Austria, 2000

First of all, let

me say how satisfied I am about this week's decision of

our 14 European Union (EU) partners to lift the

measures implemented on 31 January against Austria.

This is a victory for reason, and it is also a victory for

Europe. In the last seven and a half months — a very

difficult time, I must say — the United Nations has

stood by us. Austria treasures this support. The United

Nations has had confidence in our firm commitment to

universal standards and values. The report of the “three

wise men”, Martti Ahtisaari, Marcelino Oreja and

Jochen Frowein, comes to the same conclusion. Austria

will continue its role as an active, reliable and

constructive Member State of the United Nations.

Austria expects to resume fully its formal and

informal work within the European Union. This is

absolutely crucial in view of the important projects that

lie ahead of us: first, the reform of the institutions of

the European Union and, secondly, the enlargement of

the Union, a matter of great importance and a historic

responsibility. An enlarged Union will bolster

European stability and prosperity. Its benefits will

reach beyond Europe. Austria, as a country in the heart

of Europe, will fully support and, in its own interest,

accelerate the process of enlargement.

Since this fifty-fifth session of the General

Assembly coincides with the turn of the millennium,

we ought to undertake a broader examination of today's

world. We ought to design policies of a long-term

nature. All too often we have to cope with

contradictions when engaging in day-to-day politics

and when rapidly responding to crises on the one hand

and addressing sustainable societal development on the

other. A great number of our decisions taken today

have important implications for future policy options.

Generations to come will have to bear the cost, and

they will enjoy the benefits of our policies.

It is in this context that I wish to pay tribute to

the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, for his

clairvoyance and leadership. His millennium report

embraces a balanced analysis of the challenges the

international community faces today, and it offers

concrete, accomplishable and far-sighted

recommendations. Austria welcomes this road map for

the future course of United Nations activities and will

follow its guidelines.

Furthermore, Austria supports the timely

initiative of the Secretary-General to mandate a

comprehensive review of peacekeeping operations in

all their aspects. Since the environment for complex

peace operations has become more challenging than

ever before, Austria, as a major troop contributor,

welcomes the report and the recommendations drawn

17

up by a group of experts under the leadership of

Mr. Brahimi. We are ready to support their

implementation.

As Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for

Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), I wish to

outline a number of major achievements of the OSCE

during this year. The OSCE serves as the primary

forum for early warning, conflict prevention, crisis

management and post-conflict rehabilitation in my

region. This year we are celebrating the twenty-fifth

anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act. This truly

historic document initiated the Helsinki Process, from

which we still draw valid lessons for our common

efforts to achieve “freedom from fear”, to use this vivid

notion from the report of the Secretary-General

(A/54/2000, para. 65). Security and stability through

cooperation and the effective protection of human

rights within each country have a direct bearing on

international peace and security. The fundamental

significance of democracy, human rights and strong

civil societies has been affirmed in the Charter on

European Security adopted by the OSCE participating

States last year in Istanbul.

The OSCE has proved to be a flexible institution,

adapting itself to the far-reaching changes in the

political landscape of Europe after the fall of the Iron

Curtain. Over the past decade, it has evolved into a

vibrant organization with a network of as many as 20

field operations.

Not only in South-Eastern Europe and Central

Asia, on which I will elaborate later, but also in other

parts of the OSCE area, we have been able to achieve

concrete results in our continuing efforts for peace and

stability. As to conflict prevention, I would like to

mention the successful observation mission of the

OSCE at the border between Georgia and the Chechen

Republic of the Russian Federation. We can also

register some positive developments concerning the

political resolution of “frozen conflicts” in Georgia and

in Moldova — conflicts which are often outside the

spotlight of broader public attention but nevertheless

have a highly destabilizing impact on the region and

beyond. Through my frequent travels as Chairperson-

in-Office, I wish to enhance the political awareness

regarding these unresolved or potential conflicts and

security risks. The conflict situation in Chechnya

remains unresolved and a matter of great concern.

