Federated States of Micronesia, 1992

It is a great honour

for me to address the Assembly at the commencement of its forty-seventh

session and in so doing to mark my country's first full year of membership of

the United Nations. For a people that has been ruled by others, the privilege

of at last having an equal voice in the community of nations is uniquely

fulfilling. With that voice I now express our gratitude for the openness and

generosity that we encountered among the members and within the Secretariat as

we undertook our initial participation in the work of this great body.

We join other members in extending heartiest congratulations to

Mr. Stoyan Ganev of Bulgaria on his election to the presidency of the General

Assembly at its forty-seventh session. We wish also to thank his predecessor,

Mr. Shihabi, for his truly outstanding service as President of the General

Assembly at its forty-sixth session. It is indeed fortunate for us and for

future generations that in the most challenging of times this body has

available the leadership of individuals possessing the highest skills, energy,

dedication and integrity.

In speaking of leadership, I must also, of course, mention with respect

and appreciation our Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali. He has

already shown himself to be more than equal to the tremendous tasks associated

with his high office. He is assured of our prayers and our continuing support.

Last year, the Federated States of Micronesia was privileged to be one of

the seven nations admitted to membership in the early days of the forty-sixth

General Assembly. Subsequently, within the forty-sixth General Assembly,

history of a special kind was written when 13 other nations were admitted to

membership, and so I gladly extend the warm congratulations of my Government

and people to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia,

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Moldova, San Marino, Slovenia,

Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on their admission to the United

Nations. We are confident that in sharing with them this unique moment in

history we will maintain a common bond that transcends geographic differences

and gives added meaning to the concept of the brotherhood of man and nations.

The extensive and comprehensive agenda to be addressed by this session of

the Assembly is testimony to the ever-increasing interconnectedness of the

world's nations and their peoples. While we were a non-self-governing people,

we of the Federated States of Micronesia strived long and hard to achieve

independence, only to find that once we had it, full self-sufficiency is

neither possible nor desirable in today's world.

I had the honour, recently, to accompany my President,

His Excellency Mr. Bailey Olter, to the Earth Summit in Rio. That historic

meeting served, among other things, to deepen our understanding of the

possibilities for global international cooperation on a basis of common, but

differentiated responsibilities.

Among the many statements made at Rio by Heads of State, I was struck by

a most appropriate quotation from Sir Francis Bacon offered by the President

of Iceland Her Excellency Madame Finnbogadottir. He said,

"No one makes a greater mistake than he who decides to do nothing because

he can do so little."

The President's suggestion of that thought in the context of the Earth Summit

was truly inspired, but if I may be permitted, it also gives guidance to my

country over the entire spectrum of international cooperation.

We now realize that the Charter was meant to challenge every Member,

large and small, developed and developing, to play its part in the

implementation of collective decisions to approach the question, "What can I

do?" not as a basis for inaction, but rather as a springboard for action

within our means, however modest. Only by doing our rightful part do we earn

the right to hope that the world community will deal effectively with such

universal problems as the environment, poverty and war. Only by doing our

rightful part do we earn the right to expect the direct assistance of the

world community in dealing with those problems of social and economic

development at home that are beyond our means to solve.

Thus, my Government wishes once again to thank all those in this body and

throughout the United Nations community for our kind reception here, and to

renew, now with broader understanding, our commitment to the Charter and our

obligations thereunder.

To the modest extent that the Federated States of Micronesia has made its

presence known within the past year, it has been mostly in the context of the

environment, and particularly in the intergovernmental negotiating committee

for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Since we are a

country whose land is comprised of low-lying, small islands, our entire nation

finds itself in the front line, along with others similarly situated, who will

be the first to suffer the devastating consequences of unchecked global

warming. Rising sea levels would ultimately cover our islands, but long

before that our protective coral reefs would bleach and fall victim to

increasing storm surges, our agricultural crops would be ruined and our

freshwater sources rendered unfit for human consumption. We are facing

nothing less than the end of island civilizations that have endured for

thousands of years.

We participated actively throughout all the sessions of the

intergovernmental negotiating committee, and we had no hesitation in signing

the Framework Convention in Rio because the final text of the Convention goes

far to recognize the particular vulnerability of the low-lying island States

to the consequences of human-induced climate change. The real effectiveness

of the Convention, however, will be measured by its protocols yet to be

negotiated and in the operation of its conference of the parties and other

mechanisms.

That statement is particularly applicable in the case of the Framework

Convention because, as we stressed to the intergovernmental negotiating

committee, the scientific evidence from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change shows a need for significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Even the modest emissions cuts to which the industrialized countries found

themselves unwilling to commit themselves at Rio must immediately be replaced

by more stringent goals set by the dictates of science rather than of politics.

It is ironic that the peoples of small island countries, in seemingly

idyllic settings, distanced from the stresses of industrial societies, should

be the peoples with the greatest sense of urgency to get on with the business

of protecting the planet. It is, nevertheless, island people who are

beginning to suffer the effects of global warming; island people who are

witnessing the swift and disastrous alteration of ancient weather patterns; it

is island people whose homelands will be the first victims of rising sea

levels.

