing conflicts. And we need to consider ways of strengthening the capability of regional organizations to engage in conflict resolution.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“There is now widespread agreement on the need for the Security Council to be more representative and more responsive to the needs of the general membership of the United Nations. I believe that early decisions to increase the overall membership of the Council are needed, and that an increase in the permanent membership should reflect the changes in international life over the past 50 years. Our discussions have shown that concrete decisions will not be easy, but we must avoid getting bogged down in narrow considerations of optimal numbers and the competing claims of regional Powers. One way of handling this would be to build into our decision a commitment to review again the membership of the Security Council at a specific date in the future.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“We must enhance the United Nations peace-keeping capabilities to make them more flexible and responsive when crises erupt. We must develop the United Nations operational capacity in the area of human rights. In particular, we need a more developed system of human rights monitors. We must act to establish a permanent international criminal court. We must intensify our efforts to eliminate the root causes of many conflicts - inequality, social injustice, and poverty - by acting on the Secretary-General’s agenda for development. We must restrict the international flow of the instruments of war and oppression by adopting a code of conduct for conventional arms transfers.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Recent experience has shown that recourse to Chapter VII action alone is inadequate and that outside involvement, unless carefully prepared and sensitively executed, can add to, rather than diminish, the crisis. We must learn the lessons of this and realize that building a United Nations 17 capable of meeting the challenges of the new era will require coordinated action in many areas. I will mention seven points on which I believe there should be priority action: We must reform the Security Council to make it more representative of the United Nations greatly expanded membership and to reflect the great changes in international relations of the past 50 years. We must develop the Organization’s capacity for early warning and mediation and for timely intervention in disputes before they escalate out of control.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Could it have prevented the outbreak of genocidal warfare when political unrest rapidly deteriorated into civil strife? Could it have responded more coherently when genocide was followed by a mass exodus? How can it now assist in the resolution of the conflict? I believe that unless we equip the United Nations to deal with these kinds of problems - the most characteristic and pressing of our time - the credibility and relevance of our Organization will increasingly be called into question. The roots of civil disorder and internal strife are often complex and deep - deeper and more complex, indeed, than the causes of inter-State war.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“More than 70 Irish public servants and military personnel are working with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the aid agencies. And our President, Mary Robinson, hopes shortly to visit Rwanda to show solidarity with the people of that troubled land and to emphasize the need for international action. In its response to the crises in Rwanda and Somalia, the international community has shown a generous willingness to help. Much human suffering has been alleviated. But we have not come near to achieving durable solutions. Nor are we any nearer to constructing a system to prevent similar horrors in the future. We must ask how the United Nations could have played a more active mediating role in Rwanda.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Can we stand aside while millions are slaughtered by their compatriots in Rwanda? By what calculus do we divine that death in civil strife counts less than death in inter-State warfare, that those threatened by their own countrymen are less deserving of our efforts than those who are threatened by their neighbours? I can find no moral justification for such distinctions. The appalling escalation of terror and violence in Rwanda demonstrates the truth of this. To the names that have come to be associated in recent years with human suffering - Sarajevo, Gorazde, Mogadishu, Baidoa - we can now add Goma, Bukavu and Ngara. The tragedy of Rwanda has gripped the hearts and minds of the Irish people. Today there are over 100 Irish aid workers in the area.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“And this, I believe, is the central question facing the United Nations as it approaches its fiftieth anniversary: can the United Nations, which was born out of the greatest inter-State conflict the world has ever seen, and which is designed specifically to prevent and resolve such conflicts - can this Organization deal adequately with internal crises and civil strife? I know that there are some who argue that the United Nations has no place in such matters, that many internal conflicts are not amenable to outside intervention. I can understand such arguments and the cautious desire not to get involved in other people’s internal quarrels. But can we let a crisis such as that in the former Yugoslavia escalate to the point where it threatens a wider Balkan conflict?”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“If in many parts of the world the message is one of hope, we know that in other places old enmities and ethnic animosities have surfaced, with vicious and indeed deadly consequences. The conflicts in Somalia, in the former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda; the gross abuses of human rights in Haiti and East Timor; the suffering of millions who are denied their basic rights to food, water or shelter; these remind us that we cannot let up in the struggle to create a peaceful world and to uphold human dignity. A characteristic feature of many contemporary crises is that they are essentially conflicts within States, rather than between them.