Liechtenstein, 1993

Allow me

to congratulate you, Sir, on your election to the presidency

of the forty-eighth session of the General Assembly and to

express our conviction that your experience and diplomatic

skills will make a valuable contribution to the work of this

august body. My delegation will spare no effort to support

you in the fulfilment of your tasks. I should also like to

avail myself of this opportunity to thank your predecessor,

Mr. Stoyan Ganev, for the way he conducted the work of the

General Assembly during a difficult period.

Over the last eight months, this Organization has been

able to welcome six new Member States: Slovakia, the

Czech Republic, The Former Yugoslav Republic of

Macedonia, Monaco, Eritrea and Andorra, thus enhancing

the universality of the United Nations.

Since the last session of the General Assembly we have

been witness to historic gains in regional disputes. The

signing of the peace agreement between Israel and the

Palestine Liberation Organization is a unique breakthrough

and will, it is hoped, lead to a just and lasting peace for the

region. When the President of the African National

Congress, Mr. Nelson Mandela, spoke in this Hall on 24

September, he outlined the historic advances made towards

democracy in South Africa. We are very hopeful that a new

South Africa will play a vital role in the development of the

African continent.

My country was admitted to the United Nations on

18 September 1990 and has tried over the last three years to

maintain as active a presence and participation as possible.

While Liechtenstein was the 160th Member in 1990, the

Organization today has 184 members. This considerable

increase in the Organization’s membership makes it clear

that the ongoing discussion of equitable representation on

and expansion of the Security Council’s membership is

timely and necessary.

In our view, the priorities in reforming the Security

Council are cohesion and effectiveness. It is of great

importance, however, that the discussion of reforms also

include the question of the Security Council’s work, since

broad support for its actions is an indispensable condition of

its legitimacy, which can only be guaranteed by enhanced

transparency and cooperation with other Member States.

Article 23 of the Charter establishes that the contribution to

the maintenance of international peace and security is the

first criterion for membership in the Council; it is obvious

that the second criterion - equitable geographical distribution

- has so far not been given due attention. In view of the

obvious importance of the Security Council’s composition,

we favour taking the necessary time to make adjustments

beneficial to the credibility of the Organization as a whole.

The new effectiveness of the Security Council is

manifested, among other ways, by the recent considerable

increase of peace-keeping and peacemaking missions. These

operations are closely observed by the public and are often

taken as a yardstick for the activities of the United Nations

as a whole. While we think it important to give more

attention to other fields, such as that of social development,

we are aware of the impact that the failure or success of

peace-keeping activities can have on the credibility of the

Organization. In our view, the United Nations should not

engage in an ever-increasing number of peace-keeping

Forty-eighth session - 5 October l993 9

missions all over the world. A more important role should

be given to preventive diplomacy, which can be carried out

by regional organizations or arrangements such as the

Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE).

The participating States consider the CSCE a regional

arrangement in the sense of Chapter VIII of the United

Nations Charter, and as such it provides an important link

between European and global security. Liechtenstein, as a

participating State, believes that enhancement of the

cooperation with the CSCE is crucial; my country favours

the idea of granting observer status to that organization and

has supported the request for the inclusion of an additional

item to this effect in the agenda of the forty-eighth session.

Preventive diplomacy cannot, however, replace peace-

keeping, and the United Nations must remain as active in

that field as is necessary. It must be pointed out that the

existing infrastructure in New York is not sufficient to cope

with the wide range of tasks, and urgently needs to be

improved.

Deplorable events in the recent past have made it clear

that there is not sufficient protection of civil and military

personnel involved in peace-keeping missions. We therefore

wholeheartedly welcome the inclusion of a new agenda item

proposed by the delegation of New Zealand regarding the

question of responsibility for attacks on United Nations and

associated personnel and measures to ensure that those

responsible for such attacks are brought to justice.

With the growing involvement of the United Nations in

complex conflicts, the Organization’s role has been

transformed into a more active and comprehensive one. As

a result, relief workers expose their lives to great risk in

their efforts to alleviate human suffering. My delegation

believes that it simply cannot be tolerated that relief workers,

who themselves want to save lives, should become targets.

The United Nations should make it very clear that these acts

of violence will not go unpunished. The emblems of the

United Nations, the Red Cross and the Red Crescent must be

respected.

Humanitarian assistance today faces the challenge of

many complex emergency situations. These challenges must

be met on the basis of the principles of neutrality,

impartiality and humanity; humanitarian aid must not be

politicized. When we are called upon to give proof of our

solidarity, we must provide the necessary financial means.

We are, however, also called upon to address the root causes

of many disasters, such as poverty, population increase and

civil and ethnic strife. Imbalances feed misery; they not

only are unfair but are dangerous.

Forty-five years after the adoption of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights, a great deal remains to be

done in this field, to which we attach particular importance.

The World Conference on Human Rights in June 1993 was

a very important event, and we all know how difficult it was

to adopt the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action.

