Japan, 1997

I should like

at the outset to extend my warmest compliments to His

Excellency Mr. Hennadiy Udovenko, Foreign Minister of

Ukraine, on his assumption last week of the presidency of

the fifty-second session of the General Assembly. Japan

will cooperate closely with him for the success of this

session.

I should also like to pay sincere tribute to His

Excellency Mr. Razali Ismail, who, as President of the

fifty-first session of the General Assembly, demonstrated

active initiative for strengthening the functions of the

United Nations through reform. Japan earnestly hopes that

Ambassador Razali will continue to contribute his views

for the advancement of United Nations reform.

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This session of the General Assembly will be an

“Assembly for reform”. I say this because the current

session is of unprecedented importance in terms of realizing

the reform of the United Nations.

I should like to recall what the purpose of United

Nations reform is. The purpose of reforming the United

Nations is, I believe, to strengthen its functions to further

enable it to fully accomplish its tasks. As a member of the

Security Council, Japan is deeply aware that since the end

of the Cold War grave problems of conflicts and poverty

have emerged, most frequently and acutely in Africa. By

reforming the United Nations, the international community

will be better able to solve the problems of peoples in all

parts of the world who are suffering due to conflicts and

poverty, problems which are especially glaring in Africa.

We must begin immediately to strengthen the United

Nations in this respect and continue our efforts into the

future. Japan intends to play the role which is expected of

it in the strengthened United Nations.

I regard highly the strong initiatives of the Secretary-

General, Mr. Kofi Annan, in promoting reform. In

particular, his proposals for United Nations reform

announced in March and July of this year are intended to

enhance the coherence and effectiveness of United Nations

activities by strengthening the leadership of the Secretary-

General as well as the coordination function in each field,

including development and humanitarian affairs; as such,

they have Japan’s basic support. We earnestly hope that the

reform of the United Nations as a whole will gather

momentum through these proposals.

If the United Nations is unable to reform itself to meet

the demands of the coming era, but simply engages in an

aimless repetition of detailed arguments in which each

Member State pursues its own interests, the confidence of

the international community in the Organization will be

severely undermined. We must be aware that at this

moment we are standing at a crucial crossroads. It is the

very moment at which we must summon the political will

to decide on the outlines of United Nations reform.

Japan believes that each Member State should, in a

spirit of statesmanship, engage in substantive negotiations,

not from the viewpoint of pursuing its own parochial

interests but from the genuinely broad perspective of

maximizing benefits to the international community as a

whole.

Japan believes that reforms relating to the Security

Council, finance and development are the three pillars of

United Nations reform. Today, the Security Council is

attentive to the economic and social aspects of the

conflicts it seeks to resolve. Moreover, in order to

establish a sound financial basis, it is necessary that all

the activities of the United Nations, including those in the

fields of development and peacekeeping, be rendered

more effective. Serious efforts in the area of development

are also important for ensuring international peace and

security. It is therefore essential that reform in these three

areas be achieved as a whole in a balanced manner in

order for the United Nations, the sole universal

organization, to respond appropriately to the dramatically

changing context of the international community and to

be better able to discharge its functions.

Now I would like to reiterate Japan’s views on some

of the most important points regarding the United Nations

reform effort.

First, the reform of the Security Council.

Needless to say, the international community is

vastly different today from what it was 51 years ago,

when the United Nations was founded. Broadly speaking,

this is reflected in the following two ways.

First, in addition to those States that were originally

expected to assume primary responsibility for

international peace and security, other States have newly

emerged with the capacity and the willingness to play a

global role. Secondly, many States have in the meantime

become independent, and today they represent a majority

in the international community, in which they have

become important players.

Particularly in the wake of the cold war, the Security

Council is expected to play an even greater role in the

area of international peace and security. To meet such

expectations, it is essential that it be reorganized to adapt

to these two changes, thereby enhancing its legitimacy

and effectiveness. This is the very essence of Security

Council reform. It is with such a reformed and

strengthened Security Council that effective measures to

resolve, for example, the frequent conflicts in regions

such as Africa become possible.

It is from this perspective that many States,

including my own, are advocating the expansion of both

permanent and non-permanent membership. If the reform

were to result in an expansion of only the non-permanent

membership, the Council’s legitimacy and effectiveness

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would not be enhanced and genuine reform to adapt to the

changing times would not have been accomplished.

This year, under the leadership of former General

Assembly President Razali, discussions on Security Council

reform have gained greater momentum than ever before.

Japan strongly urges that we seize this opportunity to

decide on at least a framework for Security Council reform

and reach an agreement on an outline for the realization of

concrete reform by the end of the year. I should like to

reiterate that Japan, with the endorsement of many

countries, is prepared to discharge its responsibilities as a

permanent member of the Security Council in accordance

with its basic philosophy of the non-resort to the use of

force, prohibited by its Constitution.

I shall touch next on financial reform. Today a further

retrenchment by the United Nations in the area of finance

is required, and Japan regards highly the Secretary-

General’s efforts towards this end. The Government of

Japan is itself currently pursuing drastic reform of its

financial structure, with the aim of bringing its financial

deficit below 3 per cent of gross domestic product by the

year 2003. It is also essential for the United Nations to

secure a solid financial basis for itself. In this regard, I

would emphasize again that it is the obligation of Member

States to pay their assessed contributions in full, and that

Member States in arrears should make every effort to

eliminate them.