Let me mention an achievement in the

institutional field. An important step in enhancing the

civilian crisis management capability of the OSCE was

set with the establishment of the Rapid Expert

Assistance and Cooperation Teams (REACT), a

programme which should speed up the deployment of

highly trained civilian experts to the field.

What are the specific challenges the OSCE is

currently facing in the prevention, settlement and

management of conflicts? In South-Eastern Europe the

work of the Organization focuses in particular on the

strengthening of democracy, post-crisis rehabilitation,

the rule of law and civil society. The promotion of free

and fair elections plays a key role in achieving these

goals. The OSCE is tasked with organizing local

elections in Kosovo at the end of October this year and,

only two weeks thereafter, of general elections in

Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Kosovo, the OSCE has

been involved in the complex task of civil and voter

registration, which resulted in more than 1 million

registrations. I note with regret that the Kosovo Serbs

did not participate in the registration process and that

Belgrade would not allow the registration of Kosovo

Serbs in Serbia. The OSCE, however, will continue its

efforts to bring about active participation of the

Kosovo Serbs in democratic political life. We will not

lose sight of our common goal of a pluri-ethnic

Kosovo.

Kosovo is an excellent example of the new

quality of the cooperation between the United Nations

and the OSCE as a distinct component within the

overall framework of the United Nations Interim

Administration.

A central goal of Austria's chairmanship of the

OSCE is to give equal attention to current, and often

long-standing, conflicts as well as to potential security

risks. In the pursuit of this policy, we support the

explicit goal of the OSCE to create a common security

space. This implies a strong focus on the Caucasus

region and on Central Asia. The OSCE effectively

contributes to the alleviation of the suffering of the

civilian population in this region, the promotion of

political dialogue between warring parties and the

monitoring of post-conflict arrangements through

observer missions.

Conflict prevention is key to the work of the

OSCE in Central Asia. During my most recent visit to

the region, I obtained a first-hand impression of its

18

security problems. In addition to the destabilizing

effects of the precarious situation in Afghanistan, the

Central Asian region faces manifold transnational

threats, such as terrorism, organized crime, illegal arms

and drug trafficking and the degradation of the

environment, as well as violent extremism and

religious fundamentalism.

The OSCE is well placed to support the Central

Asian States in their common efforts to deal effectively

with these multiple challenges to their security. It acts

as a political catalyst supporting the efforts of other,

specialized international actors. The international

conference, jointly prepared by the OSCE

Chairmanship and the United Nations Office for Drug

Control and Crime Prevention, on the issues of drugs,

organized crime and terrorism, to be held in Tashkent

on 19 and 20 October is only one example.

I cannot but re-emphasize the importance of the

human dimension in the work of the OSCE. In the

course of this year we have focused our work on a

number of abhorrent facets of civil unrest, such as

children in armed conflict, the proliferation of small

arms and the trafficking in human beings, particularly

women and girls. It is in this context that I would like

to highlight the recent adoption of a comprehensive

Action Plan for Gender Issues, which will guide the

OSCE in its commitment to advance equality between

women and men and to protect the human rights of

women and girls in the region.

If we analyse the profound changes that have

occurred in the recent past, we note that the individual

citizen has gained in prominence not only as an actor in

our democratic societies, with growing responsibilities

in relation to the social, environmental and economic

sustainability of our development, but as a victim of

new threats to security.

It is noteworthy that the United Nations, the

Group of Eight and the OSCE have increasingly moved

action against terrorism, drug abuse and crime to the

top of their agendas. I am pleased to point out that the

negotiations on a Convention against Transnational

Organized Crime, which were held at United Nations

Headquarters in Vienna over the past two years, led to

a successful outcome in the course of this summer. We

are confident that the three additional protocols — on

trafficking in and smuggling of persons as well as on

trafficking in firearms — will be concluded this fall.

Austria, in any case, will strive for a rapid entry into

force and implementation of these important legal

instruments. We are pleased that the United Nations

Centre for International Crime Prevention will serve as

the secretariat for the Conference of the Parties. I stress

that my country is ready to join forces with our

partners in the developing world to counter organized

crime in all its facets.

