Brunei, 2011

On behalf of His Majesty and the people

of Brunei Darussalam, I would like to congratulate our

new President, His Excellency Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz

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Al-Nasser. These are not only personal congratulations.

We also congratulate his country, Qatar, our fellow

Member of the United Nations. We greatly appreciate

its significant efforts to promote dialogue, consultation

and mediation in many difficult situations, both in its

own region and far beyond. Thus we thank the

President, as its representative, and warmly welcome

him to the General Assembly as the representative of

us all.

We would also like to express our appreciation to

his predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Joseph Deiss. His

term of office saw another impressive contribution by

the United Nations to meeting the great international

challenges Members face in the first decade of this new

century.

Some of that work began right here, in this

building, with our efforts to reform the Security

Council and revitalize the General Assembly. Other

efforts addressed our world at large and the

confrontation between essential economic growth and

critical environmental realities that it faces. Still others

were aimed directly at the people we represent. Those

efforts addressed their health and food security;

considered their personal and legal status, whether at

home or as members of immigrant communities; and

examined the systems of governance under which they

live.

This is a fine record, and we thank the outgoing

President for his leadership. He was greatly assisted in

his work by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. We offer

the Secretary-General our very best wishes for the

coming year. We welcome his reappointment and join

fellow Members in thanking his staff and the United

Nations volunteer workers, peacekeepers and agencies

for all of their efforts in many extremely difficult

situations.

It is a tribute to their work that one of the

longest-running and most complex situations of all has

been resolved this year. As a result, we add our own

words of welcome to the Government and the people of

South Sudan as a new Member of the United Nations.

We also commend all parties involved in the process of

dialogue, negotiation and final resolution. At the same

time, it is our deepest wish that these same sentiments

may soon be expressed to the parties directly involved

in efforts to reach a fair and equitable two-State

solution to the situation in Palestine.

The President of the Assembly has asked us to

consider the role of mediation in the settlement of

disputes by peaceful means. In doing so, we follow the

direction given by His Majesty the Sultan in his

address to the General Assembly in 1984, when we had

the honour of becoming a Member of this great

Organization. In outline, it committed us to mutual

respect for territorial integrity and the principles of

dialogue and negotiation in disputes, no matter how

long or how frustrating the process may be.

We still adhere to that principle. We give

whatever practical assistance we can, whenever asked.

We do so directly, through peacekeeping and

monitoring efforts, and indirectly, through financial

contributions made bilaterally and to relevant United

Nations and regional bodies. In these ways, we seek to

follow the commitments made in our first General

Assembly debate.

Nevertheless, we increasingly recognize that

those commitments were made over a quarter of a

century ago. Twenty-five years is a common definition

of a generation in human terms, which means that a

new generation is now moving into positions of

authority. Behind it, a further generation is now

coming of age. It has no personal memory of the global

situation that shaped international policy in the Cold

War era. Although both generations are naturally still

influenced by those times and the leaders who brought

them to this point, they are also new generations, for

whom the new century shapes world affairs.

In our statement to the General Assembly three

years ago (see A/63/PV.10), we outlined our approach

to this by broadly setting out what are now regarded as

the challenges of this new century. Some involve

security in all of its forms — political, physical and

economic. Others address the natural environment and

the effects of climate change. Still others raise

questions about sustainable development and many

challenges arise from the concept of good governance,

both nationally and in world organizations such as the

World Trade Organization, the International Monetary

Fund, the Group of Twenty and even the United

Nations itself. We have given our full support to the

great institutions of which we are members and will

continue to do so.

But our Government has emphasized one thing

throughout this year in all international gatherings we

have been privileged to attend. It is not a change in our

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overall approach; it represents a particular focus. It

means that more and more we are trying to identify the

challenges in basic human terms, because we feel that

such a focus relates directly to the wise theme the

President proposed for this debate.

We acknowledge with deep respect that

successful mediation has always been a cherished

objective of the United Nations, and we strongly

support that ideal. At the same time, however, we

maintain that no mediation can be successful unless the

parties involved share common ground.

What concerns us is that the dynamics of the

twenty-first century have the potential to exclude many

from this common ground. It will become the exclusive

territory of great unseen globalized forces, whether in

the market, the workplace or in the world of great

decision-making forums. That development could be so

divisive as to destroy any common ground.

We believe such common ground will only be

created by ordinary people, as individuals and in their

families and communities, who feel that they are

indeed occupying that common ground. For them,

political security lies in the principles of diplomacy

among all nations, especially respect for each other’s

traditions, values, beliefs and ways of life. Physical

security means the rule of law. Economic security is

food on the table, a job and the best possible support

for health, education and old age.

In all these efforts, we have felt well guided by

the United Nations, above all through the

encouragement it provides towards achieving the

Millennium Development Goals and the confidence in

the future that they give to all people. That, we believe,

will lead us towards the common ground we are trying

to discover. It will be reached when it is shared among

the most powerful of industrialized nations and the

smallest of threatened island communities. The search

for common ground is the immense task of both

present and future generations. We believe that only

when it is concluded can mediation successfully

perform the role suggested in the President’s theme.