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“It is our hope that this document, which we will commend to the other parties, but cannot of course impose on them, will give fresh impetus to the process of comprehensive negotiation. The developments I have outlined have forged a unique opportunity to achieve a comprehensive, just and peaceful resolution of the Northern Ireland problem. It is vital that their potential should be realized through early negotiations and agreement on new political structures. A new beginning for all our relationships in Ireland is 16 within our reach if we have the collective courage and imagination to avail ourselves of the opportunity. The desire for a lasting peace and a political accommodation has never been stronger across the entire population of the island.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“The Irish Government will pursue progress towards a lasting accommodation on a number of different levels. We are establishing a Forum for Peace and Reconciliation, to enable all democratic parties in Ireland that are so minded to make recommendations on ways in which agreement and trust between the two traditions in Ireland can be promoted and established. This will not be a negotiating forum, although we are hopeful that its work will contribute positively to the climate in which negotiations take place, and that many of its recommendations can be translated into practice. Simultaneously, the Irish and British Governments are working on a joint framework document setting out their own views on where a balanced accommodation of the problem may be found.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“New arrangements on these lines would, I believe, divest the conflict over sovereignty of much of its current confrontation and passion. Under new arrangements on these lines, buttressed and guaranteed by formal agreement between the two Governments, conflict over the choice of sovereignty might cease to become the destabilizing issue it now is. Instead, it might be handled under agreed political ground-rules, scrupulously even and fair to both aspirations, as a question of mutual persuasion and comparative benefit. Northern Ireland could become a place specially dedicated to the protection of the rights of both communities. Then, for the first time, both communities there could be truly themselves, and perhaps find common purpose in many areas where at present there is only division.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“The political division of Ireland has inhibited many of the constructive political, economic and social interactions which can contribute to the welfare of both parts of the island. Let us set that to rights in effective new structures between North and South. The choice of sovereignty has hitherto been a kind of symbolic shorthand for the victory or defeat of one community or the other. Let us divorce this notion as far as possible from all partisan or tribal connotations, and agree that the exercise of sovereignty, by whichever Government, will at all times, now and in the future, be qualified by scrupulously equal treatment of the two Northern communities and of their rights, identities and allegiances.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Together with all the political parties in Northern Ireland, we need to build new structures, reflecting the lessons of our experience and building on the principles of the Joint Declaration. Experience has taught us that a majority "winner- takes-all" system is profoundly unsuited to a society such as Northern Ireland, where divisions are predominantly communal and unchanging - rather than social or economic, and therefore changeable. Let us apply that lesson, making agreement and consensus the kernel of all new arrangements. Northern Ireland is characterized by a profound lack of consensus on the constitutional issue of whether the legitimate frame of reference is Northern Ireland or the island as a whole. Let us anchor new arrangements in an Agreement acknowledging and reconciling the validity of both.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Perhaps the greatest such mistake, shared at one time as an unquestioned assumption on both sides, was that this conflict, concentrated in the narrow ground of Northern Ireland, could only end in victory and defeat for one tradition or the other. Compromise was seen as the first step on the road to defeat. We have all learned, through a costly process of trial and error, that in the Northern Ireland situation notions of victory and defeat are an illusion. Each community had the critical mass to thwart the other, but neither can prevail alone. General political consent is therefore a simple practical necessity, as well as an ideal. The challenge now for the British and Irish Governments is to seize on the momentum for peace.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“We still await the end of the campaign of violence carried out by loyalist paramilitaries. I remain hopeful that they, in turn, will come to realize that their violence is repugnant to their own community as well as to others, and counterproductive to their cause. We hope that 15 responsible political leaders in the unionist community will make their voices strongly heard on this issue, as many have done already, and that a complete cessation of violence will ensue on the loyalist side also. We have now an unparalleled opportunity to create the basis for lasting agreement among our different political traditions in Ireland. We can do so, no longer prisoners of the past, but rather learning form our past mistakes on all sides.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“At the end of August, following a protracted internal debate, the IRA decided in favour of a complete cessation of military operations. That decision has been confirmed by other statements in the interval. Much more important, it has been sustained on the ground. This is a development of very great significance. It is first and foremost welcome because it saves lives. Secondly, it opens the prospect of comprehensive negotiations, governed by democratic principles, taking place against a background of peace and embracing the entire spectrum of all those involved in the conflict. Such negotiations have the greatest potential for success. Moreover, their outcome is likely to be more authoritative than a less general agreement, which would have had to be enforced against a background of continuing violence and repression.