Slovakia, 2000

At the outset, I would

like to warmly congratulate you, Mr. President, on your

election to the presidency of the General Assembly at

this session. I am confident that your vast experience

and outstanding record of achievements will guarantee

the best results for this session. I wish you every

success in this crucial role. I would also like to extend

my thanks to your predecessor, His Excellency Mr.

Theo-Ben Gurirab, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the

Republic of Namibia, for the productive way in which

he managed the affairs of the fifty-fourth session. I also

welcome Tuvalu as the new Member of our

Organization.

Globalization is definitely the most typical

phenomenon of the upcoming turn of the millennium.

It is frequently criticized and at other times is accepted

uncritically; however, it definitely brings

unprecedented progress and, at the same time,

problems and challenges. The economic boom also has

another aspect in the form of large social differences.

The environment often suffers from the industrial

boom. Due to new communication technologies, direct

human contact is forgotten. I could continue in this

vein.

The world community also has to face other

problems, which are beginning to display a

transregional nature — for instance, organized crime,

terrorism and emerging armed conflicts. Who is better

prepared to tackle all this than the United Nations —

the most global institution we have.

In my view, the Millennium Summit was the most

significant step on this very demanding road. It spelled

progress when compared with similar meetings in the

past, as this time it dealt with the urgent problems of

civilization to a greater extent. Moreover, the

Millennium Summit managed to draw the attention of

the whole world to problems which the United Nations

considers to be of the greatest importance. However, to

make progress, a lot still remains to be done.

Therefore, I will take the liberty of commencing my

contribution precisely with the topic of the reform of

the United Nations.

The report of the Secretary-General, “We the

Peoples: the role of the United Nations in the twenty-

first century” (A/54/2000) displays great promise in

this direction. The United Nations reform process must

continue. The key point is the reform of the Security

Council. The positions and the opinions of Member

States on the crucial issues of Security Council

reform — the increase in the number of permanent and

non-permanent members and the issue of the veto

right — unfortunately still vary greatly, making it very

difficult to achieve a substantive outcome in the near

future. The results of the work the Open-ended

Working Group on the Question of Equitable

Representation on and Increase in the Membership of

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the Security Council and Other Matters related to the

Security Council for the past seven years are not

encouraging. Despite this, Slovakia will support the

renewal of the Working Group's mandate for the fifty-

fifth session of the General Assembly. We consider

next year's session of the Working Group to be crucial

for the further advancement of the reform process

within this forum.

Slovakia has already presented its position

regarding to the key issues of Security Council reform.

We support strengthening its representative character,

effectiveness and transparency of the decision-making

process and working methods.

With regard to the enlargement of the Council, we

consider the increase in the number of members in both

categories to be justified. However, in our view, the

number of members in both categories does not have to

necessarily increase simultaneously. The failure to

reach an agreement on one category should not prevent

the eventual conclusion of an agreement on the

enlargement of the other. The total number of members

should not exceed 25, in order not to jeopardize the

Council's effectiveness and flexibility in immediately

reacting to crisis situations. The Group of Eastern

European States, whose membership has more than

doubled over the past years, should not be omitted

from the enlargement of the Security Council.

Since its founding, the United Nations, as the

world's universal organization, has under the Charter

assumed primary responsibility for maintaining

international peace and security. This concept

continues to be fundamental to the United Nations and

is reinforced every time an international development

necessitates a call to our community for rapid

peacekeeping response.

The evolution in the nature of United Nations

peacekeeping operations — from performing

traditional military functions to the greater need for

multidisciplinary approaches, including interim

administration and post-conflict peace-building —

along with the significant expansion of regional and

international conflicts worldwide and the growing

demand for the involvement of the United Nations in

their prevention and settlement, puts the United

Nations potential in this vital area to a challenging test.

The need for peacekeeping has never been greater.

However, such international assistance can be effective

only if it is based on peacekeeping operations well

suited to dealing with all the problems and the needs of

the situation to which it is deployed.

Therefore, we welcome the report of the expert

Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, which we

consider to be an important step toward a meaningful

reform of United Nations peacekeeping activities. The

Brahimi report (A/55/305) presents a serious challenge

to various actors involved in meeting the requirements

of today's peacekeeping operations.

One should agree, and recent experience has

confirmed, that good intentions in deploying

peacekeeping operations must be supported by clearly

defined and achievable mandates. Only an adequate

mandate and appropriate resources, both human and

financial, can bring success to and strengthen the

credibility of the United Nations in its peacekeeping

efforts, and not cause more problems. It requires an

appropriate and responsible approach by key players,

including the Security Council, Member States and the

United Nations Secretariat, in acting promptly on their

own, as well as effective cooperation to give a rapid

and decisive response to conflict situations.

