Australia, 1993

I warmly congratulate

Ambassador Insanally, on his election as President of the

forty-eighth session of the General Assembly. As a fellow

Commonwealth member with Guyana, Australia is very

pleased to serve in the Assembly under his presidency.

This session of the General Assembly will deal with a

particularly heavy and important agenda. It will do so at a

time when hopes for, and expectations of, the United

Nations have never been greater - but when, at the same

time, many doubts have been raised about the capacity of the

United Nations system to cope. We will be relying very

much, Mr. President, on your wisdom and your experience

as you preside over our deliberations.

The world is a rather less happy place than we all

hoped it would be after the end of the cold war. Economic

and social deprivation continues to be a harsh daily reality

for many of our countries and our peoples. Not even the

most advanced countries are immune. The developed

Western economies are limping, with low growth rates,

historically high unemployment rates, increasing disparities

as a result between rich and poor, and a continuing inability

so far to reach agreement - either between themselves or

with the rest of the world’s trading nations - about the

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade liberalization

measures so necessary to give a new kick-start to world

trade and economic growth.

In the non-Western world, rates of growth have been

extraordinarily uneven. The spectacular advance in some

regions, in particular East Asia, has been in stark contrast to

the continuing terrible deprivation and poverty in others.

Some States have simply been unable to cope with exploding

internal economic, political and social problems, and for all

practical purposes have collapsed, leaving the international

community to respond, somehow, to the humanitarian crises

that have followed so often.

In security terms, the end of the cold war has seen the

end of the super-Power nuclear-arms race and has relieved

us of the immediate threat of nuclear devastation. We have

seen major achievements in nuclear-arms reduction; and for

the first time in the history of the nuclear age a

comprehensive test-ban treaty, which would ban all nuclear

tests in all environments for all time, seems within our

reach. We could help to make it even more so by adopting

by consensus a resolution in this Assembly supporting the

negotiation of that treaty. A very great deal, of course,

depends on the current moratorium on all nuclear testing

being maintained. We in Australia very strongly support

what President Clinton said in that respect this morning.

This year we signed at last, after 20 years of

negotiation, the chemical weapons Convention. But much

remains to be done to bring this and other instruments into

effective operation. And there are still too many countries

unwilling to submit themselves to the disciplines, more

important and more necessary now than ever, of the nuclear

non-proliferation Treaty.

The threat of conflicts between States has certainly not

diminished with the end of the cold war. If anything, the

removal of the cold-war gridlock - the discipline imposed by

the super-Powers on each other and their respective

supporters - has created more room than ever for States to

manoeuvre. Some are beginning to do so, and some are

bound to seek to do so in the future. Some of the emerging

economic Powers have yet to acquire political or military

profiles commensurate with their new wealth, and the

process of adjustment certainly has ample potential to

generate regional tensions. Should those tensions escalate

into conflict, the unhappy reality is that proliferation of more

sophisticated conventional weapons and proliferation of the

capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction make any

prospect of major regional conflict an alarming one for the

world as a whole.

The release of cold-war pressures has been associated

with another major new development of security concern

with which we are all now disturbingly familiar: the

resurgence of ethno-nationalism, often taking a violent form.

Some ethnic groups are being prepared to pursue their

claims for self-determination within the framework of

existing States, arguing essentially for minority human rights

protection - claims of right which, on first principles, we

should all be prepared to acknowledge and support. But

many other such groups have made clear that they will be

satisfied by nothing less than their nations becoming States,

causing the fragmentation of existing States in the process,

and creating some very real dilemmas for the international

community as a result. Again, the proliferating availability

of weaponry of every degree of sophistication has given a

sharp new edge to these concerns.

