Liechtenstein, 2008

Since we

gathered here a year ago, the world has experienced

many serious challenges. Natural disasters, climate

change, violent conflicts, terrorism, human rights

violations, rising food and energy prices and financial

turmoil have affected the lives of people worldwide.

Dealing with crisis after crisis is a daunting task.

Without the United Nations, it would in many respects

be a hopeless one.

Indeed, it is the United Nations that gives hope to

people around the world and it is the United Nations

that gives political leaders a unique tool to solve

problems and to settle conflicts. It was created more

than sixty years ago, under the still-fresh impression of

the horrors of the Second World War and with a strong

focus on matters of peace and security. Today, the

world is a different place, and yet we must keep

turning to the United Nations to solve our problems

together and to protect those most in need and danger.

We applaud the Secretary-General and the

dedicated United Nations personnel for their hard

work. Nevertheless, the Organization is sometimes

mired in bureaucracy, inefficiency and political

infighting. But the blame falls mainly on us, the

Member States. It is our responsibility to adapt the

United Nations to today’s challenges and to make it the

best possible organization to that end. We must equip

the Organization with the resources it needs and make

the necessary adjustments in its structure.

In recent years, the regular budget of the

Organization has grown in a completely lopsided way.

Core activities, such as conflict prevention, the

promotion of human rights and the rule of law,

humanitarian assistance and support for economic and

social development, are subject to an artificial policy

of zero budget growth and must be financed largely

through voluntary contributions. At the same time,

States have come to routinely accept massive increases

in peacekeeping bills. It is high time that we shift our

focus from fighting fires to preventing their outbreak.

We therefore fully support the efforts of the Secretary-

General to enhance the conflict prevention and

mediation capacities of the Secretariat.

The session just concluded brought about a

sobering realization that some of the reform processes

initiated at the 2005 World Summit have effectively

come to a halt. Others have yet to be the subject of

extremely difficult negotiations. We believe that quick

progress is necessary on a number of management

reform issues, from human resource management to

accountability and internal justice. We will also

continue our work to achieve a more legitimate and

more effective Security Council. To that end, we will

step up our efforts to enhance the involvement and

access of those who are not members of the Council.

Liechtenstein is a strong believer in

multilateralism and in a rule-based international

system. Our national sovereignty is grounded in

international law and its observance, and we are

therefore strongly committed to the rule of law. Those

principles were chief among our motivations for

joining the United Nations 18 years ago, and they have

been high among our priorities as a Member ever since.

The rule of law has gained much prominence in

the work of the United Nations over the past few years,

but it has yet to take the central place that is its due.

The most precious asset of this Organization remains

the legitimacy that it lends to decisions of the

international community. In fact, the United Nations

symbolizes the rule of law in international relations.

We must preserve that strength and therefore also

promote the rule of law within United Nations organs,

including the Security Council, and their decision-

making.

Together with other countries, we have expressed

long-standing concerns about the current practice of

the Security Council regarding sanctions listing and

delisting, in particular in the area of counter-terrorism.

There should be no doubt that we fully support the

sanctions regimes, which constitute powerful tools for

the maintenance of international peace and security,

but we also believe that the procedures applied must be

in accordance with basic international standards of due

process. Recent court decisions indicate that our

reservations are well founded, and we hope that our

proposals will contribute to the improvement of the

system. We must avoid the impression that decisions of

the Security Council might be in violation of human

rights standards.

All of our countries, and the Security Council in

particular, are also called to task in the fight against

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impunity. Since the 1990s, the Council has adopted a

number of landmark decisions to enforce international

criminal law, including the decision to establish

international and mixed tribunals. The Council also has

an important role to play in connection with the

International Criminal Court, which deals with the

most serious crimes under international law. The

Council did so in adopting resolution 1593 (2005), and

it is essential that it continue to exercise responsibly its

powers under the Rome Statute.

Mr. Stratan (Republic of Moldova), Vice-

President, took the Chair.

The International Criminal Court is the most

important achievement in decades in the area of

international law. Now we must make it work in

practice and give it the necessary political support. The

success of the Court will be the yardstick in the fight

against impunity. If we want to win that fight, we must

show resolve by supporting the Court.

Years ago, the General Assembly adopted the

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the

Crime of Genocide, and the International Criminal

Court was given jurisdiction over that crime 50 years

later. The Convention was born of the desire to prevent

the recurrence of genocide, yet it failed to achieve that

purpose on several occasions following its adoption.

The rallying cry “Never Again!” can be used only so

often before it loses credibility. In that spirit, all of us

agreed to the concept of the responsibility to protect

when we met at the summit level three years ago. For

us and for many others, that was one of the most

significant gains achieved in the 2005 World Summit

Outcome, which was otherwise a mixed bag. Still, we

are struggling with the challenge to make the concept

widely understood and to apply it in practice.

The responsibility to protect is a narrow concept

that is limited to clearly defined cases of genocide, war

crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

It is based on the sovereign responsibility of States to

protect their own populations as well as the United

Nations Charter. We must maintain that conceptual

clarity and provide for consistent implementation of

the Summit decision.

In spite of the lofty aspirations expressed at the

2005 World Summit, we are still far from taking a

common approach to the development agenda, and the

challenges are growing rapidly. Climate change, the

food crisis, the energy crisis and the faltering

international financial system are just a few examples.

All those challenges hit particularly hard those who

already live in poverty, and they also threaten to

undermine the effectiveness of our development

cooperation. We therefore need a consensus on

financing for development that builds on the Monterrey

Consensus. Such an agreement will require significant

sacrifices and compromises on all sides, and it is sorely

needed to strengthen the development pillar of

multilateral cooperation.

Let me say in conclusion that we have always

stood and fought for a strong General Assembly. By

that, we do not mean an Assembly that develops an

antagonistic relationship with other organs of the

United Nations. We want an Assembly that is a forum

for meaningful and focused discussions on topics of

high relevance, followed by clear decisions and their

implementation. We hope that this session will allow us

to take a step in that direction.