Canada, 1982

Mr. President, may I first associate myself with

the congratulations extended to you on your

election as President of the General Assembly.

92. I am very pleased to have the honour once

again of addressing the General Assembly after an

interval of seven years. In an international

perspective, seven years is not a long time. Yet

in that interval, profound changes have imposed

themselves on the world community—changes that

have distanced us from the relatively optimistic

days of the mid-1970s.

93. Simply stated, the world at present is

facing acute economic and political crises. World

economic conditions have deteriorated sharply,

with devastating consequences on the aspirations

of all nations, rich and poor alike. Political

upheaval has driven the interna¬tional community

towards recurrent instability. And these forces

are closely linked. Political crises generate

economic consequences and economic dislocations

breed political instability.

94. How can we chart a course for our

institutions that will bring us through this

period of grave economic dislocation and

dangerous political tension and serve the

interests of all members of the General Assembly?

93. When our present institutions, such as the

United Nations, IMF, the World Bank and GATT,

first took shape, there was hope of maintaining a

network of relationships which would match the

complexity of post-war interdependence and help

us to stabilize it. Today, the need to manage

interdependence is even more pressing. But in the

present crisis there is a disturbing tendency to

discount and discredit multi¬lateral

institutions. Because the maze of international

problems has become more resistant to

conventional solutions, attacks are being made on

the institutions through which solutions are

being approached. The United Nations, in

particular, has been the object of much criticism.

96. We cannot fail to realize that

interdependence is a reality that we must accept,

for better or for worse, and that no nation can

hope to resolve its problems on its own.

Multilateralism, whatever its specific form, is

our primary hope for counteracting on a world

scale political and economic aggression which can

only too easily result from a long period of

uncertainty and fear.

97. However, let us have no illusions: the

credibility and the effectiveness of the

multilateral institutions depend on the political

will of nations and of their leaders, and on the

will to find a collective response to serious

national and international problems.

98. Most countries, developed and developing,

are now grappling with high rates of inflation.

Slow or stagnant growth and international

payments imbal¬ances compound already serious

debt problems. Record high unemployment in many

countries threatens the social and political

fabric of our societies and feeds protectionist

sentiment. At the international level, the

economic crisis is having a devastating effect on

growth prospects and on development assistance.

Debt-servicing problems have reached proportions

that impose considerable strain on the

international financial system.

99. The consequence has been an increasing

ten¬dency towards economic parochialism.

Pressures for short-term relief put at risk the

multilateral system and narrow the longer-term

prospects for all of us. These pressures must be

resisted.

100. The collective response to the current

economic situation was extensively discussed at

the annual meeting of IMF and the World Bank held

recently in Toronto. I was encouraged by the

determination of participants at that meeting to

treat economic problems as matters of common

concern requiring common action.

101. I should like to underline two important

themes. First, the magnitude of the financial

difficulties many of our countries face makes it

imperative that IMF should have adequate

resources to ensure that it can continue to play

its vital role in promoting adjustment in member

countries. That is why Canada supports a

substantial increase in quotas during the Eighth

General Review.

102. Secondly, the current economic situation has meant that

development assistance has become even more

essential for a number of developing countries

and it is important that bilateral and

multilateral flows continue. We welcomed the

agreement reached at Toronto to ensure an

adequate level of funding through the life of the

Sixth Replenishment of the International

Development Association (IDAVI).

103. The tendency to turn inward economically

is also exerting strain on the multilateral

trading system. Protectionist sentiment arising

from economic disloca¬tion is difficult for all

Governments to deal with, my own included. But it

is absolutely essential that we manage these

pressures collectively to avoid under¬mining

GATT. That organization has been enormously

beneficial in promoting world economic growth in

developed and developing countries. Any serious

weakening of GATT through beggar-thy-neighbour

policies would have the ultimate effect of making

beggars of us all. GATT can and should be

strengthened.

104. Canada will chair the 1982 annual session

of the GATT Contracting Parties, which will be

held at the ministerial level in November. We

regard this session as a significant test of our

collective determination to manage an

interdependent system.

105. Intense preoccupation with domestic

economic concerns also confounds our attempts to

persevere with development assistance programmes.