But this sad reality does not mean that the rest of the world can afford

to wait, for by the time the world witnesses the effects of global warming on

the islands it will be too late for the rest of the world then to take the

necessary steps to save itself.

Thus, we are encouraged by the adoption of the Framework Convention on

Climate Change, but we look anxiously towards its prompt implementation and

pray that its operation will quickly lead to actions and restraints by the

industrial countries on the scale necessary in order to reach the Convention's

objective. That objective is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in

the atmosphere at levels which do not adversely affect the climate.

Stabilization at such levels cannot be achieved by half-hearted efforts.

As United States Senator Gore recently wrote in his book "Earth in the

Balance",

"The tide of this battle will turn only when the majority of people in

the world become sufficiently aroused by a shared sense of urgent danger

to join an all-out effort."

Let us earnestly hope that the signing of the Framework Convention by

155 countries at the Earth Summit was evidence of such a shared sense, and

signalled the beginning of an all-out effort.

The President of the Federated States of Micronesia also joined most of

the other Heads of State at Rio in signing the Convention on Biological

Diversity. We accept our State responsibility for conserving the biodiversity

of our islands and waters, and for using those resources in a sustainable

manner.

We welcome the reference in the Convention to the precautionary principle

with regard to applying measures to avoid or minimize threats to

biodiversity. We are reassured by the specific recognition in the Convention

that small island States will need new and additional financial resources and

appropriate access to relevant technologies in meeting their obligations. We

look forward to an early convening of the conference of the parties.

Agenda 21, in both letter and spirit, at last brings into focus the

concerns of the developed and the developing world for securing an

environmentally sustainable future. I believe that in a world no longer

preoccupied with the super-Power conflict. Agenda 21 will come to be seen as

the single most important social instrument ever negotiated. Of course, in

legal effect it is only a guide, and despite its length it is only a

framework. But its future impact on the domestic and foreign policies of

every nation is certain to be pervasive.

The establishment of the commission on sustainable development is a

landmark achievement of the United Nations Conference on Environment and

Development, and with it we see realistic hopes for turning Agenda 21 into

actions. We strongly urge that the commission be situated in New York.

Developing countries must participate significantly in the work of the

commission, and in our case, being a small Government with limited financial

resources, we are far better able to attend activities at United Nations

Headquarters than anywhere else.

As a Pacific island country, we ascribe particular importance to

chapter 17 of Agenda 21, which addresses the protection of the oceans. This

is a subject many would have put aside, feeling that the oceans are so vast

and our knowledge of them so limited that we are better off concentrating on

perfecting land sciences. But it appears mankind is slowly realizing that

human activities on the planet can significantly affect our oceans and bring

about disastrous consequences for our food supplies and even our weather.

Thus, we strongly support the call in Agenda 21 for conferences to exchange

experience on coastal-zone management and on the sustainable development of

small island States, and we hope that they will take place on schedule.

Chapter 17 also addresses constructively the need for intergovernmental

cooperation to control indiscriminate and harmful practices in harvesting sea

resources. While we welcome the approaching total ban on drift nets, which

have been accurately called "curtains of death", much needs to be done with

reference to the high seas, and straddling fish stocks and highly migratory

species of fish, in order to reverse already notable trends towards the

disappearance of species that were once thought inexhaustible. We support the

call for a conference on those topics.

Chapter 18 of Agenda 21 recognizes the pressing need for improved climate

forecasting, in the context of freshwater resources for human survival. The

Federated States of Micronesia, along with many other island States in the

middle of great oceans, has suffered repeatedly in recent years from droughts

brought on by little-understood climate mechanisms. In addition. Pacific

island States are already suffering widespread damage caused by tropical

storms of increasing frequency, range and intensity, which we have little or

no capacity to predict. This fact was stressed by the South Pacific Forum

countries at the forty-sixth session of the General Assembly, which responded

by adopting resolution 46/234, calling for relief measures that include

improved forecasting capabilities. We should like to reiterate our deep

gratitude to the many sponsors of the resolution and to the Assembly as a

whole for adopting it.

Our deep concern for the oceans and their resources also causes us to

focus very closely on the provisions of chapters 19 through 22 of Agenda 21,

which deal with the management of toxic chemicals, hazardous wastes, solid

wastes and sewage and radioactive wastes. In his address to the Rio

Conference, President Olter of the Federated States of Micronesia expressed

the hope of overcoming the attitude of developed countries "that the Pacific

Island region is a great, unpopulated void" offering opportunities

"for convenient disposal of toxic, radioactive or otherwise harmful

wastes, and for the conduct of any dangerous or obnoxious activity that

cannot for reasons of public safety be carried out on home territory".

We maintain high expectations that what President Olter called the "world's

emerging sense of environmental ethics" will prevail over past attitudes.

There are already some good signs, notable among which is the decision by

France to suspend nuclear-weapon testing in the South Pacific. We applaud

France for taking that initiative and pray that the ugly history of nuclear

experimentation in the Pacific region has reached a permanent end. But

realistically, that cannot be assured so long as nations continue to

manufacture, stockpile and threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. Thus,

even our small islands have a large stake in the continued progress of

nuclear, chemical and biological disarmament, and we look forward to

supporting the implementation and extension of comprehensive treaties on these

subjects.