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“A crucial aspect of the Declaration is the acknowledgement that future arrangements in Ireland are for decision and agreement between the Irish people themselves, North and South, and its formal commitment that the role of the British Government will be to promote such agreement. The Declaration thus marks a decisive break with any notion which has had such dark resonances in Irish history that arrangements in Ireland might be decided as a function of British rights over Ireland. This opens the way, in turn, for a new and more developed acknowledgement by the nationalist tradition of the unquestionable rights of the unionist community, derived from its position as a distinct tradition in Ireland. A considerable section of the Joint Declaration is devoted to this issue.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“The Irish Government accepts that the right to self-determination of the people of Ireland as a whole must be achieved and exercised with, and subject to, the agreement and consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland. The Declaration seeks to deal with the issue of self-determination in a way which banishes the spectre of coercion. Instead, political consent is now clearly set as the necessary goal and touchstone for any stable arrangement in Ireland, whatever the framework. The Declaration makes clear that the British Government is not the enemy of the Irish nationalist tradition and that the Irish Government is not the enemy of the unionist tradition.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Last December, the Irish and British Governments published a Joint Declaration which significantly consolidated the common ground between us and offered all the parties to the conflict a compelling political alternative to the endless cycle of bloodshed and retribution. In the Joint Declaration, the British Government recognizes that it is for the people of Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts respectively and without external impediment, to exercise their right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a united Ireland if that is their wish.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“This difference was passionately and violently acted out by two communities in Northern Ireland, who were and remain deeply polarized by their division on fundamental constitutional issues. This conflict has been costly for all the people of Northern Ireland and for the British and Irish peoples generally. To deal with it is one of the most urgent and important tasks facing both Governments. Experience has shown that the ability of the two Governments to do so will be directly proportionate to the degree of agreement between us. It is in the inherited gaps between our positions that terrorism on both sides has taken root. For that reason, cooperation and agreement between the two Governments is vital for any solution.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“It seemed that the Northern Ireland conflict belonged to the category of truly intractable problems destined to outlive all change of circumstance and to defy all attempts at a solution. I begin my address this year on this question, because my message is now one of hope. The past 12 months have significantly enhanced the prospects for lasting peace and stability on the island of Ireland. It is true that the edifice of a solution still remains to be constructed, but I believe very solid foundations have now been laid. At the origin of the Northern Ireland conflict lies a difference of view as to whether the partition of Ireland earlier this century was or was not a denial of the right of the Irish people to self-determination.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“In Germany and in the Baltic States, the withdrawal of foreign troops marks the end of the division of our continent and heralds a Europe free and at peace. And on my own island - the island of Ireland - the declaration by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) of a complete cessation of military operations has opened the prospect of a peaceful resolution which has not existed for a generation. 14 For many years it has been customary for Irish Foreign Ministers to report to this Assembly on developments in relation to the conflict in Northern Ireland. Too often they have spoken of killing and destruction, the failure of political initiatives and controversies on human rights.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“I warmly congratulate you, Sir, on your election to the presidency of the forty-ninth session of the General Assembly. You take office at an historic moment for the United Nations on the eve of its fiftieth anniversary. The past year has been one of progress and great hope for many peoples and States represented in this Assembly. In South Africa, the elections have given birth to a democratic, non-racial society which offers a model of tolerance and reconciliation for others on that tortured continent. In the Middle East, the establishment of a Palestinian administration in Gaza and Jericho paves the way for a comprehensive settlement in a region that several times in living memory has threatened global confrontation.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“We must lift our sights 34 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session to the new horizons of possibility which developments in the Middle East and South Africa have opened for us. This is the objective of the Government which I represent. I believe we can have no higher objective.