Mexico, 2000

My

country is pleased at the election of Mr. Harri Holkeri

to preside over the work of the fifty-fifth session of the

General Assembly. We are certain that, with his talent,

ability and experience, the efforts of this extremely

important Assembly session will be highly productive.

My delegation would also like to extend its recognition

to Mr. Theo-Ben Gurirab for his outstanding work as

President of the Assembly at the session that has just

concluded.

Last Friday, during the Millennium Summit, the

leader of the Mexican nation, Ernesto Zedillo, stated

his personal commitment and that of the Mexican

people to the values and principles that sustain the

activities of our Organization. Today, through me, the

Mexican Government renews its willingness to

continue working and participating constructively to

strengthen the United Nations, the reason for those

historic meetings. We will do this guided by our

traditional policy in the multilateral arena: by

encouraging dialogue, consensus, and unrestricted

respect for international law. We will do this

convinced, as well, that we must make good use of this

opportunity to give renewed impetus to the United

Nations, so that it can progress in solving the

challenges that we confront, and can fulfil the goal of

building, in this new century, a safer, more just and

equal world for all. As the President of Mexico stated,

we will do it confident that we Mexicans have the

necessary foundation to do our share in achieving the

targets contained in the report of the Secretary-General

and the Millennium Declaration.

My country is convinced that the practice of

democracy is indispensable for the development of

nations and to guarantee respect for individual

freedoms. But we are also sure that democracy is

sustained by the sovereign will of its citizens and is,

therefore, a domestic process that cannot be imposed

from the outside, although, without a doubt, it can and

must be nourished by international dialogue between

countries and by the cooperation that can be provided

by the United Nations.

Mexico is also convinced that, just as the

predominance of democracy within the membership of

our Organization is imperative, it is essential that

relations between nations follow democratic practices

as well, and that these, in turn, be reflected in

organizations such as the United Nations that we, the

peoples of the world, have created to organize our

coexistence.

Today we find ourselves with an extraordinary

opportunity to advance in that direction: to cover

further ground in the democratization of our

Organization; to achieve a level of democratization that

allows the United Nations to successfully fulfil the

mission with which we entrusted it in San Francisco,

the validity of which we seek to renew today, a level of

democratization that reinforces the legitimacy of our

Organization and invigorates its initiatives, a level of

democratization that supports the domestic processes

that many of our countries are undertaking and will

consequently be enriched by them.

Mexico has stated on various occasions that

strengthening the General Assembly, the international

community's most representative universal forum, is

indispensable to guarantee the full democratization of

the United Nations. We have also asserted that it is

necessary to modify the structure and operation of the

Security Council, so that it can fully shoulder its

responsibilities in the maintenance of peace and

international security.

It is for this reason that my country has

repeatedly proposed that we undertake a profound

reform of the Security Council; a reform that is not

limited to modifications of its composition; a reform

that also considers the Council's working methods and

decision-making process; a reform that allows that

important organ of the United Nations to reflect the

plurality and diversity of our Organization; a reform

that takes into account the transformations of the

political landscape in recent times; a reform that does

not lead to the creation of new centres of power and

privilege; a reform that regulates and limits the scope

of the veto, avoiding its abuse or selective application;

a reform that institutionalizes the relationship between

the Security Council and the General Assembly so that

their links, contacts and exchanges of information are

clearly regulated; in short, a reform that guarantees that

the Security Council's decisions have the legitimacy

that can come only from the universal assent of the

General Assembly.

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Based precisely on this unwavering faith in the

universality of international law, which Mexico fully

shares, my country has engaged in its most important

battles in this world Organization. Mexico has always

been ready to participate in codifying international law,

but we have continually insisted that progress along

this path should involve all of the countries that make

up the community of nations. This is the only

guarantee for preserving legality and for ensuring

cordial, constructive and mutually beneficial relations

between all of us.

The humanitarian crises in Kosovo, East Timor

and Sierra Leone, to refer to only a few recent cases,

have made us reflect on the scope of and limits to

current international law. These crises have made us

see that it is imperative to find a balance between the

urgent need to respond adequately to humanitarian

emergencies and the need to respect the sovereign

integrity of all States. These crises, in short, have

alerted us to the need to transform ourselves into a true

assembly that analyses and proposes new paths, and

they have alerted us to what holds us back from

becoming an authentic forum where different positions

are heard and where answers that realistically reflect

the possible consensuses are found.

