Mexico, 1997

Let me first of all congratulate the President on his well-

deserved election. It is a source of satisfaction to us that

the President of his country, Ukraine, Mr. Leonid

Kuchma, is on this very day starting a state visit to

Mexico.

To the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, we

extend our sincere gratitude for the extremely dynamic

way in which he is discharging his important

responsibilities, and particularly for his significant

contribution to the process of reform of the Organization.

The work of this session of the General Assembly

will cover the main items on the international agenda.

Allow me to begin this statement by referring to those

which are of particular significance to my country.

In relation to the topic of disarmament, significant

steps have recently been taken. Some prominent ones

have been the adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear-

Test-Ban Treaty, the approval of a Convention prohibiting

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anti-personnel mines, and the forthcoming conclusion of an

inter-American convention against the illicit traffic in arms,

munitions and explosives.

Also prominent at the regional level are the efforts the

Rio Group has decided to undertake towards beginning

consultations with a view to establishing criteria for self-

regulation in the purchase and transfer of certain types of

sophisticated conventional weapons. Latin America is one

of the regions with the lowest military expenditures in the

world, and there will be no grounds for asserting that an

arms race exists among our countries. There is, nonetheless,

agreement to prevent this from happening, and, accordingly,

we hope that the meeting to be convened in Cancun next

January by the Rio Group itself, with the participation of all

its member States, will attain its objectives. Despite all

these advances, we reiterate our concern at the lack of

tangible nuclear disarmament measures, and we stress that

the issue continues to be the responsibility of the

international community as a whole, and not the exclusive

province of the nuclear Powers. Accordingly, we regret that

the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of

8 July 1996, which called attention to the illegality of the

use of nuclear weapons and the obligation to negotiate

nuclear disarmament measures, has not been taken into

account by the main nuclear-weapon States.

It is appropriate to recall that when the Treaty on the

Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was indefinitely

extended, a series of commitments was drawn up with a

view to making progress towards nuclear disarmament, but

so far not even the most minimal progress has been made.

In an effort to break the impasse, Mexico, along with other

countries, submitted to the Conference on Disarmament in

Geneva a programme of action, in which we called for the

consideration and analysis of certain concrete disarmament

measures with all the seriousness they deserve.

To the same end, we support increasing the number of

nuclear-weapon-free zones, along the lines of the Treaty for

the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America —

the Treaty of Tlatelolco. Mexico will continue to support

the Brazilian initiative to consolidate the southern

hemisphere as a nuclear-weapon-free zone.

With reference to the Convention banning the use of

anti-personnel mines, it should be pointed out that the

recent approval of that instrument in Oslo was the

culmination of negotiations which had been conducted for

one year within the framework of what is called the Ottawa

process, as a result of an initiative by the Core Group

formed by Mexico, Canada and other countries in

October 1996. The Government of Mexico considers that

the use of this category of weapons constitutes a flagrant

violation of international humanitarian law, and that the

only viable solution to the problems it poses is the total

abolition of anti-personnel landmines and the destruction

of those currently stockpiled. Mexico welcomes the result

achieved, with the justified hope that the countries which

still remain outside the process will join in it.

Let us not continue to regard peace as an

unattainable objective or a utopian dream. Peace is not

only the absence of war, but a way of life which

establishes as the norm cooperation among free and equal

nations to overcome the problems that plague human

beings in all corners of the world. Peace is and must be

possible, because it is essential to us.

Mexico views drug trafficking as a serious threat to

its national security and to the health of humankind. We

maintain that this phenomenon promotes violence,

corruption and other unlawful activities, such as illegal

arms-trafficking, money-laundering and the diversion of

chemical precursors.

Among the possibilities offered by international

cooperation in this sphere, Mexico has been extremely

active in signing bilateral agreements to combat drug

trafficking and in participating in forums dealing with the

subject, such as the Inter-American Commission for Drug

Abuse and the Rio Group. To this must be added the

important process initiated by Mexico for the purpose of

holding, in June next year, a special session of the

General Assembly devoted to the consideration of the

world situation with regard to the illicit drug problem, so

that concrete measures against drug-trafficking and its

associated crimes can be agreed upon. We invite all the

Member States of the United Nations to participate

actively at the highest level in that special session.