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Peace and stability will not be found in any political system which is imposed, or which is rejected by a substantial part of the population who live within it. What we need in the island of Ireland is a collective will to rise above traditional suspicions and animosities and a readiness to look beyond areas of disagreement to areas where we can work together to mutual advantage. Peace is now the imperative, and the continuation of violence is the single greatest obstacle to the realization of our hopes. An end to violence would open up new possibilities and allow all of us to emerge from the shadow of a very troubled history. It would, at last, help to clear the way for compromise and negotiation, leading to an agreement which would achieve a fair and lasting accommodation between nationalism and unionism in Ireland.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“For our part, we are willing to look afresh at our own traditional assumptions and at our relationships with others to see if there are new approaches which can open a way forward. We are ready to accept the need for radical and innovative compromise as part of a new accommodation which will bring lasting peace and reconciliation to the island of Ireland. Compromise does not mean asking either of the two traditions in Northern Ireland to modify its fundamental beliefs or, indeed, to suppress its objectives. It does mean asking each tradition to recognize that the other deserves equal respect and must be accommodated on equal terms. It means accepting that diversity can be enriching rather than threatening and that both traditions in Ireland must find a way to share the island on a basis of partnership and trust.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“But I believe that, with sufficient good will and determination, the Irish and British Governments and the leaders of the constitutional parties in Northern Ireland can lead the people they represent out of the stalemate which exists at present towards a peaceful and secure future. As I have said elsewhere, the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are all to hand if only we can find the right way to fit them together. The Irish Government is ready to play its full part in this. We will bring to any resumed talks the resources of good will, flexibility and imagination which we believe all participants must display if a new agreement is to be achieved. It is painfully obvious that all traditional approaches have failed and that new thinking is urgently required.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Some would say that the conflict is fundamentally incapable of resolution. I do not accept that, and I will not accept it. Like the vast majority of my compatriots, I yearn for peace on our island. I want to see a comprehensive settlement which will enable men, women and children to go about their daily lives in peace and without fear. All of us in both islands are paying the price of past political failures. We should not ask future generations to bear the cost of further failure. I have no illusions about the complexity of the issues. I know that there are no easy or quick solutions - no single step that can remove the necessity for a long and painstaking journey.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“We must acknowledge that the issues we address under the auspices of this Assembly and those which arise in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the Bretton Woods institutions cannot be separated. In all of these areas, our aim must be a peaceful, integrated international society in which our sense of the common good increasingly qualifies considerations of national power and immediate expediency. As the dramatic developments in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship and the equally historic changes in South Africa have shown, progress is possible even in the most obdurate of conflicts if the protagonists are willing to look towards a common future. Northern Ireland represents a challenge of similar dimensions to the British and Irish Governments and to the peoples of both islands.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“The creation within the Secretariat of a new Department of Humanitarian Affairs has been a useful step towards that end. The international community must look squarely at certain incontrovertible features of our shared existence on this planet: climate change, a possible doubling of the world’s population by the middle of the next century, pressures imposed by our patterns of production and consumption, great imbalances in the availability of technology and resources. In many of these areas, the Rio Conference and its Agenda 21 have identified the way ahead. I am pleased that the Commission on Sustainable Development and other organs provided for in Rio are off to a promising start.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Last year Ireland called for an agenda for development that would complement and stand alongside the Secretary-General’s "Agenda for Peace". We are pleased that such a report is now in preparation. Our vision of the future cannot ignore the images of deprivation and need we see every day from all too many parts of the world. The reality of this suffering is a test for all of us. The Irish Government is committed to doubling the percentage of gross national product devoted to official development aid in the period 1993 to 1997. Peace and development are not separable. Forty-eighth session - 1 October l993 33 We must recognize what the Secretary-General has called the humanitarian imperative. The international community must be assured that the United Nations and its development agencies will respond quickly to emergencies as they occur.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“We must intensify our efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. I am heartened by the decision of some nuclear States to maintain a moratorium on nuclear testing and I call on others to do the same. Our objective must be a comprehensive treaty banning nuclear testing forever. Ireland has proposed that the United Nations should elaborate a code of conduct for conventional arms transfers which would encourage States to exercise responsibility and restraint in their arms transfers and which would set out common principles to be observed in this area. We believe that, as the international community moves towards a closer understanding of its shared responsibility for international security in the framework of the United Nations, such a code would represent an important step forward in the area of arms control.