The Federated States of Micronesia especially welcomes the recent

conclusion of negotiations on a chemical-weapon convention and is pleased to

be one of the original sponsors of the draft resolution to be considered at

the forty-seventh session of the General Assembly endorsing the convention.

My Government wants to express its gratitude and congratulations to those

esteemed nations that have successfully negotiated that long-awaited

convention and calls on the Assembly to adopt the draft resolution. I wish to

recognize with appreciation the active role that Australia, from our region,

took in negotiating the chemical-weapon convention and for its outstanding

contribution to the global movement towards arms control and disarmament.

Unfortunately, the forsaking of nuclear, chemical and biological weaponry

serves to intensify the already serious problems associated with the movement

and disposal of wastes. Large stocks of chemical weapons must be eliminated,

but uncertainties surrounding the technology for their disposal result in

pressures on less powerful and more remote peoples, such as Pacific islanders,

to bear the associated risks. Frightening quantities of weapon-grade

Plutonium must either be safely stored or utilized in questionable enterprises

that involve hazardous and secretive shipments through the waters of maritime

nations.

Up to this point the efforts of the world's nations to deal with these

problems have produced a patchwork of conventions some implemented, some

not most of which are of limited effectiveness because of technicalities and

political self-interest. Worthwhile instruments such as the London Dumping

Convention need to be strengthened on an accelerated basis. Vital

arrangements such as the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary

Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal need to be implemented. The

role of the International Atomic Energy Agency with regard to safeguards must

be brought up to the pace of current events.

But even if all these things are done, dangers and risks will continue to

be imposed upon the poorer, less powerful and more remote peoples of the world

unless the following principle is universally respected: the nation from

which the material originates bears the complete responsibility for the cost

and safety of its storage, shipment and disposal; that nation should

adequately inform other nations potentially affected and should not utilize

the global commons in any action related thereto over their objection.

I am aware of the implications of that statement, both politically and in

terms of international law, but unless the spirit it expresses can enter our

international conscience and influence the behavior of nations, I fear that

the passing threat of wartime holocaust will be replaced by an even less

restrained and in some ways equally horrifying danger.

The roads towards so many of the worthy goals to be sought by the

Assembly, whether related to economics, the environment, development, human

rights or international security, are haunted by the spectre of poverty.

Poverty causes much environmental degradation. Poverty makes human rights

irrelevant to many people of our planet, and tempts others to exploitation.

Poverty contributes to destabilization of political institutions and endangers

the world.

No matter how dedicated are the efforts made by governments towards

sustainable development and lasting international peace, and no matter how

massively those efforts might be funded, I fear that a single factor fuelling

the engine of poverty could render all the expenditures of resources

ineffective. I am referring to exploding and uncontrolled population growth.

Members are familiar with the statistics, past, present and projected. They

are particularly disturbing in that the greatest rate of growth occurs in the

most poverty-stricken segments of the population. Clearly, this is one of the

most sensitive and difficult problems to deal with in a multilateral setting,

and I respect the diversity of views on the subject. For that reason, I

respect its treatment in Agenda 21, knowing that many preferred stronger and

direct statements. Nevertheless, we hope that the mechanisms of Agenda 21

will help to influence the developed countries to increase funding for

population-related activities. We also look forward to the International

Conference on Population and Development to be held in Cairo in 1994.

With regard to the protection of human rights, the Federated States of

Micronesia is pleased to associate itself with the exemplary efforts made by

the United States of America and other like-minded nations for the

implementation of the standards for the protection of human rights as set

forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In so doing, the

Federated States of Micronesia joins in the condemnation of abuses of human

rights by members of the international community. They insult our sense of

common decency and the values we attach to human life - the very values

governments are established to protect.

Hardly a speaker in this debate has failed to voice support for the

historic efforts being made by the United Nations to reorganize and reorient

itself so as to cope with its emerging roles in advancing the cause of

mankind. We are no exception, and in our judgement the Secretary-General has

so far provided wise leadership along a most difficult path.

One of the most challenging current problems is to determine the fairest

and most effective means of meeting the costs associated with the

Organization's expanded role in the maintenance of international peace and

security. We are all aware that these costs have virtually skyrocketed over

the past years, and the question of their proper allocation, we would suggest,

is more complex than the simple formulas that served the purpose in former

times. It is a question, naturally, involving the limits of the resources of

small islands, but in our case it also involves predictability. We are

determined to meet all our obligations under the Charter, financial and

otherwise, but the need for us to budget strictly for developmental and other

immediate requirements leaves us little flexibility to meet unforeseen demands

of substantial proportions.

We look forward, during this session, to participating in the exploration

of ways and means to devise the fairest and most effective system for

financing the role of this body in the new world order. We also look forward

with confidence to the enhancement of this role as the age of multilateral

cooperation truly dawns and the interdependence of all peoples of the world is

seen to be the overshadowing practical reality of the future.