Thanks to the human development reports of the

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), our

understanding of development has shifted from macro-

economic statistics to a more human-centred concept,

defining development as a process of broadening the

spectrum of choice, both of the individual human being

and of society at large. I am pleased that the Human

Development Report 2000 underlines the

interrelatedness between human development and

human rights. In short, the Report concludes that

human development is an essential precondition for the

realization of human rights. Human rights, in turn, are

an essential prerequisite for comprehensive human

development.

If, however, we accept that most challenges to

human security have a human rights dimension, we

may wish to take a new and more operational look at

the promotion and protection of human rights. How can

we make our human rights regimes more effective in

our societies? The Secretary-General has shown us the

path to follow, saying:

“it is the poison of ignorance, all too frequently,

that lies at the heart of human rights violations,

knowledge provides an antidote”. (Press release

SG/SM/6829, 10 December 1998)

Ultimately, it will be citizens themselves who, through

better knowledge, become the owners of their human

rights.

It is in this context that I would like to point out

the initiative taken by all women Ministers for Foreign

Affairs present at the opening of the fifty-fifth session

of the General Assembly. We jointly launched an

appeal to our fellow leaders in order to energize our

common fight against the global scourge of HIV/AIDS,

a scourge which increasingly affects women and girls.

Our efforts to counter the HIV/AIDS pandemic must be

multifaceted. They must encompass access to adequate

medical care, drugs and social protection; they must

encompass information and services available to girls

and women to help them understand their sexual and

reproductive rights in order to protect themselves from

19

unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted

diseases, including HIV/AIDS. This should be

combined with the education of young men to respect

women's self-determination and to share responsibility

with women in matters of health, sexuality and

reproduction.

The United Nations Decade for Human Rights

Education, spanning the period 1995-2005, was

unanimously adopted by this Assembly at its forty-

ninth session. We have reached its mid-term and might

therefore wish to give it new momentum. We clearly

came to understand that human rights education and

learning serve as strategies for development on the one

hand and as preventive tools for human security on the

other.

Following an initiative taken by Austria in the

framework of the “Human Security Network” of

Foreign Ministers, an International Workshop on

Human Security and Human Rights Education was

convened in Graz, Austria, early this year. Experts

from all continents called for human rights education

and learning as a common endeavour of governmental,

intergovernmental and non-governmental institutions.

They concluded that human rights education should go

beyond formal education so as to encompass all forms

of learning and different modes of socialization.

Innovative human rights education must be

participatory and operational, creative and

empowering. It must address all levels of society. All

citizens, in particular all persons in positions of

leadership, must regard human rights standards as a

yardstick when making decisions.

In this context, I applaud the initiatives taken in

Africa, South Asia, Latin America and Europe to have

municipalities proclaim themselves “Human Rights

Cities”. I am pleased to announce from this rostrum

that the city of Graz will be the first “Human Rights

City” in Europe.

While we affirm the universality of our human

rights, human rights education and learning will have

to be rooted in the rich cultural plurality of the world.

In the diversity of learning processes we will better

comprehend the common humanity we all share.

Why, it will be asked, do I raise the issue of

human rights education and learning at the General

Assembly of the United Nations? It is because I am

convinced that in this strategic triangle with human

security and human development, human rights are of

profoundly political significance for the direction we

take in our development.

As the acquisition of any political culture takes

time, our efforts must be long-term and comprehensive.

At the same time, there is a sense of urgency. This is

why I appeal to the Assembly to give our efforts in this

area a new momentum and new energy and direction.

Lately civil society has pleaded for more political

leadership in this field. We should be ready to respond

and to develop new structures of partnership with civil

society and with the institutions already active in the

field at national, regional and international levels.

The global house of human rights must be built

every day. It must be built by everyone and it must be

owned by everyone. Only then will it be a house of

prosperity, a house of freedom and a house of peace.