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“And we must make decisive progress on the establishment of an international criminal tribunal to prosecute persons responsible for violations of humanitarian law wherever they occur. The abuses of human rights in Yugoslavia have provoked a profound determination in the international community that those responsible must be brought to justice. The ad hoc approach, unavoidable in the case of Yugoslavia, points to the need for a permanent international criminal tribunal with an established jurisdiction and an identified body of applicable law. The General Assembly at this session should examine the valuable work done on this topic by the International Law Commission. We can take advantage of the changed international situation to pursue our work on disarmament and arms control.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“And even outside of these open conflicts the dignity of the individual is frequently violated by authoritarian and repressive regimes. At Vienna in June, the World Conference on Human Rights sought to strengthen the protection of human rights worldwide. Most of us who attended that meeting came away feeling that progress had indeed been made. It is essential that the agreed Programme of Action be given the highest priority and acted on by this Assembly. A United Nations commissioner for human rights should be appointed. The resources devoted to human rights activities in the United Nations system should be doubled. The United Nations human rights machinery, especially in relation to the protection of women, should be strengthened.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Today, as a result of the work of the Unified Task Force (UNITAF), UNOSOM and the non-governmental organizations, people are no longer dying from man-made famine. A year ago violence was widespread. Today almost all of Somalia is calm. The exception is south Mogadishu, where the efforts of UNOSOM have been continually frustrated and many, including 60 United Nations peace-keepers, have lost their lives. In pursuance of its overall aim of political reconciliation, the United Nations must continue its search for a peaceful resolution in Mogadishu, learning from and building on its success elsewhere in Somalia. Most of the conflicts that this Assembly will address in the coming weeks are marked by massive abuses of human rights - summary executions, torture, detention, rape, mutilation.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Secondly, there is a need to improve military planning at United Nations Headquarters and to ensure that the best military advice and information is available to the Secretary-General in his conduct of peace-keeping operations. To this end, an effective planning unit is required. Thought should also be given to whether the Military Staff Committee, which is provided for in the Charter but which has never functioned effectively, could have a contribution to make. In Somalia, the overriding objective of the United Nations operation must be political reconciliation and national reconstruction. There have been outstanding successes. One year ago, several hundreds were dying each day from hunger and malnutrition.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“32 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session The first is the imperative need to maintain peace - keeping and peace-enforcement operations within an overall political framework and to exploit every opportunity for reconciliation. Enforcement action, when it is undertaken - and I accept that it may be necessary - should be the minimum required and it should be carefully directed to achieving the political aims of the operation. For this reason, I believe that at the time the Security Council takes a decision to establish an operation, particularly one involving peace enforcement, it should pay special attention to the issues of command and control.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“It is important for all of us - the United Nations, the troop contributors, and those whom we seek to help - to reflect carefully on our experiences and draw the lessons from the new large-scale operations in Cambodia, Somalia and Yugoslavia. It is evident that existing structures both at United Nations Headquarters and in the field have come under very considerable strain. The mandates of major United Nations operations are now multi-faceted. We need mechanisms that will allow such mandates to be carried through in a manner that is effective, transparent and humane. I want to mention two points in particular here today.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Ireland now participates in 10 of the 14 United Nations peace-keeping operations in the field. A significant proportion of our armed forces is at present engaged in United Nations peace-keeping duties. But, beyond the scale of the operations, the nature of the tasks undertaken by United Nations forces has changed also. The initial decision to intervene militarily in Somalia for humanitarian purposes and the subsequent decision to mandate the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM) to take enforcement action are new departures for the Organization. And they present new challenges for troop-contributing countries. In Ireland’s case we had to change our law to enable our forces to take part in the Chapter VII operation in Somalia.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“It is simply not acceptable to call on the United Nations to undertake new responsibilities while declining or failing to provide the necessary resources. A significant improvement in the Organization’s finances is now an urgent priority. I appeal to all Member States in arrears, and especially those on the Security Council, to comply with their financial obligations under the Charter. This is a moral as well as a practical imperative. The impact of change is particularly apparent in the area of peace-keeping. In almost every crisis, on every continent, United Nations forces are deployed on increasingly varied and complex tasks. By the end of this year the numbers in the field may total 100,000. And individual operations are now very large: nearly 20,000 each in Cambodia and Somalia; almost 25,000 in former Yugoslavia.