This text can constitute a milestone in the history of the

United Nations only if it is followed by determined action by

the General Assembly in the spirit of the Vienna

Declaration. In our view, it is of the utmost importance that

the the Centre for Human Rights be given the resources

necessary to enable it to carry out its tasks even more

efficiently. In addition, the creation of the post of high

commissioner for human rights is a laudable initiative, and

the General Assembly should provide him or her with a

strong mandate within the already existing structures.

It is a well-known fact that the financial situation of the

United Nations is disastrous. In his speech of 26 August,

the Secretary-General accordingly outlined initial steps to

cope with this crisis. The measures taken by the Secretary-

General seem to be unavoidable, and we hope they will not

have a negative impact on the work of the General

Assembly. In our view, urgent action by the General

Assembly is needed to prevent further deterioration, which

could have serious consequences. Punctual and full payment

of the assessed contributions must be made by all States and

arrears must be paid in full and promptly. Proposals aimed

at ensuring proper utilization of resources and establishing

adequate accountability within the United Nations should be

discussed thoroughly and expeditiously. Finally, an overall

reform of the financial sector seems to be necessary. All

suggestions which might contribute to this aim, especially

those contained in the so-called Volcker-Ogata report, should

be studied with due attention.

Much has been said about the changes that have taken

place since the ending of the cold war. Unfortunately we

cannot say that all these changes have been positive. To the

infinite regret and dismay of the whole international

community, we have continued to witness the outbreak of a

great number of ethnic and national conflicts, accompanied

by the untold suffering of innocent people. There must be

a better way for the world to manage its affairs. While

tensions within and between communities may be an

inevitable part of the human condition, it is, in our view, of

the utmost importance that ways be found to defuse them

peacefully and without bloodshed.

In this context, I should like to refer briefly again to an

idea which might take us a step in the right direction and

which I introduced when I had the great honour to address

10 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

the General Assembly for the first time at its forty-sixth

session, very soon after Liechtenstein became a Member of

the United Nations. On that occasion, I ventured to suggest

that a basis for some solutions could be found within the

principle of self-determination. The value of this great

principle has been fully demonstrated in the traditional

context of decolonization. But it need not be limited to that

context. Applied also to communities within States, and

allowing for them to have different levels of autonomy

according to the particular circumstances of different

communities, it could perhaps defuse many of the tensions

which are such a potent source of conflict. Such principles,

placed within a suitable framework, would give an effective

and practical dimension to the principle of self-determination

which it has sometimes seemed to lack. Eventually such

provisions could perhaps come to be elaborated in a

convention to be of general application.

Since first putting those thoughts before this Assembly,

we in Liechtenstein have been encouraged by the degree of

interest which has been shown in them. Our ideas are

flexible, although our objective - which is to find practical

and effective ways of avoiding, or at least reducing, tensions

between communities - remains firm. We have refined our

initial thoughts on the subject in the light of comments made

by others, and we developed our ideas further at the last

session of the General Assembly, both during debates in the

Third Committee and when the Head of Government

addressed the Assembly in the course of the general debate.

On that occasion, the Head of Government announced

that the Government of Liechtenstein would be inviting each

Government represented in the Assembly, including

Observers, to nominate an independent expert to attend an

informal meeting of experts in Liechtenstein to discuss these

matters further. That meeting took place from 16 to 18

March this year, attended by participants nominated by 46

States and international and non-governmental organizations.

I attended it myself throughout, and can say personally how

valuable we found the contributions participants made to the

development of our thinking. Perhaps I might be allowed to

take this opportunity to thank them all for their participation

in what we see as an important and valuable project.

Over the past two years we have, in these various ways,

carried forward our belief that, in the ideas first put forward

to Assembly in 1991, the international community may find

some way forward in its search for ways of avoiding the

kind of internal conflicts which cause ever-increasing human

suffering and which are increasingly dangerous for the peace

and safety of our world. To make further progress we

decided this year to seek to inscribe an item on the

Assembly’s agenda which would enable our ideas to be fully

discussed by the full membership of the United Nations. We

are grateful that our proposal was accepted and now appears

on the agenda for this session as item 108 (b), entitled

"Right of peoples to self-determination: Effective realization

of the right of self-determination through autonomy". We

look forward to the debate which will follow, and I hope to

be able to participate myself in at least part of it. We hope

that in the light of what may be said in the debate, the

Assembly will agree that there is, in the ideas which we

have put forward, something valuable which merits further

consideration and elaboration.

We do not underestimate the difficulties ahead. We are

aware of the sensitivities of this whole subject, especially in

these times. Great though those difficulties and sensitivities

may be for some States, we are convinced that the needs of

the international community are even more pressing. The

dangers, horrors and suffering to which tensions between

communities within States can give rise, and of which we

sadly have daily reminders, make it essential for the

international community to make every effort to open up

new thinking in this field in order to find practical and

effective means for further promoting the principles and

purposes of the Charter of the United Nations.

We consider it a great privilege to have an Organization

such as the United Nations, founded upon a Charter which

encompasses the highest ideals of humankind. I wish to take

this opportunity to reaffirm my country’s commitment to the

principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.