Saint Lucia, 2005

Saint Lucia supported

your unanimous election, Sir, to be President of the

General Assembly at its sixtieth session, confident that

your diplomatic skills and experience are just what we

need to ensure a positive outcome of this historic

sixtieth anniversary session. I congratulate you and the

Government and people of Sweden on behalf of the

delegation of Saint Lucia and on my own behalf and

pledge our cooperation to you in our common

endeavour.

My Government and delegation also extend our

thanks to your predecessor in office, His Excellency

Mr. Jean Ping, for his stewardship of the fifty-ninth

session of the General Assembly, charged as it was

with the preparatory work for this sixtieth anniversary.

In these times, when the demands on the United

Nations are significant and increasing, resources

limited and we, the Member States, are called upon to

strengthen our cooperation and keep detractors and

cynics of the Organization at bay, my Government

wishes to express its appreciation to the Secretary-

General for his continuing support for the work of the

United Nations.

In this sixtieth year of the United Nations, our

world is certainly not the prosperous and peaceful one

built on the unity and strength of nations that the

Charter envisaged. Should we conclude, therefore, that

had the United Nations exerted more authoritative

influence in global affairs, our twenty-first century

world would be a better one? Such an assertion seems

plausible in today’s world, replete with poverty and

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hunger, disease, lack of sustainable development,

human rights violations, terrorism, conflict and war,

glaring inadequacies and a multitude of other grave

problems, including the unfinished agenda on

decolonization.

The record of the United Nations, however, does

not bear out so simplistic an assertion. If we look with

historical retrospection at the Organization’s record, we

see that it has wielded enormous influence over the

years. The challenge that we Member States must take

up at this sixtieth anniversary is to ensure that the

United Nations, the key Organization in global affairs,

has the authority and prestige to anticipate and meet

challenges of the nature and scale we are witnessing in

today’s world.

Development is foremost among the challenges

that Member States have identified for urgent attention

during this sixtieth anniversary. There is logic in this

approach. A significant proportion of the critical

problems that the world faces now and in the future is

intrinsically linked to development. It is for this reason

that heads of State or Government, in their Millennium

Declaration, defined succinctly what must be done to

advance socio-economic development in areas of vital

concern.

As we know, this comprehensive blueprint

underpins the Millennium Development Goals. The

global leadership was sufficiently confident to place

their Goals within specified time frames, understanding

as they did the desperate need for improvement in the

socio-economic conditions in numerous developing

countries.

What will we, the Member States of this United

Nations, say to the people of the developing world

grappling with poverty, hunger, HIV/AIDS and other

deadly diseases, illiteracy, gender discrimination and

other challenges if, by the date set, we have not met the

targets of the Millennium Development Goals? My

Government sees no merit in the discussion as to

whether target dates should have been set. Our

orientation should now be towards accelerating the

pace of implementation so that the Goals can be

accomplished within agreed time frames, or better still

even earlier than the target dates.

The United Nations must also show the people of

the developing world that comprehensive measures are

being taken to address the environment and sustainable

development. Natural disasters of phenomenal

proportions — from Hurricane Ivan in the Caribbean to

the tsunami in Asia and now to Hurricane Katrina in

the southern United States — have brought death and

destruction to developing and developed countries

alike. I take this opportunity on behalf of the

Government and people of Saint Lucia to extend our

sympathy to the Government of the United States for

the tragedy still unfolding in the Gulf Coast states.

Resource-rich developed countries are better

positioned to mitigate the impact of natural disasters,

although they too are not without their challenges. For

developing countries, however, including Saint Lucia

and other small island developing States in the

Caribbean and Pacific, decades of progress can be

obliterated in the course of a few hours by one

hurricane or typhoon. Beyond doubt the environment is

a critical element of the United Nations development

agenda. It is a compelling reason for all to sign on to

the Kyoto Protocol.

It is also in our common interest to meet all the

commitments made in the Monterrey Consensus on

Financing for Development. In many instances,

however, expectations are not being realized.

Developing countries still cannot rely on wide-ranging

development cooperation and assistance and debt

reduction responses that are predictable and reliable.

Needless to say my Government joins in urging the

developed countries that have not already done so to

meet the 0.7 per cent target. We recognize the G-8

initiative to take enhanced measures for Africa’s

development and hope that that initiative would be

speedily implemented.

Related to concern for the development and well-

being of all the world’s people, the Government of

Saint Lucia commends the establishment of the

$1 billion emergency fund to be finalized later this

year, which will enable the Organization to more

quickly and effectively respond to humanitarian crises.

This sixtieth anniversary provides us with yet

another opportunity to give impetus to initiatives to

spread the benefits of globalization and trade

liberalization more widely. Priority must be given to

ensuring that all developing countries benefit from

freer world trade, that a decline in their trade sector be

halted and reversed and that the competition they face

in the world economy be on a level playing field.