Looking out upon a world with all these characteristics,

it is easy to be pessimistic and fatalistic. But I do not think

we should retreat into that habit of mind. For everything

that has gone wrong over the last few years, there is

something else that has gone right. To match against the

awful continuing tragedy in the former Yugoslavia, we have,

for example, this month’s peace agreement in the Middle

East - of course, only the first step in what remains a long

journey, but an enormously encouraging one

notwithstanding. And to match against the continuing chaos

and uncertainty in Somalia, and the at best very limited

success of the United Nations operation there, we have now

the unquestioned success of the United Nations operation in

Cambodia - and the end at last to more than 20 years of

what has been a real twentieth-century tragedy involving

bloody war, civil war, genocide, invasion and civil war

again.

A terrible conflict continues in Angola, but peace is at

hand at last in Mozambique; and in South Africa the final

death of apartheid is imminent, as testified last week in this

place by Nelson Mandela. Military regimes have given way

to democratic ones throughout Latin America. Many

problems remain to be solved in the former Soviet Union,

but Governments that can credibly claim to reflect the will

of their peoples are in place throughout Central and Eastern

Europe. The military regime in Myanmar, or Burma,

continues to resist the obvious mood of its people for liberty

and democracy, but elsewhere in the region traditionally

monolithic government structures - driven in many cases by

economic imperatives - are beginning to show signs of

flexibility and responsiveness.

But while I do not believe that we should be unduly

pessimistic or fatalistic about the condition of the world

around us, nor can we afford to be complacent. There is

much more that we can and should be doing to reinforce and

strengthen the international community’s capacity to govern

itself better, and in particular to better guarantee the

maintenance of peace and security in the post-cold-war

world. It is on this subject - the role of the United Nations

and the international community generally in securing peace

in the world of the 1990s and beyond that I want specifically

to focus my remarks today.

A little over a year ago, following a unique meeting of

the Security Council, Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali

published "An Agenda for Peace". It was and remains a

remarkable document, one which poses most of the questions

we need to address if we are to have a fair chance of

maintaining international peace and security in the world of

today and the foreseeable future. Since that time, a

worldwide debate has taken place on the issues described in

"An Agenda for Peace", which has involved not only

Governments and officials, but has reached out to embrace

Forty-eighth session - 27 September l993 25

universities, foundations, non-governmental organizations

and many organs of the public media as well. This debate

generated resolutions at the last session of the General

Assembly, several worthwhile changes to some procedures

and structures within the Secretariat, and the prospect of

further changes to come.

It cannot be said, however, that the issues raised by

"An Agenda for Peace" are now all settled, either in theory

or in practice. We still do not have even a completely clear

and consistent shared vocabulary to define the ways in which

it is possible for the United Nations and other organs of the

international community to respond to security problems:

"peacemaking", for example, means different things still to

different people; so do "preventive diplomacy" and "peace

building"; the conceptual boundary between "peace-keeping"

on the one hand and "peace enforcement" on the other is not

drawn in the same way by everyone who uses these terms.

Nor do we seem yet to have clear and universal

agreement even as to the kind of problems which justify a

security response by the international community. Should

we recognize, for example, a humanitarian right of

intervention and, if so, in what circumstances and to what

extent? When does an economic or social problem become

the kind of security problem which justifies the mobilization

of the response strategies spelt out in Chapters VI and VII

of the United Nations Charter?

Even when it comes to applying a very familiar

response to a new problem - for example, establishing a

peace-keeping operation like the 30 which have now been

initiated since 1946 - there does not yet seem to have been

developed a commonly accepted check list of criteria to

guide decision-makers in determining when precisely the

operation should be set in train, how it should be structured,

managed and resourced, or how long it should continue.

Every situation, of course, has its own characteristics, but is

it really necessary for decisions on these matters by the

Security Council or others to be made on so evidently ad

hoc a basis?

When it comes to thinking about how the United

Nations - and others in the international community,

including regional organizations - might best be structured,

organized, managed and funded to most effectively address

the international peace and security agenda, it is not clear to

me that we have yet heard the last word in that debate.