Mexico rejects repressive police measures to prevent

and control migratory flows, convinced as we are that the

use of such methods, far from resolving problems, clouds

relations between frontier communities and many times

leads to the abuse and mistreatment of migrants by the

authorities responsible for applying migration policy.

As part of an effort to seek multilateral solutions to

this problem within the framework of the fifty-third

session of the Commission on Human Rights, the

Mexican delegation submitted a draft resolution on

migrants and human rights, which was adopted by

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consensus, both in the Commission and in the Economic

and Social Council.

On the basis of the Mexican initiative, the

Commission on Human Rights decided to establish a group

of experts to formulate recommendations on strengthening

the promotion, protection and exercise of these rights. We

have a well-founded hope that it will be possible to secure

the establishment of a minimum standard of conduct for

countries in relation to migrants, regardless of their legal

status.

Recently, in the states of Texas and Virginia of the

United States of America, two Mexican citizens were

executed after all the means of recourse that could be used

to obtain the commutation of their death sentences had been

exhausted. In neither of the two cases was the person

concerned able to contact the consulate of his country at the

time he was arrested. This was a flagrant violation of article

36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. This

irregularity probably cost them their lives. There are 35

more Mexicans who have been sentenced to death in the

United States, and a number of them did not have access to

the consular protection to which they were entitled. The

state of Texas went so far as to justify the omission by

saying that it was not a party to the Convention in question.

In the case of Virginia the State Department of the United

States offered “profuse apologies” to the Government of

Mexico after the Mexican national had been executed.

Mexico wishes to denounce, in this highest forum of

mankind, this appalling state of affairs. We shall be seeking

an advisory opinion from the Inter-American Court of

Human Rights on the legality of applying the death penalty

when an international convention that affects due process

has not been complied with. In our view, this violates the

spirit and letter of the International Covenant on Civil and

Political Rights and the American Declaration on the Rights

and Duties of Man, the juridical importance of which has

been recognized by the Court to which I have referred.

We are convinced that at this session of the General

Assembly — imbued with new leadership and having

placed on its agenda a number of reports containing

specific proposals for progress in the reform process,

including the one submitted by the Secretary-General

himself on 16 July this year — we are at the threshold of

a new phase in the Organization's development.

With the same resolve with which it has invariably

welcomed any effort to raise international affairs to the

sphere of law, Mexico, as a founding Member of the

Organization, reiterates its full readiness to contribute to

the efforts we shall have to make to face this challenge.

For a number of years, when the issue of reform was

discussed we were content to pursue the rationalization of

the work of the United Nations through changes which

did not entail amendments to its founding Charter.

Nevertheless, the present juncture is so crucial that we

need to analyse where the defects that have prevented us

from being more efficient as an Organization are to be

found, in order to redress them.

I would like to reiterate some of the basic positions

Mexico maintains on the subject of the reform of the

Organization, while at the same time adding now some

comments regarding the proposals made by the Secretary-

General, as well as referring to some decisions which we

have taken recently.

We maintain that absolutely scrupulous respect for

the principles of law embodied in the Charter, including

in the decisions the Security Council has to take on

matters affecting the peace and security of the world, is

a fundamental rule of conduct of countries in their

international relations.

Since 1945 Mexico has attacked the very concept of

a division between permanent and non-permanent

members of the Security Council, basically because the

existence of the two categories establishes a

discriminatory situation — a situation which is

exacerbated by the permanent members having been given

the right of the veto, a privilege that has certainly been

abused and has frequently prevented the Council from

fulfilling its basic task.

We also maintain that the need to increase the

capacity of the United Nations to prevent conflicts and

resolve those that exist requires not only the reform of the

Security Council and its working methods, but also the

strengthening of the mechanisms for resolving conflicts

through peaceful means.

With regard to the Secretary-General’s proposals, we

welcome them and view with special interest the idea of

strengthening the Secretariat by creating a post of Deputy

Secretary-General and establishing a strategic planning

unit. We do not believe, however, that the objective of

cutting costs should guide the reform process. Avoiding

duplication and implementing the programme of the

Organization in an optimal way are the objectives that

should guide our work.