What should be our response to the inescapability

of shrinking resources? How do we face the

difficulties in generating increased development

assistance flows?

106. We should all—national donors and

multilateral agencies alike—rationalize

deployment of available resources for maximum

possible effect. The best results can be obtained

from this process of com¬pulsory selectivity only

if donors focus on areas of special national

expertise and resources. Canada has chosen to

concentrate its efforts in three particular areas

which draw upon considerable national experience.

These are the food and agricultural area, energy,

specifically petroleum exploration, and human

resources.

107. Another response to shrinking resources

should be to make full and timely use of every

opportunity for enhanced co operation. In this

connection, I am disappointed with the lack of

progress made on global negotiations since the

Versailles Economic Summit in June. Canada

believes that the text of a compromise resolution

worked out at Versailles represented a

significant step in the effort to find a formula

for launching global negotiations. I regret that

it has not been possible to find a basis for real

negotiations.

108. Economic problems are all the more vexing

and potentially dangerous because they are bound

up with serious political instability. Political

instability pro¬duces consequences extending far

beyond the imme¬diate region in which conflict

has erupted. In a shrinking world local

vulnerabilities and tragedies become the common

concern of us all.

109. We have witnessed the long agony of

Lebanon and, but 10 days ago, the horror of the

massacre of Palestinians. These terrible events

show us in stark fashion the price that must be

paid when one strives to resolve political

problems by military means, when disputes among

nations and peoples and political factions

replace negotiations, when one misuses or

disregards the instruments that the international

com¬munity has established to settle disputes and

prevent human suffering.

110. I should like to stress that Canada

staunchly supports the sovereignty, independence

and territorial integrity of Lebanon, and that it

endorses the Security Council resolutions which

call for Israel's withdrawal from west Beirut and

the whole of Lebanon. No foreign force should

remain in that country without the full consent

of the Lebanese Government; otherwise that

ravaged country will never know stability again.

111. Equally important, efforts must be

intensified now to grapple with the problems at

the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict. More than

ever the tragic events of the last few months

illustrate the need for a just and permanent

solution which assures the legitimate rights of

the Palestinian people, including their right to

a homeland in the West Bank and Gaza, and the

right of Israel to exist in security and peace.

Important proposals for such a solution have

recently been made. The United States proposals

of 1 Sep¬tember in particular offer opportunities

for progress which should vigorously be pursued.

112. Other arenas of conflict continue to

contribute to the generally high level of

international tension. Events in Poland remain an

object of our particular attention, not only

because of concern for the basic rights and

freedoms of the Polish people but also because of

serious implications for stability in the heart

of Europe.

113. In Afghanistan and Cambodia we witness

agonizing, protracted and deplorable military

occupa¬tions which are in sharp contradiction

with the aims and ideals of the Organization and

the Charter. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan

and the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia

continue to violate the sovereignty of their

victims and to ignore resolutions adopted by the

General Assembly. Once again this year draft

resolutions are before the Assembly on

Afghanistan and Cambodia. I urge all Member

States to support these draft resolutions.

114. The Korean peninsula has long been an

area of tension and concern. We are encouraged

however by the proposals made in January this

year by the President of the Republic of Korea

seeking dialogue and reconciliation, without

conditions, and we hope for the greater

integration of the peninsula into the

inter¬national community.

115. The extent to which local or regional

conflicts draw their energy from mutually

antagonistic ideo¬logical systems is also cause

for considerable concern. In recent years the

breakdown of detente and an increasing anxiety

over the unpredictability of events have fuelled

public fears of nuclear war. Our peoples fear

that everything is at risk: the economic and

technological systems which sustain us, the

political and social systems which underpin them

and the very biosphere which permits the

existence of life itself.

116. The world had high hopes for the second

special session of the General Assembly on

disarmament. When the session ended and no final

agreement on a comprehensive programme of

disarmament had been reached, there was much

disappointment and frustra¬tion. However, a

disservice is done to the special session and to

the United Nations as an institution if it is

simply dismissed as a failure. Of course the

results were disappointing, but then the

expectations of many were probably

unrealistically high given the prevailing

international climate. Moreover, in this climate

it is essential that the campaign for nuclear

disarmament be waged at the negotiating table. My

country strongly supports the present

negotiations in Geneva to limit and reduce the

level of nuclear arms.