Apart from the reform of the Security Council,

qualitative improvements must be achieved in

modernizing and streamlining the responsible

departmental units in the Secretariat to enhance their

efficiency and the effectiveness of their output as much

as possible. At the same time, Member States must

support the ability of the Secretariat to carry out the

tasks we ask it to do, since its ability to act depends on

the will of Member States to contribute troops and

other assistance to potential peacekeeping operations.

Member States should provide adequately

prepared troops who are able to fulfil the tasks

assigned. Simultaneously, peacekeeping operations

should, from the very beginning, be provided with

adequate financial resources to support the wide array

of mandates. It is therefore equally important to ensure

that the financial system providing the funding for

United Nations peacekeeping is stable, equitable and

transparent and that there is a flexible mechanism in

place with the ability to stabilize finances for current

and future peacekeeping operations. The revision of the

United Nations peacekeeping scale of assessment over

the next few months will provide a genuine opportunity

for the General Assembly to take a critical look at the

current method of assessment and, with the emerging

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consensus of Member States, to take important steps to

find a viable solution to this pressing issue.

I am pleased to announce today our strong

support for revising the financial structure of

peacekeeping and our readiness to meet our financial

commitment under a reformed peacekeeping scale.

We would like to express our appreciation to the

Secretary-General for his significant role in the process

of United Nations reforms. We welcome his

commitment to implement the changes recommended

in the Brahimi report for which he is responsible. We

should do our part and continue our personnel, material

and financial support to United Nations peacekeeping

missions. Slovakia has traditionally been participating

in peacekeeping operations and, as part of its latest

activities, is ready to send an engineering unit to the

United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea

authorized by the Security Council last Friday.

Due to the geopolitical position of Slovakia, we

closely follow the situation in the Balkans. We are

aware that problems can only be effectively addressed,

and crises and tension in the region eliminated, when

all the countries concerned are maximally involved;

when they are willing to collaborate to search for

compromises, and are prepared to overlook historical

feuds with a view to developing relations in a

complicated region, from both an ethnic and

nationalistic perspective. We hope that the elections in

the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia will be held in a

peaceful atmosphere, and that neither of the parties will

resort to violence. It is necessary that the elections

abide by the rule of law, and that they be democratic,

free and fair. Otherwise, it will be difficult to achieve

the basic objective: the stabilization of the situation in

the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and in the region as

a whole.

In the area of disarmament, we welcome the

consensus achieved at the sixth Review Conference of

the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of

Nuclear Weapons, which confirmed commitments to

the provisions of the Treaty and its strengthened review

process. This positive impulse needs to be efficiently

utilized in the process of further implementation of the

Treaty.

We also welcome the ongoing preparatory

process for the United Nations Conference on the Illicit

Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its

Aspects in 2001. The outcome of the Conference

should provide us with clear strategies on how to cope

with the issue in its complexity.

Slovakia fully supports respect for the norms of

international law and the execution of international

treaties in good faith, in compliance with the principle

of pacta sunt servanda. The harmonization of

traditional theories based on the principle of State

sovereignty as the basic element of international law

with newly developing principles based on global

respect and guarantees of fundamental human rights

and freedoms will be necessary for the future

development of international law. New ideas and

concepts should be the subject of extensive discussion

and negotiations between States, resulting in a

consensus in the international community, as was the

case 55 years ago, when the United Nations Charter

was adopted.

Slovakia supports the early establishment of the

International Criminal Court. The results of the

negotiations of the Preparatory Commission for the

International Criminal Court, especially the adoption of

the draft Rules of Procedures and Evidence and the

Elements of Crimes by consensus last June, are very

encouraging.

Slovakia equally supports the work of the United

Nations in the field of combating international

terrorism. The adoption of the international Convention

for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism is the

latest fruit of the work in this field. Slovakia will sign

the Convention by the end of the year 2000.

In facing all the challenges of our era the United

Nations must prove its relevance. Slovakia is

convinced of the irreplaceable role of the United

Nations in a whole range of global issues, the solution

of which is practically impossible by Member States

alone, on an individual or group basis, or at a regional

level. If we want the term globalization to have only

positive connotations, the endeavour to tackle the

accumulated problems must become a matter of the

highest interest to all of us. I believe that this

Assembly will contribute to this endeavour.