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Yet today, when the demands for action by the United Nations have reached unprecedented levels, when ideological division no longer inhibits an effective United Nations role and when the approach to problem-solving at Security Council level is essentially cooperative, the Organization finds itself burdened with a grave and crippling financial crisis. The Secretary-General has told us that the Organization is living from hand to mouth. He warns us that the financial situation could soon prevent the United Nations from discharging its essential responsibilities and undermine its political will and practical capacity to undertake any new activities. And yet the simple truth is this: for every dollar that the United Nations spends on the instruments of peace, the world spends almost $2,000 on the weapons of war.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“There is a need also for greater transparency in Security Council decision-making. The general membership, though it takes no part in the Council’s decisions, is bound by them, and we are frequently called on to supply personnel and finance to implement the Council’s expanded and increasingly complex mandates. We must work for a more interactive relationship between the Council and the General Assembly, and for more frequent and substantive reporting by the Council to the general membership. And we must look for ways to make the Assembly itself more effective. It is ironic that for most of its existence, when the United Nations was not always deemed to be the appropriate forum for the resolution of major disputes, the Organization was for the most part adequately resourced.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“The number and scope of its decisions are greater than ever before, and the import of those decisions for States and for peoples everywhere is more far-reaching. And yet, we must ask if the Council truly represents the almost universal membership of the Organization and reflects fully the great changes that have taken place in economic and political relations. These are questions of the deepest significance for international cooperation, but I believe that unless they are addressed now, the political authority of the Security Council and its capacity to act decisively and with confidence will be eroded. Ireland therefore supports the case for an increase in the membership of the Security Council. I hope that decisions on this can be taken before the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations in two years’ time.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“We need a United Nations whose activities truly address the great contemporary challenges, and we need a United Nations that is not hindered by lack of resources in personnel and finance. At no time in its history has the need to re-examine and strengthen the United Nations system been greater or more Forty-eighth session - 1 October l993 31 widely felt, and these themes of representation, relevance and resources are at the heart of the debate about the reform of the United Nations. As the body charged with the primary responsibility for international peace and security, it is imperative that the Security Council should function well and with authority. The Council’s response to the huge demands that have been made of it in recent years has been impressive.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“We are coming to understand better the interrelated nature of these tasks: the struggle to end war; to advance democracy; to promote economic development; to protect the dignity of the individual; to ensure freedom and the rule of law; to protect the environment; to deal with the problems of population - all are part of the same effort. Success in one requires progress in others. We are coming to understand too that the activities of States and Governments require the broader cooperative context of the United Nations. As our problems are transnational, so too must be our response. The fact is that we need a United Nations whose organization and decisions truly represent the will of the international community.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“For all our progress, thousands continue to die in brutal wars, thousands more suffer from gross abuses of human rights and millions are denied their basic right to food, water and shelter. There is still a great distance to be travelled to a world of justice, equality and true respect for the individual. People look here, to the United Nations, to help them travel that distance. Faced with this hope, this expectation - this demand - our Organization today must meet challenges of a kind that it has not had to cope with in the past, challenges qualitatively different from the international and regional disputes that have traditionally absorbed so much of the United Nations energies.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“The recent changes in international life have brought great and lasting benefits to many: to those who endured authoritarian forms of government for decades and have now gained the freedom to exercise their basic human and civil rights; to peoples released from the super-Power competition that enabled dictatorial and repressive regimes to act with impunity; to the wider international community that no longer lives under the threat of global nuclear conflagration. Yet the optimism that characterized the early days of the post-cold-war period has been tempered by the realization that for every advance in the Middle East or in South Africa, there is an Angola, or a Yugoslavia, a Somalia, a Sudan.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“We have waited and striven long for this day. I am happy to announce that we in Ireland have decided to establish diplomatic relations with that new South Africa. It is a time of hope, but also of apprehension, particularly for the people of Russia. The course of reform is not yet complete. I am confident that the way forward identified by President Yeltsin will continue to be endorsed by the people so that Russia may continue on the path to stable democracy and sustained economic development.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)