We must therefore move forward and begin a

process of further codifying our international law; a

process based on the sovereign equality of States as a

living reality, not just a theoretical principle; a process

in which the weak and the strong, the rich and the poor,

and the small and the large can express themselves

openly. A process that clearly establishes the rules of

the game. A process that enshrines democracy as the

only way in which to reach truly legitimate agreements.

Because we believe in these democratic values,

Mexico has always opposed the legitimization, in

practice, of any type of interference, especially when it

is based on unilateral decisions or the decisions of a

small group of countries. To the contrary, we have

reiterated that the United Nations must be provided

with a modern political structure that permits it to

confront the new challenges to international peace and

security brought by the end of the cold war. For this

reason, we have insisted on the need to begin, as soon

as possible, a broad process of consultation; a process

that is absolutely democratic; a process that allows for

the discernment of the mood of our community of

nations in order to respond correctly and in timely

fashion to humanitarian crises without weakening the

Organization by doing so.

I call upon the President of the General Assembly

to formally begin, as soon as possible, this broad

process of consultation that will allow us to reflect

together on this issue of crucial importance for the

United Nations.

Mexico stands ready to continue contributing to

the ongoing process of codifying international law to

which I have referred. We will do so with the same

confidence with which, in recent years, we have

adhered to a significant number of international

instruments proposed by this, our most important world

Organization. We will do so with the same will with

which we Mexicans have committed ourselves to

modifying our national legislation in order to comply

with the obligations that derive from those instruments.

Such is our trust in international law and its

advancement.

With this trust, only a few days ago my country

signed the Statute of the International Criminal Court,

as well as the Protocols to the Convention on the

Rights of the Child. With this trust we ratified, this

year, the Convention on the Status of Refugees and its

Protocol, as well as the Convention relating to the

Status of Stateless Persons.

With this trust, last week Mexico deposited its

ratification instrument for the Kyoto Protocol. Some

months ago, we did the same with regard to the

International Convention on the Protection of the

Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their

Families.

With that same trust, Mexico continues its fight to

achieve the total elimination of nuclear weapons and

tests, and reiterates the call made last April, by the

group of countries, including Mexico, that are part of

the new agenda for disarmament initiative, for the

nuclear Powers to commit themselves to the total

elimination of their nuclear arsenals.

Future generations deserve a world free of

nuclear weapons. They deserve a world that is also free

from the uncontrolled manufacture and trafficking of

conventional arms. They deserve, without a doubt, a

world where anti-personnel landmines cease to claim

thousands of innocent lives.

Our commitment to the protection and

preservation of the human race extends also to

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combating the pandemics of our time. Today, a fatal

disease, AIDS, threatens to cut off the existence of

millions of beings on the planet. This is why only two

days ago, the women Secretaries and Ministers for

Foreign Affairs of 13 countries sent a letter to the

Secretary-General in support of his call to stop and

reverse the spread of AIDS by 2015 and to provide

special assistance to children orphaned by this scourge.

I want to renew the appeal of our 13 nations to all the

Members of the United Nations to support the Joint

United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)

and to resolutely launch the common efforts that are

necessary to fight this global scourge.

As is well said in the report of the Secretary-

General and in the Declaration of the Millennium

Summit, the protection of our common environment,

the fight against transnational organized crime, the

promotion of human rights, attention to vulnerable

individuals, including children, the fight for

disarmament, and international aid to respond to the

demands of the least developed countries these are

the foundation for allowing the people of the world to

live not only free of fear and misery, but also with

hope. These are also the challenges that our

Organization and its Members must respond to, by

consolidating an international architecture that is

sustained by democracy and not by the concentration of

power; an international architecture based on respect

for international law, and not on unilateral decisions;

an international architecture that encourages the

universal character of our community and not selfish

individualism; in short, an international architecture

that emphasizes solidarity and cooperation as the

values that give sustenance and permanence to the

Organization.