YouSaid · the spoken record

Christopher J. Loeak

lines on the record: 25
first: 2013-09-24
most recent: 2015-09-24
sittings or episodes: 2
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“It should be our goal as the United Nations not only to stop the spread of nuclear weapons but also to pursue peace and security in a world without them. This year, I look forward to a truly united United Nations with the courage not only to address the immediate emergencies at hand but also to move us forward into our dynamic century.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“If our own past and its contemporary impact continue to bear that heavy burden, the whole world should know our story. I would therefore strongly urge Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to include the powerful and specific example of the Marshall Islands and the related role of the United Nations in his statements aimed at encouraging progress on nuclear disarmament and test bans. It is essential for the survival of humankind that nuclear weapons never be used again under any circumstances. The universal way to accomplish that is through the total elimination of such weapons. I am deeply disappointed that political distractions resulted in the lack of an outcome from the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons earlier this year.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Like many other countries, the Republic of the Marshall Islands believes that awareness of the catastrophic impacts and humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons must underpin all efforts towards nuclear disarmament. As a former United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands has a unique legacy shared only by a few other nations. Even while the United Nations was supposed to be furthering our development, 67 nuclear tests were conducted in our nation between 1946 and 1958 by our former administering Power, the United States of America, under our United Nations trusteeship status, including through authorization under two United Nations resolutions. That was the only time the United Nations ever explicitly authorized the use of nuclear weapons, and the results were, and remain, beyond tragic.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“The Republic of the Marshall Islands supports Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the specialized agencies of the United Nations, including the World Health Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization and the UNFCCC. It is imperative that the global community fully recognize and evaluate Taiwan’s important commitment to reduce its emissions. Furthermore, I call for Taiwan’s involvement in the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda, and urge recognition of the important assistance it has provided to my country in the areas of health, education and energy. The Marshall Islands welcomes Taiwan’s efforts as a regional peacemaker, including in cross- strait issues, and urges that States Members of the United Nations recognize and encourage such progress.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“I offer my firm support for the initiative proposed by New Zealand during its Security Council presidency, when it convened a Council meeting on small island developing States and threats to international peace and security (see S/PV.7499). That meeting revealed issues that slip under the global radar but that cannot be ignored. I urge the Council’s establishment of a regular agenda item on security issues in small island developing States. I am proud to announce the formal establishment, earlier this week, of diplomatic relations between the Republic of the Marshall Islands and Cuba. Everyone should participate on the international stage.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Decades later, we again face the complex push-and-pull of larger international politics. Our regional baseline is often one of severe fragility. We have sharp exposure to external shocks, and some of our emerging and future security challenges not only extend beyond our capacity but push the envelope of international precedent. The treatment of our security as small-island and large ocean nations cannot be considered apart from that of much larger interaction across the Pacific. Some may view political alliances, borders and, in some cases, significant marine mineral resources as mere possessions ready to be plucked by the highest bidder or the strongest military force, just as one might pick ripe fruit from a tree. That contradicts the spirit of the Charter of the United Nations.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“As the broader United Nations debates Security Council reform to adjust it the modern world, the nations that portray themselves as deserving leaders have an excellent opportunity to demonstrate their leadership by not ducking the bill or pointing fingers, but by embracing the challenge of the global emissions gap. They should begin to speak about opportunities for new forms of energy, instead of dancing around perceived threats to growth. For the island nations, a 15-29568 21/33 A/70/PV.20 30/09/2015 world without a true commitment to decarbonization and meaningful strategies for its attainment is ultimately no world at all. As dramatically different as our landscape is today, the tensions of an earlier age continue to resonate, from the time when the Pacific islands region served as the horrific theatre for a global power struggle.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“As we move to the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) later this year, in Paris, I am proud that climate change is now recognized by all world leaders as a reality that deserves, and is receiving, a firm and collective response. Everyone must act. Many, including my own nation, have already committed to emissions cuts well into the future of 2025, 2030 and beyond. But the world’s initial efforts are falling significantly short. Instead of indifference or fumbled excuses, we must achieve true leadership that provides a direct response to closing the global emissions gap.