An extraordinary amount has been achieved in the

tumultuous period since 1989 in responding to the new

demands and challenges that have been unceasingly hurled

at the United Nations, but a good deal more remains to be

done if the United Nations in particular, the only fully

empowered body with global membership that we have, is

to be as effective as we would all want it to be.

It is much easier, of course, to ask all these questions

than to answer them. Identifying problems is always easier

than defining acceptable solutions. But I believe that we all

have a responsibility to each other and the international

community to try to answer these questions and to keep on

working away at the answers until we find common ground.

So it is in that spirit that I put before the Assembly today a

detailed study of these questions, which tries to answer them

in a way which might help us find a little more of that

common ground.

The study, in the form of a book entitled Cooperating

for Peace, has been distributed, I hope, to delegations as I

speak. I do not pretend for a moment that this says the last

word on any of the enormously complex and sensitive issues

with which it deals. It is simply an Australian contribution

to the debate which was so thoughtfully and constructively

initiated by the Secretary-General last year.

The study seeks to do three things in particular. First,

it suggests ways of bringing a little more clarity - to the

extent this is presently lacking - into the concepts and

vocabulary that we use in defining security problems,

defining possible responses and matching responses to

problems. Secondly, it suggests specific criteria that might

be applied by decision-makers in deciding what, if any,

response is appropriate to a particular new security problem.

And, thirdly, it suggests a priority list of areas in which

further United Nations reform might usefully be pursued. In

the short time that remains to me I shall try to give a quick,

outline sketch of what we are trying to say in each of these

respects.

First of all, on the issue of concepts and terminology,

it is perhaps worth making the point at the outset that this is

not just something for academics to wrangle about. It

matters in practice. If decision-makers do not share the

same basic way of looking at issues and the same basic

vocabulary in defining them, there is a very real risk that

they will talk past each other - or, at the very least, find it

very much harder to produce responses which are timely,

properly graduated, effective in practice, affordable and

broadly consistent from one case to the next.

Just as importantly, the choice of words can sometimes

significantly influence the way in which we think about

matters of substance. To give just one example: If we use,

as many people still do, the expression "peace-making" to

describe military enforcement action, then, simply because

this is such an innocuous and constructive sounding

expression, there is a danger that we may over time become

a little more relaxed than we should be about taking such

action. It is much better, I suggest, to confine the expression

"peace-making" to diplomatic-type activity to resolve conflict

and to reserve the expression "peace enforcement" to

describe the always dangerous, always messy, and what

should always be the last-resort, activity of applying military

force.

In the study we define security problems, in more or

less escalating order of seriousness, as "emerging threats",

"disputes", "armed conflicts" and "other major security

crises." We make the point that security is not strictly or

solely a military concept and that threats to security, as

many speakers in the general debate have already said, can

these days come very much from factors such as exploding

population pressures, environmental degradation, mass

involuntary movements of people and the illicit narcotics

trade, among other things.

Equally, we define possible responses to security

problems, again in escalating order of severity, in terms of

"peace- building," "preventive diplomacy," "preventive

deployment," "peace- making," "peace-keeping," "sanctions"

and "peace enforcement." We are at pains to emphasize that

it is only as a last resort that security solutions should be

seen as coming out of the barrel of a gun. We give much

more emphasis than has been common elsewhere to the

concept of "peace-building," which we define in the study as

extending not just to post-conflict economic development

and institution-building strategies, but to a whole variety of

preventive strategies, both within particular countries and in

the form of international treaty-type régimes addressing both

military and non-military threats to security.

In defining criteria for embarking on peace operations -

whether peace-keeping or peace enforcement - the most

crucial consideration is that there be a clearminded focus on

the objectives of the exercise and the likely effectiveness of

the operation in achieving those objectives. No operations

of this kind should ever be embarked upon for the sake of

being seen to be doing something. Although it is not always

possible to analyse or predict with certainty, it should always

be possible to avoid embarking on operations which are

manifestly likely to be ineffective and which, as such, put at

risk the most crucial United Nations resource of all, its

credibility.

