Lithuania, 1996

On behalf of the Lithuanian

Government, allow me to warmly congratulate Mr. Razali

Ismail on his election as President of the General

Assembly at this session.

20

This session marks the fifth anniversary of the re-

entrance of Lithuania into the international community of

states. Five years ago, Lithuania was admitted to the United

Nations. At that time, the Organization, its Member States

and the peoples of the world saw the chance to seize

historic opportunities created by the new international

situation, with its promise of peace and stability.

The past five years leave no doubt that some of these

opportunities have been taken in a positive way. We have

seen that the highest levels of cooperation are possible, both

internationally and regionally. The destinies of different

peoples around the world have been linked as never before

by the globalization of the world economy and the

information superhighway.

But many cross-border issues, such as crime, drugs,

environmental pollution and terrorism, pose a major

challenge to us not only as individual nation-States, but as

a family of nations as well. These global challenges have

far-reaching implications for the world Organization.

Originally, the United Nations was entrusted with the

task of ensuring world harmony. Is it no less vital today to

maintain and promote this worldwide policy, as designed by

the founders of the United Nations? My answer is in the

positive.

For this reason, we need an Organization that can be

more responsive to the demands of Member States, and

Member States that act responsibly by setting realistic goals

and providing the resources needed for their

implementation.

During these past five years, Lithuania has progressed

politically and economically. Our relations with

neighbouring States are friendly and mutually beneficial,

thus ensuring a secure and stable environment in the region.

We are in the process of becoming integrated into European

and transatlantic structures. Negotiations on accession to the

World Trade Organization are well-advanced, ties with our

neighbours that are members of the Central European Free

Trade Agreement are gaining strength. The most valuable

cooperation is being advanced with Nordic countries, the

European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance. These

dimensions of cooperation have been fruitfully applied in

other structures as well. Cooperation with the European

Union on core United Nations issues — humanitarian

affairs, human rights, peacekeeping, structural and financial

reforms — and with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

in the Implementation Force mission is the best example.

We are striving to deepen and broaden this cooperation.

The global challenges before us require the

commitment of Member States to the goals enshrined in

the United Nations Charter and call for structural and

institutional reform of the Organization. We have begun

the reform aimed at streamlining the functions of the

United Nations and rendering its institutional structure

more effective and flexible to deal with tasks which

sometimes cannot be foreseen in advance. We must bear

in mind that the future Organization can be only as

effective as its Member States desire it to be.

First, it goes without saying that we must put the

United Nations on a sound financial footing and

strengthen its capacity to fulfil its vital tasks. We support

the proposals put forward by the European Union in this

regard. A realigned scale of assessments, annual revision

of the scale, phasing out the scheme of limits, lowering

the assessment floor and swift implementation of the

proposals in practice would be the tools to overcome the

financial crisis and would certainly be an incentive for

Members to regularize payments.

Lithuania remains committed to its financial

obligations to the Organization. We also reiterate our

fundamental belief that the scale of assessments must

reflect the capacity to pay. At a time when many

countries, Lithuania included, are undergoing budgetary

adjustments and reviews, sound management of the

resources of the United Nations takes on added

importance.

Secondly, we believe that the functioning of United

Nations decision-making bodies must be improved. The

Security Council makes decisions that are binding on all

Member States and influences the lives of millions. It is

thus essential to make the Council more representative of

the world as it is today. More specifically, Lithuania has

called for increasing the representational capacity of the

Security Council in both categories of membership. The

Government of Lithuania recognizes that developing

countries have a case for improving their representation.

We also recognize that some countries, such as Germany

and Japan, can make a special contribution and that they

are ready to assume special political, military and

financial responsibility as new permanent members. In

our view, due consideration should also be given to the

aspirations to an additional non-permanent seat of the

countries of Eastern Europe, whose numbers have tripled

in recent years. We hope for agreement on the reform of

the Security Council. Lithuania supports proposals to this

end and encourages stronger movement by States towards

negotiations on the implementation of reform.

21

In terms of a comprehensive reform of the United

Nations system, any such reform is likely to fail if there is

no clear vision of its objectives and of the strategies for

pursuing them. A stark reassessment of the mission and

mandates is included in the United Nations medium-term

plan for 1998-2001. We consider it to be a good basis for

debate on the enhancement of the United Nations and for

strengthening its capacity to face new emerging challenges.

Lithuania, striving to make its contribution to

international cooperation in the maintenance of security and

stability, is determined to continue to improve the skills of

its peacekeepers, civilian police monitors and military

observers and will offer them to the United Nations in the

service of peacekeeping operations. Lithuania, in

cooperation with Estonia and Latvia, and also with Poland,

is advancing the development of joint peacekeeping units,

an exercise which in itself is a testimony to ultimate

understanding and cooperation between countries.