117. Canada has chosen to contribute to the

arms control and disarmament process by

concentrating on the vital issue of verification.

We are doing this through participating in the

international seismic data exchange and by

substantially increasing research in

verification. I would appeal to other Member

States to consider how their particular

circumstances and resources might be drawn upon

to contribute to the arms control process. It is

basically the same question as with development:

given the need for selectivity, what can you

contribute?

118. I have evoked today a set of perplexing

and interrelated economic and political problems.

What is the United Nations capacity to respond to

these? The question is an urgent one, because the

United Nations and the specialized agencies

address virtually the entire range of human

concerns.

119. Within the United Nations, crisis

management capacity has been called seriously

into question by divisions within the Security

Council, by erosion of the constitutional

division of authority between the Security

Council and the General Assembly and by a cycle

of ineffectual resolutions. We have seen an

increasing tendency to introduce extraneous

polemical issues in the specialized agencies,

with adiminution of their effectiveness and

credibility. Official spokes¬men of key States

Members of the United Nations have expressed

scepticism regarding the Organization. To counter

attacks on the United Nations from within and

without we must more closely bind our policies

and our behaviour to the principles expressed in

the Charter. We must also vigorously reaffirm the

singular contribution that the United Nations has

made to the development of international law. As

the Secretary-General explained at length and

with eloquence in a statement delivered last

month in Montreal, the United Nations plays a

unique and absolutely essential role in the

promotion of the rule of law. It is only the

United Nations, with its virtually global scope,

which has the capacity to play that role.

120. This year the Third United Nations

Conference on the Law of the Sea succeeded in

producing a profound achievement: a comprehensive

constitution for the oceans of the world. The

Conference could not have produced such a

comprehensive convention without the active

support and participation of all nations during

the long years of negotiation. We deeply regret

that the Conference was not able to adopt the

text of the Convention by consensus. No State can

remain aloof from the regime, and we must not be

swayed by any attempt to undermine it.

121. The United Nations has succeeded in

making human rights violations a legitimate

subject of interna¬tional scrutiny and it is

significant that the Secretary- General has

identified human rights promotion as a priority

area. Canada will support the Secretary- General

in these efforts. Effective procedures must be

worked out to deal with flagrant violations of

human rights.

122. A role of critical importance for the

United Nations is the peaceful resolution of

disputes. How¬ever maligned the Organization may

be concerning its efforts to resolve disputes, it

can achieve notable successes. In Namibia, the

United Nations has worked cut a balanced

settlement plan which should bring Namibia to

independence peacefully, and has obtained for

that plan general acceptance. The substantial

progress that has been made must be attributed in

part to the dedication and constructive approach

of the front-line States and the South West

Africa People's Organization [SW/1PO]. We hope

that remaining problems will be quickly resolved.

123. The appointment of a new

Secretary-General has come at a time when the

United Nations is facing unprecedented problems

and when the need for insti¬tutional reform has

become obvious. In his first report on the work

of the Organization, the Secretary- General has

addressed this need in direct and specific terms.

He has put forward several innovative

sugges¬tions, in particular directed at a more

effective Security Council. He has himself

undertaken to play a more direct role in bringing

urgent matters before the Council. These specific

proposals and the Secre¬tary-General's commitment

to administrative stream¬lining are very welcome

and should be encouraged. Pragmatic reforms must

be made or the United Nations will lose its

validity as a forum for interna¬tional

negotiations, not only for the promotion of peace

and security but also for the shaping of our,

economic future.

124. The aims of the institutions we have

invented are under considerable and potentially

crippling strain. We must rededicate these

institutions and the driving force of our

determination must be a sense of shared

vulnerability.

125. The present crisis demands intelligence

and will. Intelligence must lead us to a more

profound

Understanding of political and economic forces;

our will must reside in commitment to those

national con¬cessions dictated by our mutual

dependency. We cannot, must not, allow mutual

antagonisms or self- absorption to divert our

attention from the full range of difficulties

which we face, and which we must face together.