In the case of peace-keeping we suggest in Cooperating

for Peace that there are seven basic conditions for ensuring

an effective operation: clear and achievable goals; adequate

resources; close coordination of peace-keeping with any

ongoing peacemaking activity; a capacity to be and to be

seen to be absolutely impartial as between the parties who

have been in conflict; a significant degree of local support

for the peace-keepers; evident support for the operation from

external Powers that may have been involved previously in

supporting one side or the other; and a "signposted exit",

that is, a clearly designated termination point, or set of

termination criteria.

When it comes to peace-enforcement operations, our

suggested criteria for determining involvement are quite

complex and vary according to whether one is talking about

an operation in response to cross-border aggression, as with

Iraq and Kuwait; about one in support of peace-keeping

operations, the basic rationale for United Nations

involvement in Bosnia-Herzegovina; or about peace

enforcement in support of humanitarian objectives, as in

Somalia. Without going into all the necessary detail now, I

think the basic considerations always come down to the

following: widespread international support; clear and

achievable goals; adequate total resources to meet those

goals; and clearly defined termination or review points.

If the United Nations is to play with maximum

effectiveness the central role it needs to play in maintaining

international peace and security, then further change, further

reform in the United Nations system, really is necessary.

Some of that change is bound to be painful for some people,

but that is the way of change. Putting it simply and starkly:

Unless the United Nations develops a comprehensive

capacity to address today’s and tomorrow’s problems - not

yesterday’s - there is a very real risk of the United Nations

gradually losing, with Governments and peoples around the

world, the credibility it needs to survive.

In the study we identify a number of priority areas for

change. The first is to restructure the Secretariat to ensure

that the Secretary-General has an effective chain of

command exercising authority over major United Nations

operations and to consolidate and coordinate in a more

orderly and manageable way the present sprawl of

departments and agencies. We support the proposal that the

Secretary-General create a new senior structure at United

Nations Headquarters under which he would have four

Deputy Secretaries-General responsible, respectively, for

peace and security, economic and social operations,

humanitarian operations and administration and management.

Each such Deputy Secretary-General would have full

executive responsibility for the operational issues falling

within his or her portfolio, subject only to direction by the

Secretary-General. This would be a big change, and it is not

the first time it has been proposed, but it is the one that,

more than anything else, would create the conditions for

more orderly and effective management throughout the

United Nations system.

The second priority need is to resolve once and for all

the United Nations critical funding problem. Various

adventurous ideas have been canvassed for external

funding - money coming from sources other than Member

States - and we suggest that at least one of those ideas,

namely, a small levy on international airline travel, be

further explored. But overwhelmingly, of course, the

problem is one that has been created by Member States,

including the richest of our number, and it is entirely within

our ability to resolve by meeting our assessed contributions

for regular budgets and peace operations in full and on time.

It is an abuse of good management principles and of basic

common sense to be forcing the Secretary-General to spend

so much of his time pleading for debts to be honoured. In

that respect I echo the sentiments expressed a few minutes

ago by Mrs. Brundtland.

If the bulk of current arrears were to be paid by the end

of this year, the United Nations finances would be in a quite

healthy position, with the Working Capital Fund, the Peace-

keeping Reserve Fund and the Special Account all

replenished and the Organization in a position to meet all

outstanding troop-contribution costs.

The third priority is to improve the management of

peace operations, both at Headquarters and in the field.

Some very significant and useful steps have already been

taken in this regard in the context of the creation of the new

Department of Peace-keeping Operations, but more remains

to be done, including in particular the development over time

of a properly constituted General Staff to plan and manage

the military dimensions of such operations.