It goes without saying that the expenses of the

Organization must be apportioned more equitably. As

regards the basis for calculating the scale of assessments,

Japan has advocated adopting the concept of “responsibility

to pay” to complement the present method, which is based

on the principle of “capacity to pay”. Japan’s assessment is

about to reach that of the United States, and it is already

almost as great as the assessments of the other four

permanent members combined. If Japan’s assessment were

to increase further out of proportion, with reform of the

Security Council not yet realized, I must say there would be

a problem with respect to the fairness of such a situation.

Japan strongly hopes that the financial reform of the United

Nations will proceed together with reforms in other areas as

a whole in a balanced manner, and that agreement on an

equitable scale of assessments can be achieved.

The third point relates to reform in the area of

development. Development and peace are, so to speak, two

sides of the same coin. Without development, the causes of

conflicts will not be eliminated, and without peace the

conditions for development will not be met. Under its

present Constitution, Japan has continued to attach great

importance to contributing to international peace through

its active involvement in development issues and

humanitarian assistance efforts. Involvement in

development issues is a matter of priority for my country,

and its commitment to the development of developing

countries remains unchanged.

Japan has been insisting that a “new development

strategy”, based on a genuine partnership between

developed and developing countries, is particularly

necessary in this post-cold-war era. Consideration of the

Agenda for Development has concluded recently. We

believe it is important that the new philosophy, based on

the ownership of developing countries and on a genuine

partnership, be widely shared in the United Nations.

Towards this end, in July of this year Japan held the

Okinawa Conference on Development, and this month co-

hosted with the Kingdom of the Netherlands the

Conference on the Organization for Economic

Cooperation and Development/Development Assistance

Committee (OECD/DAC) Strategy “Shaping the Twenty-

first Century: The Contribution of Development

Cooperation”. We are thus exploring ways of promoting

and realizing this strategy. Through such efforts by Japan,

it is becoming widely recognized that South-South

cooperation, fortified with the new dimension of

triangular cooperation, is an important means of

promoting this strategy.

We regard the Secretary-General’s proposals to

establish a United Nations development group and to

consolidate United Nations offices at the country level to

be very worthwhile in terms of increasing efficiency.

United Nations reform must not be a euphemism for

budget-cutting. From this point of view, Japan, with the

support of many States, has been advocating the idea of

reinvesting in development programmes the savings that

accrue from reforms. We urge that this proposal, which

is reflected in the Secretary-General’s reform plan, be

quickly implemented. In addition, Japan hopes that the

year 2001 will be designated as the International Year of

Volunteers in order to encourage more active participation

in United Nations activities at the grass-roots level.

Setting development on track and eradicating poverty

in Africa are necessary for the fundamental solution of

the conflicts that frequently occur in that region. Bearing

this in mind, Japan has been focusing its efforts on

African development issues. At Japan’s initiative, plans

are under way to hold the second Tokyo International

Conference on African Development (TICAD II) at the

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ministerial level next year in Tokyo, following a

preparatory meeting, also in Tokyo, at the senior-official

level in November of this year. We would like to ask the

States concerned to cooperate for the success of these

conferences and for the achievement of substantive progress

in promoting African development.

Ever since becoming a Member in 1956, Japan has

consistently pursued a foreign policy that attaches

importance to the United Nations. Since January of this

year, thanks to the support of many countries, Japan has

been serving its eighth term as a non-permanent member of

the Security Council. It has been actively cooperating in

United Nations peacekeeping operations and efforts for the

prevention and settlement of regional conflicts. Next

January, Japan will convene the International Conference on

Preventive Strategy, which Prime Minister Ryutaro

Hashimoto proposed at the fifty-first session of the General

Assembly of the United Nations. We anticipate that

concrete proposals will be made at that conference as to

how cooperation between the United Nations and the

Organization of African Unity, and the strengthening of the

functions of the United Nations through such measures as

reform of the Security Council, can contribute to the

prevention and early resolution of conflicts in Africa. I am

also pleased to announce that next March Japan plans to

convene in Tokyo an international conference on the

present situation and future prospects of United Nations

peacekeeping operations.

Japan is also hosting the third session of the

Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework

Convention on Climate Change in Kyoto this December to

decide on international measures to prevent global warming

to be taken after the year 2000. Global warming is a critical

issue, with implications for the future of humankind, and its

solution will require the efforts of every country, including

developing countries. Japan is sparing no effort to ensure

the success of this conference and its adoption of a protocol

that is meaningful, realistic and equitable, and I would

earnestly ask for the cooperation of all participating

countries.

Next year we shall observe the fiftieth anniversary of

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I expect the

United Nations to further strengthen its role in the areas of

human rights and refugee and humanitarian assistance.

Japan will also continue to contribute actively in these

areas.

In addition, disarmament efforts, as well as the regime

for the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,

must be further strengthened for the sake of world peace

and stability. Japan will also emphasize at this session the

importance of steady and cumulative efforts to take

realistic nuclear disarmament measures, aiming for a

world free of nuclear weapons. We will also participate

actively in discussions on anti-personnel landmines, the

review of the United Nations Register of Conventional

Arms and the question of small arms.

The twenty-first century will arrive in less than four

years. In order to make the next century brighter, the

United Nations should reform itself to be ready for the

new era. If it is to do so, an agreement on the outline of

United Nations reform must be reached this year. Let us

join forces to ensure that the world in the twenty-first

century is stable and prosperous. This will require that we

greet the twenty-first century with United Nations reforms

achieved.

I should like to conclude my statement by stressing

the profound importance of strengthening the United

Nations — the only universal international Organization.