The costs and scope of United Nations peacekeeping

operations have proliferated dramatically since 1990. One

of the best ways to reduce this proliferation, and more

particularly to prevent human suffering, is to implement

many of the proposals put forward by the Secretary-General

in his “An Agenda for Peace”, especially in terms of

resolving disputes before violence breaks out.

United Nations intervention too often comes too

slowly and too late under very difficult circumstances.

Lacking resources, the Secretary-General is sometimes

expected to maintain peace where there is no will to

maintain peace. We feel that the emphasis needs to be

placed on strengthening the United Nations system’s

preventive capacity. We may need to adopt the

multidimensional approach to the concept of security,

mobilize the United Nations system in order to prevent

existing disputes from escalating into conflict, and attack

the problem at its very roots.

Lithuania welcomes measures to strengthen the United

Nations administrative structures in charge of peacekeeping

operations. The experience of the past few years leads us to

believe that we need to explore non-traditional approaches

to conflict prevention and resolution, including the

Organization’s rapid response capability. While the demand

in this domain still seems to be more than the United

Nations is equipped for, the burden-sharing of peacekeeping

with other regional organizations has to prevent the eruption

of a severe crisis. The complexity of the maintenance of

peace and security should not be solely a United Nations

enterprise. In Europe, we have the Organization for

Security and Cooperation in Europe, which operates in

accordance with agreed principles and is engaged in

activities to help parties to resolve disputes without

recourse to fighting.

Lithuania believes that any strategy for preventing

armed conflicts also involves pursuing tangible

disarmament objectives, especially in the areas of nuclear

non-proliferation and the control of conventional arms.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty now

ready for signature can be considered one of the historic

decisions of this decade. Today, I signed the Treaty on

behalf of the Republic of Lithuania. I believe this tangible

achievement of humankind should fuel international

efforts to take further effective measures towards nuclear

disarmament.

A major challenge immediately ahead is the

maintenance of multilateral disarmament and non-

proliferation efforts. We must find a key to freeze the

production and development of weapons of mass

destruction. The adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear-

Test-Ban Treaty should set the tone for the disarmament

process which will be accompanied by the Convention on

the Prohibition of the Development, Production,

Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their

Destruction. We must cope with new nuclear challenges,

such as nuclear leakage, smuggling of fissile materials,

failures in nuclear-custody systems and the potential

threat of nuclear terrorism.

Moreover, the dangerously widespread use of

conventional weapons undermines all attempts at the

peaceful solution to conflicts. Sometimes, as in the case

of land-mines, the deadly consequences persist for many

years, causing human suffering and resulting in enormous

costs. The growing support for banning the production of

and trade in anti-personnel land-mines is one way to

correct this problem.

Peace and development are closely linked and

development is a multifaceted process. Revitalization of

the United Nations in economic, social and related fields,

and interaction between the United Nations and other

multilateral development institutions, including the

Bretton Woods institutions and the World Trade

Organization, should be addressed to better structure the

Organization for serving peoples’ development needs.

Sustainable development must be based on participatory

democracy and respect for human rights.

22

Democratization must take hold inside a State and

should extend to the international community. The process

of democratization cannot be separated from the protection

of human rights. We will continue to support United

Nations programmes aimed at promoting a democratic

culture and at consolidating new or re-established

democracies.

Humanitarian assistance efforts face the challenge of

responding to humanitarian crises that have increased both

in number and complexity. United Nations programmes

could complement other initiatives already in place and

should be expanded in those fields where collective action

is required, such as in comprehensive reconstruction and

rehabilitation of war-ravaged areas.

Although the merits of the Office of the United

Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in facilitating

solutions to acute migration problems are evident, some

tendencies are cause for concern. The international

community needs updated approaches in resolution and

prevention policy. The Conference on Refugees and

Migrants in the Commonwealth of Independent States and

neighbouring countries, held in Geneva in May 1996, was

a step towards action on a regional level. We hope that

countries will adhere to the Programme of Action, in

particular those provisions concerning illegal migration.

We are in favour of strengthening mechanisms to

monitor and protect human rights, especially in conflict

situations. When these rights are seriously violated despite

all efforts to the contrary, we are in favour of turning to

judicial recourse. For this reason, we support the creation

of an international criminal court for the adjudication of all

human rights violations, wherever they may occur.

One of the greatest challenges stymieing the efforts of

the international community to ensure sustainable

development and democracy is transnational crime. This

often takes the form of illicit sales of arms and drugs, illicit

trafficking in people, child prostitution and other crimes. No

single country is able to cope with well-organized and well-

financed criminal structures. We deem that efficient anti-

money-laundering measures can be among the best tools to

undermine the economic roots of the criminal world.

The window of opportunity for greater international

cooperation is wider than at any time since 1945. We must

seize the moment if international cooperation is to take a

decisive step forward. A reformed and streamlined United

Nations, concentrating on the tasks entrusted to it in the

Charter, can make considerable progress towards fulfilling

the high expectations we place in it today.