The fourth priority is to give special attention to the

machinery of preventive diplomacy, again both at

Headquarters and in the field. These efforts have been

largely ad hoc in the past, although the Department of

Political Affairs is gradually building a core of appropriate

expertise. Quite apart from anything else, there is an

overwhelming cost advantage in doing more to stop disputes

becoming armed conflicts. We estimate the cost of keeping

100 well-qualified, experienced practitioners of preventive

diplomacy in the field for a year to be $21 million; compare

that with this year’s peace operations budget of $3.7 billion -

and compare it, moreover, with the $70 billion that it is

estimated to have cost the United Nations coalition to fight

the six-week Gulf war.

The fifth priority is to rethink the whole system of

humanitarian relief coordination. Despite advances that have

been made with the creation of the Department of

Humanitarian Affairs, we think some basic structural

problems remain. We propose that they be addressed in a

radical way by the creation of a new disaster-response

agency, combining the relief and basic rehabilitation

functions of the Office of the United Nations High

Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations

Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the World Food Programme

(WFP), which would work in turn directly to the suggested

Deputy Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

The sixth priority, as we see it, is to take various steps

to raise the profile within the United Nations system of

peace-building. This is, after all, the point of intersection

between the Organization’s peace and security role and its

economic and social role, and it should be given recognition

and emphasis as such. The pursuit of peace and security has

to include the satisfaction of basic human needs, as well as

the direct prevention, containment and settlement of armed

conflict. Much of the United Nations system is in fact

already concerned with peace- building in the form of

activities such as international law-making, disarmament,

economic and social advancement, sustainable development,

democratization and institution building. But much more

can be done, organizationally, to link these activities

together, to recognize their security significance, and to

ensure that they are pursued with a sense of common

purpose.

The remaining priority, a very large subject in itself, as

we all know, is to regenerate the Security Council - not

because it is now working ineffectively, but because its

manifest lack of representativeness is beginning to impact

upon its legitimacy. The Security Council is the linchpin of

the whole United Nations peace and security system, and it

is in no one’s interest that its credibility should be allowed

to gradually erode. The outstanding questions about the size

and shape of the Council should certainly be resolved by the

time of the United Nations fiftieth anniversary in 1995.

This, indeed, remains an ideal target date for the

achievement of a whole range of necessary organizational

reforms.

Running right through the study - and underlying all the

suggestions we have been making about structure and

process - is a single sustaining idea, that of cooperative

security. This embraces two perhaps rather more familiar

ideas, common security and collective security. But the

overall flavour of cooperative security can perhaps best be

captured by describing it, in a little more detail, as an

approach that emphasizes reassurance rather than deterrence;

that is inclusive rather than exclusive; that favours

multilateralism over unilateralism or bilateralism; that does

not rank military solutions over non-military ones; that

assumes that States are the principal actors in the security

system, but also accepts that non-State actors have an

important role to play; that does not particularly emphasize

the creation of formal security institutions but does not reject

them either; and that above all stresses the value of creating

habits of dialogue.

A good deal of the spirit of cooperative security is in

fact to be found in the Charter of the United Nations.

Paragraph 4 of Article 1, a provision much neglected in the

past, designates the United Nations as a "centre for

harmonizing the actions of nations" - not the sentiments of

nations, but the actions of nations. In Articles 55 and 56

Member States pledge themselves to create the

"conditions of stability and well-being which are

necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among

nations".

Underscored in that context are the promotion of higher

standards of living, the solution of economic and social

problems and respect for human rights.

Too often during the cold war we looked past these

obligations and concerns, because we were preoccupied with

military means of survival. But the threats that concerned us

then no longer exist; and what was written in San Francisco,

before the cold war froze our capacity to deal with many

other kinds of threats to security, should now be seen as a

compelling guide.

Our survival in the 1990s and beyond will depend on

our developing a new understanding of what constitutes

security and what contributes to it. It will depend on our

capacity to think clearly about how to react to new security

problems as they arise. It will depend on our willingness to

rethink and to reshape our institutions, including the United

Nations, so that they can cope with new realities. But,

above all, it will depend on our all developing and sustaining

a real commitment to cooperating for peace.