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“As a low-lying island nation with no higher ground, climate change poses a severe threat to our security. Some have said that there is no more hope and no more time. I forcefully disagree. The future of my nation — the future of our very land — may rest more in the hands of my fellow world leaders than in my own. There is still hope — hope that my nation will be able to tackle the most difficult planning challenges and to build resilience wherever we can, and hope that the world will not turn a blind eye. I can assure the United Nations that the Marshall Islands refuses the very notion that we would willingly relocate wholesale to another country, or resign ourselves to saying that if the water comes, it comes.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“Already, higher returns from foreign licenses have benefited our own national fiscal future, yet that is only a fraction of the true potential. It is unacceptable that, on the one hand, we are expected to achieve the SDGs and to demonstrate dramatic development progress while, on the other hand, we are blocked from further gains from our own resources by the self-interests of distant fishing nations. The Marshall Islands and the States parties to the Nauru Agreement Concerning Cooperation in the Management of Fisheries of Common Interest remain firmly committed to the benefits of the Vessel Day Scheme and targeted high seas closures as a condition for fishing our waters. The tables have turned and, if others wish to fish our waters, they must now do so on our own sovereign terms.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“The term developing nation implies forward movement, yet for far too long the Marshall Islands has been only treading water. We have promising opportunities and aspirations for improving our investment platforms, but our untapped yet substantial resource base is often coloured by larger international influence. Our fisheries represent not only a vital sector for our own development, but also a wider contribution to international food security, because the Pacific is steward of half the world’s commercial tuna. Our foreign fishing nation partners, who not by accident are also the drivers of global influence, have held the purse to our own future for far too long. Key stocks in the Pacific are being plundered at unsustainable rates that jeopardize our future.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“We have found new pathways for building on our traditional knowledge and culture to enable our education system to draw on our own Pacific story and strength. But our efforts and good intentions alone cannot ensure that every willing student has an opportunity to succeed. We need international support. The Republic of the Marshall Islands has one of the world’s highest rates of diabetes, which has led my Government to declare a state of emergency. Non-communicable diseases remain a primary threat to our national well-being. Without transformative partnerships, and without extending more closely to our shores the renewed United Nations 2008-2013 Action Plan for the Global Strategy for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases, we risk a tragic downward spiral.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“I welcome the establishment of a comprehensive assistance programme with the International Atomic Energy Agency that will not only enhance our national 20/33 15-29568 30/09/2015 A/70/PV.20 capacity to monitor and evaluate serious issues of nuclear contamination but that will also address health strategies and other key SDG benchmarks. The Marshall Islands faces some of the more complex development, security and planning challenges in the world, but we lack the full tools available to tackle them. A nation struggling to attain basic social development goals will not be equipped to resolve any other challenge. Progress in education is key. Firm efforts are under way to correct our course and to provide better opportunities for our youngest and future generations.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“We now have a powerful opportunity in which to merge recent national planning improvements and construct an architecture for measuring progress and pinpointing gaps. Such gaps are not only our own, but also those of our partners. Too often, we have — all of us — operated with goodwill, but without accountability for our collective performance. Our post-2023 national trust fund deserves a strong support system and also represents an opportunity, if we use it, to work towards specific goals and benchmarks. If we can jointly harness our national and global priorities, if we can commit our own efforts and national resources, however small they may be right now, and if our close partners can work with us to restructure assistance-delivery to target the SDGs, then my nation too can climb the development ladder.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“I bring the General Assembly the warm greetings of “Yokwe” from the people and nation of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (resolution 70/1) and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer small island States a powerful tool with which to shape and adjust our own domestic strategies. The international community has spoken, and a changing world is mapping a visionary landscape that reaches into the distant years that have too rarely been part of our own national discussions — beyond 2020, beyond 2023, towards 2030 and even farther, to the middle of the century. In adopting the SDGs, the Marshall Islands cannot afford a set-it-and-forget-it mentality, which has too often marked past international efforts.”
