Liechtenstein, 2010

It is a great honour for

me to speak to the Assembly today, 20 years after the

admission of Liechtenstein to the United Nations.

Membership of the United Nations is one of the

cornerstones of our foreign policy and the central

platform for global diplomatic contacts. A strong

United Nations, with a strong General Assembly, is a

matter of self-interest to us.

It is therefore a special pleasure, Sir, to welcome

you in the presidency of the Assembly. We look

forward to working under your leadership. You have

already shown wise leadership by placing this general

debate under the broad theme of global governance, the

discussion most urgently needed in the General

Assembly, which is the main deliberative body of the

Organization.

The very purpose of the Charter was in fact to

establish a system of global governance, with the

United Nations at its centre. Today, we must ask

ourselves: Is the United Nations still at the centre of

global governance? How does it relate to a number of

other rising actors in the ever more crowded field of

international relations? How can we improve global

governance so that it better serves our peoples?

There can be no doubt, to our mind, that global

governance can only be effective if it is truly global.

That means global not only in reach, but also in

participation. A system where a few make decisions

that everyone else is expected to implement would be

not only be unjust, but also ineffective. Past experience

has shown time and again that multilateral action can

be very effective when it is based on a broad political

consensus, which is not the same as giving everyone a

right to veto.

A strong fundamental agreement among States is

the only way to ensure that decisions are effectively

put into practice. The place where such decisions are

possible, where genuine political consensus can be

forged, is and remains the United Nations. We

therefore have to invest in the United Nations to make

the improvements that are required, instead of looking

for solutions outside.

It is with this general philosophy in mind that we

view efforts by different groupings, most prominently

the Group of 20, to discuss questions of global reach.

We certainly welcome the fact that the largest

developed nations and the most powerful emerging

Powers gather to discuss matters that affect the global

economic and financial architecture.

The recent crisis has illustrated how important —

indeed, indispensable — common action by the Group

of 20 in such situations can be. And more is to be done

to address the systemic issues that led to the crisis in

the first place. We will continue to support those

activities. At the same time, inclusion and participation

should be placed higher on the Group’s agenda, and its

work should be better integrated with that of the United

Nations system. The quality of the discussions within

the Group of 20 and the effectiveness of their outcomes

would greatly benefit from an approach based on

“variable geometry” — bringing in the views of all

those who are directly affected by the subject matter

under consideration.

We are therefore an active member of the Global

Governance Group, coordinated by Singapore, which

seeks to promote the principles of inclusion and

participation. We are grateful to the hosts of the next

two Group of 20 summits, Korea and France, for their

constructive exchange with Global Governance Group

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Ministers yesterday here in New York. We look

forward to continuing this dialogue.

We welcome the work of the Group of 20 and

other groupings that seek to contribute to global

solutions. At the same time, they can only deal with a

limited number of issues. And, more importantly, they

can never be a substitute for genuine multilateralism,

which must continue to take place inside the United

Nations. But we can only safeguard this central place

of the United Nations if we can put it to use to find

effective solutions to problems such as climate change,

disarmament and other areas where results have been

insufficient. If we continue to underachieve in the

United Nations framework, we must not be surprised if

solutions are sought elsewhere.

The United Nations continues to be the centre of

global governance in the area of peace and security, the

domain of the Security Council. The Council has the

power to make decisions that are binding upon Member

States, including on the use of force. This is the

strongest tool available in international law. Yet its

effectiveness is increasingly undermined by the

perception that decisions of the Council lack the

required political legitimacy.

A central ingredient of that perception is the

Council’s composition. Everybody agrees that it no

longer reflects today’s geopolitical realities. And yet an

agreement to change it has been elusive for well over a

decade. We believe that there could be a middle ground

in the negotiations: the creation of a new category of

seats allowing States to serve permanently on the

Council, if the wider membership elects them to do so,

on a recurrent basis. It seems to us the only logical

approach towards a compromise, given the various

positions around the table.

But the principal question may well be one of

timing. If States increasingly believe that the Security

Council can only be reformed in a climate of serious

institutional crisis, a view with which we disagree, then

we must reconsider the wisdom of trying to find a

negotiated solution at this time.

Of no less importance for the legitimacy of the

Council’s work is the way in which it arrives at its

decisions. Addressing the way in which the Council

conducts its work is one of the biggest governance

challenges we face in the United Nations system. If the

Council is indeed to carry out its functions on behalf of

the entire membership, as mandated by the Charter, it

must be ready to listen to those it represents —

especially when they are directly affected by its work.

The group of small five countries, of which we

are a member, has over the last few years initiated a

process of reflection and gradual improvements that is

very much in the interests of the Council itself. We

look forward to continuing this process, with both the

permanent and the elected members of the Council.

The role of the United Nations in global

governance depends not only on the performance of its

intergovernmental organs, but to a great degree also on

the performance of the Secretariat. This is an enormous

responsibility on the shoulders of all our international

civil servants, especially the Secretary-General himself.

We saw a few years ago how much damage this

Organization can suffer from management failures and

system breakdowns in the areas of procurement and

accountability. A number of important reforms have

been undertaken since. Most notably, we have

strengthened internal oversight and accountability. But

can we be confident that we have now appropriately

managed the risk of another system breakdown in the

future? Clearly, more needs to be done in this area, in

particular to fully implement some of the management

reform measures already taken.

The strongest emerging tool in our system of

global governance is the dimension of justice. We have

made tremendous normative and institutional progress

in this area in the recent past. At the same time, we are

struggling with the challenge to reconcile peace and

justice in particular. How can we balance the dignity of

victims and the justice owed to them with the

likelihood of preventing further crimes? That is a

choice nobody will want to face.

But experience shows that there is no

contradiction between peace and justice over the long

run. And there is a broad international consensus that

there can be no impunity for the worst crimes under

international law, and therefore no amnesties.

Given the massive crimes committed against

civilian populations all over the world, this common

stance against impunity is more important than ever. It is

embodied by the International Criminal Court, whose

effects are felt across the globe. Most important, though,

it is also leading States to make greater efforts to fulfil

their obligations to investigate and prosecute domestically.

These are developments of truly historic dimensions.

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We are only at the beginning of our efforts to

integrate the justice dimension into our overall

governance structure. This integration will not be a

quick or easy process. But we must not shy away from

these discussions, and we have to approach them with

both an open mind and a determination to stand firmly

on the principle of fighting impunity.

The challenges in global governance are

numerous and interlinked. The governance architecture

reflected in the Charter gives us the possibility of

addressing them. It is up to us to make the necessary

political investments to make this system work for our

peoples.