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Mexico has repeatedly maintained that the financial

situation the Organization is experiencing stems from a

failure to comply with the obligations derived from the

Charter. The current financial situation has no link with the

assessment system. The way to deal with it is by making

full, timely and unconditional payments of the assessments

the General Assembly assigns to Member States. If we

must review the financial situation, then certainly all of us

Member States are ready to do so, as long as the result is

an equitable solution.

The financial crisis of the Organization should not lead

us to take decisions that distort the spirit of reform we

share. Carried to the extreme, this logic would call for the

designation of Ted Turner as a permanent member of the

Security Council, with the right of veto. By the way, we

appreciate Mr. Turner’s generosity.

We view with concern some of the proposals made for

merging subsidiary bodies of the Economic and Social

Council — for example, the Commissions on Narcotic

Drugs and Crime Prevention — which could in our view

devalue the treatment accorded to these subjects. The

merger of the Office of the United Nations High

Commissioner for Human Rights and the Centre for Human

Rights, on the other hand, would undoubtedly strengthen

treatment of the subject. Thus, while we consider that the

new tasks to be performed by the High Commissioner

should be in conformity with the provisions of the

international instruments in force and the guidelines of the

competent bodies in this field, we strongly support this

proposal. We also welcome Mary Robinson as High

Commissioner.

In relation to the reform of the Security Council, the

Mexican Government wishes to draw particular attention to

the following elements in the declaration adopted by the

Heads of State and Government of the Rio Group on 24

August 1997 in Asunción, Paraguay, marking the first

occasion on which that forum has conducted an in-depth

exchange of views on this important issue.

Reform of the Council is needed in order to correct

the imbalances in its current composition, improve its

decision-making mechanisms and make the conduct of its

work more transparent. A reform resulting in treatment that

discriminates between developed and developing countries

would not be acceptable. The veto should be restricted, as

a first step, to Chapter VII of the Charter. The expansion,

the reform of working methods and the question of the veto

form an integral part of the reform of the Security Council

and should form parts of the same agreement; in other

words, we view them as an indivisible whole.

Lastly, the Heads of State and Government of the

Rio Group reiterated their readiness to continue

participating actively in the Working Group dealing with

the subject, with a view to securing general agreement,

and decided to give their Ministers for Foreign Affairs

“responsibility for maintaining a broad dialogue on

the issue which takes the regional interest into

account and seeking understandings on the subject”.

Representativeness, political legitimacy, the regional

approach and consensus solutions are thus the elements

that should guide the work being undertaken.

To the extent that the above criteria are met, Mexico

wants to make it clear that it is fully prepared to

participate in an expanded, renewed and representative

Security Council. Nevertheless, the reform of the Security

Council must be a factor promoting cohesion and a

catalyst of cooperation among countries. At present, there

are so many and such diverse formulas that we run the

risk of the issue causing divisions and tensions.

Clearly, the international community has not yet

found the formula for achieving consensus on this delicate

matter. The issue calls for additional consultations and

better definitions of the very meaning of reform. States

cannot conceive of Security Council reform as a source

of national prestige or a way of consolidating regional

hegemonies. Any reform that is adopted must be inclusive

and strengthen regional equilibriums, which are

sometimes very fragile and very vulnerable.

Today, the States Members of the United Nations

appear, for the most part, to feel threatened more than

imbued with hope by the proposals that are circulating

with regard to the Security Council. A wave of lobbying

and national and regional expectations has been unleashed

in which the interests of the Organization itself are

conspicuous by their absence. This is precisely the

opposite of the spirit we want to achieve through reform.

It would be paradoxical and unacceptable if this

crucial challenge which the reform of the Security

Council poses us were to result in a fragmenting of the

United Nations at a time when unity of purpose and

community of efforts are more important than ever. The

issue is too important to be dealt with hastily.

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The reform package proposed by the Secretary-

General is capable of making rapid progress, supported by

a broad consensus. The issue of the Security Council does

not appear to have secured the same level of agreement.

Let us make progress on the first and continue to reflect

on the second.