2015-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 70 (2015)
“I am strongly encouraged by the Secretary- General’s commitment to addressing the ongoing impacts of nuclear testing in the Pacific and look forward to practical steps in that regard. My Government is gratified to note that — with solid international support and cross- strait cooperation — the Republic of China on Taiwan has increased its meaningful participation in United Nations specialized agencies and mechanisms. We will continue to encourage positive interaction between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait in the international arena. Too often, despite our own aspirations, we struggle to move inches when urgency demands miles. We wish to inform the Secretary-General that our political will stands ready and that our hands are extended for a durable partnership.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“I would also like to recognize the contributions that Taiwan has made in helping my country in efforts to achieve the MDGs. Pacific Islands Forum leaders have, for the first time, recognized the role of the United Nations in authorizing nuclear-weapon testing during the Cold War and welcomed the recommendations of the United Nations Special Rapporteur’s recent report (A/HRC/21/48/Add.1). Nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands is no mere historical event, but an international legacy that will stay with us for generations. While the bulk of the unmet responsibilities still rest with our historical Administering Power, the United States, the United Nations can, for its part, no longer ignore its own role during the Trusteeship era.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“In every sector of basic development and environmental efforts, our door is open for increased collaboration among the United Nations, our regional resources and bilateral partners. The statements of sympathy in the plenary are all too often not translated into effective, island-tailored results. Our in-country United Nations presence still has a long way to go in truly delivering as one and better addressing pressing threats. I encourage a direct discussion between the United Nations and our region on practical efforts to enhance in-country effectiveness and collaboration. No one people or nation should be passed over. Even as the United Nations enters into a new discussion in setting the stage for the post-2015 development agenda, improved progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) remains no less a priority.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“Is the global thirst for rare earth minerals beneath our waves and is the hunger for our vast fisheries so great as to outstrip our rightful economic development and our conservation efforts? Perhaps it is high time that island leaders set forward our island vision of partnership and collaborate accordingly. We cannot forge progress through political will alone. Here, Pacific Islands Forum leaders have forged a ground-breaking mutual dialogue to enhance and improve effective United Nations partnerships in our region. Those are not isolated words; already, the United Nations, together with our bilateral partners, is playing a valuable role in working with the Marshall Islands to recover from a climate-driven drought and other coastal flooding emergencies. But we need not wait for disasters.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“But for all of the expressed plenary sympathies and common international responsibility, existing legal commitments to safeguard fisheries all too often fall victim to the short-term trade interests of our partners. We Pacific leaders will sacrifice neither our resources nor our growth or livelihood for quick returns; our future generations are not for sale. The threat of harmful fisheries sanctions from distant fishing nations — perhaps as punishment for our conservation efforts — is hardly a helping hand either to our regional development or to international food security. Next year’s international meeting on small island States and development partnerships, to be held in Samoa, will offer our political partners a moment for careful reflection.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“We are stewards of what is a truly global resource — our oceans and fisheries. Even a casual glance at a map reveals a world of deep and vast blue, and not only scientists but our own local communities see change in our waters. Local and global ocean impacts affect not only every region, but also global food security. I join with other Pacific leaders in urging dedicated treatment of the oceans as a post-2015 United Nations sustainable development goal. Pacific nations, including the States parties to the Nauru Agreement, are leading the world in changing fishing practice. We are not only leading the world in advancing sustainable fisheries, but at the same time boosting our own economic growth. Perhaps no other effort or region is such a strong textbook example of sustainable development in action.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“I strongly urge my fellow leaders to engage eye to eye at the Secretary-General’s climate summit next year. Never has the need for true statesmanship been as dire. Global efforts on climate change are falling short, and low-lying island nations, such as mine, are already paying the earliest costs of what is fast becoming a global crisis. In every sense, the world must build for future risks, and we are still setting course based on current conditions, as is often the case. It is the seas that are rising — not the islands that are sinking. I will not concede my own land or my nation; nor will I rest until my fellow world leaders have signed on to act, not just out of economic convenience, but out of a common responsibility of all to strive for upward momentum. Our Pacific legacy is not as small island States, but as large ocean nations.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“The Marshall Islands is well on track to achieve the complete solarization of our outer islands — a goal we are meeting with assistance from Japan’s Pacific Environment Community funds and from the European Union, Taiwan, Italy, France and other donor partners. The entire region is also aggressively cutting its emissions through the Pacific New Energy Drive. The message to our partners, the world’s largest emitters, is clear. If we can do it, they can too. Climate change is a risk that demands direct political ownership, and it is high time that other leaders stand alongside the Pacific in showing the statesmanship so urgently needed. Simply repeating well-worn negotiation slogans has not got the world anywhere. It is time for new solutions.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“While I am optimistic about recent diplomatic developments, the common international voice may come too little and too late for what could have already been prevented. That is only one example of a growing list of the tragic human costs of inaction. How many more mistakes will the world make in distant conference rooms? For how long can we turn a blind eye to realities and headlines? Pacific nations are now dedicated to changing the pace. This month, Pacific Islands Forum leaders adopted the Majuro Declaration for Climate Leadership. Although many of our States are small, the common responsibility to act falls on all Governments and persons, no matter how different we are.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)
“It is my honour to convey to the Assembly the warm greeting of “Yokwe” from the Government and people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Every September, world leaders take to the stage of the General Assembly to broadcast our common concerns. But I am concerned that this poetic ritual too often hides the problem of political will. In January, the Secretary-General outlined two key political priorities for leaders: addressing climate change risks and the growing insecurity within Syria. As autumn sets in, it is evident that efforts are falling short. This year, leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum expressed strong concern about the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian Government and called for leadership on the part of the members of the Security Council to resolve that threat.”
2013-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 68 (2013)