I am really tired of saying this — that one size

cannot fit all, an indisputable fact that the World Trade

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Organization stubbornly refuses to acknowledge with

respect, inter alia, to bananas and sugar in Caribbean

Community and small island developing States.

Indeed, the cause of development would be greatly

enhanced by a positive outcome from the next round of

the Doha trade negotiations scheduled for Hong Kong,

China, in December 2005, and an early and successful

conclusion of the round overall, hopefully in 2006.

Developing countries must be equal partners in

this process, and together with the developed countries

take the decisive action required at the World Trade

Organization.

What my Government seeks to emphasize by

drawing attention to the development imperative is that

the time has come for a paradigm shift in the United

Nations approach to development. For more than a

decade we have, through a series of United Nations

summits and conferences in the economic and social

fields, formulated an agreed framework of a United

Nations development agenda, which includes the

Millennium Development Goals.

To these we have now added the outcome

document of the sixtieth anniversary summit. Are these

courses of action that we have agreed upon to be

regarded as mere platitudes, destined to be relegated to

the archives of the United Nations? The developing

countries have communicated through the Group of 77

and China that the partnership and cooperation of the

countries of the developed world, and indeed all

stakeholders, are urgently needed to accelerate action

and implementation of the United Nations development

agenda. This sixtieth anniversary, we believe, has a

responsibility to launch this process afresh and to carry

out the commitments that we have made in this

development agenda.

A more influential Economic and Social Council

and a United Nations development system that is

strong and cohesive would ensure that the Organization

implements its development mandate effectively.

Making the United Nations responses equal to its

challenges through reform and revitalization was an

important element of our deliberations in the

preparatory process for this sixtieth anniversary.

Let me say that my Government is prepared to

actively work together with other Member States to set

precise and unambiguous mandates for new or

reconstituted bodies, including a Peacebuilding

Commission and Human Rights Council, on the basis

of consensus. It is our considered opinion however that

a credible process of United Nations reform must result

in a strong General Assembly, the Organization’s sole

universal organ from which no Member State can be or

is excluded.

We can ill afford to further erode the General

Assembly’s role and authority, since the Charter

confirms in a practical sense the importance of the

Assembly by the expansive mandate that it has been

given in areas that include the maintenance of

international peace and security. No other organ has

been given such broad responsibilities nor has the

potential to deliver over such a wide range of Charter

ideals. We are also convinced that a strong General

Assembly would enhance the credibility and standing

of the United Nations as a whole. Therefore, the

momentum of General Assembly revitalization must be

maintained, and our efforts in this area must be as

dynamic and flexible as are the forces shaping today’s

world.

Reform of the Security Council has also been a

major preoccupation in the lead up to this sixtieth

anniversary, as it has been for some 12 years. An

indisputable case has been made for the expansion of

the Council to reflect the exponential growth of the

United Nations membership from 51 in 1945 to 191

today. We all know that the obstacle to moving beyond

this point is the diverging and strongly held views

about whether an expanded membership should include

new permanent members. Again this is an issue that

my Government would wish to see resolved by

consensus.

Perhaps this matter might be put into better

perspective if we were to reflect on the role and

function of the United Nations as a whole. Within the

broad range of human endeavours entrusted to the

Organization, the Charter gives the Security Council

one specific, albeit critical, mandate — that is, the

maintenance of international peace and security. My

Government is of the view that it was not intended for

this collective security mandate to be carried out by the

Security Council functioning as an independent and

separate entity, but rather to be carried out in

cooperation with the United Nations as a whole, and

certainly in tandem with the General Assembly, where

all Member States of this Organization have a voice

and a vote. After all, global peace and security concern

all citizens of the world, not just the citizens of those

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countries who happen at any given time to hold seats

on the Security Council.

For the present, war and conflict loom large, and

this must be of concern to the Council. But we must

hold out hope that we, the Member States of this

Organization, can make its constituent parts — the

General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council,

the development system and other organs and agencies,

and particularly the Security Council — work together

to substantially reduce, if not eliminate, war, conflict

and crises.

We must also ask ourselves, what is the nature of

the membership that the Council requires to implement

its mandate? Far more than any consideration, it is the

commitment — and I underscore the word

“commitment” — of the Council’s membership,

permanent or non-permanent, to enforcing its

decisions — all of them — to responding to situations

that threaten international peace and security wherever

they may arise and to combating the insidious spread

of international terrorism that determines the success

of the Council’s work.

We can no longer posture and bicker while the

people of the world wait, particularly the people of the

developing world, who so desperately need the United

Nations. We must take the historic opportunity that this

sixtieth anniversary presents to set our sights on a

twenty-first century world framed in the ideals

enshrined in the Charter, a world of prosperity, peace

and security, with a strong United Nations at its core.

We need the United Nations. It has the unmitigated

support of the Government and people of Saint Lucia.