Thailand, 1995

On behalf of the

Government and people of Thailand, I should like to extend

my warmest congratulations to His Excellency Mr. Freitas

do Amaral, upon his election to the presidency of this

historic fiftieth session of the General Assembly. I am

confident that under his leadership the work and

achievements of this session will be as momentous as the

occasion we are celebrating.

I should also like to take this opportunity to pay

tribute to His Excellency Mr. Amara Essy, Foreign Minister

of Côte d’Ivoire, President of the forty-ninth session of the

General Assembly. My delegation truly appreciates his

leadership and his tireless dedication to the heavy

responsibilities entrusted to him during the past year. Under

his guidance, the forty-ninth session not only set the stage

for the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations but also

helped to reinforce its foundation and crystallized its agenda

for the years to come.

As this is the first time that I have had the honour to

address the General Assembly on behalf of my Government

and the people of Thailand in my capacity as Foreign

Minister, I should like to reiterate my Government’s full

and unflinching support for the purposes and principles of

the United Nations and its all-encompassing work and

endeavours. As a representative of a democratically elected

Government, I am particularly pleased to note the increased

role and involvement of the United Nations in promoting

the principles and practices of democracy. Thailand

believes that, as a global organization, the United Nations

has an important role to play in advancing the concept of

democracy and enhancing its principles in world affairs,

as well as in the functions of the United Nations itself. It

is with this conviction, therefore, that I should like to

pledge Thailand’s fullest support for United Nations

undertakings in this field.

During the past few years, much has been said on

the need to strengthen and revitalize the United Nations

for the next 50 years, to prepare it for the challenges of

the new century which will soon dawn upon us. Through

the years, a number of useful proposals and

recommendations on ways to improve the structure,

working methods, efficiency and agenda of the United

Nations have been made by numerous experts,

practitioners and enthusiasts, from both within and outside

the United Nations system. Yet much remains to be done

if the United Nations is to be, in the words of the

Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a

“mission-driven and result-oriented” Organization.

In this regard, Thailand believes that a number of

crucial ingredients are necessary to effectuate a successful

reform of the United Nations system. Most important, the

reform must be comprehensive and universal. The reform

process should take place in all agencies within the

United Nations system, encompassing all aspects of the

work and activities of the United Nations. A special effort

should be made to coordinate all reform initiatives,

particularly in three main organs of the United Nations,

namely the General Assembly, the Security Council and

the Economic and Social Council. For this reason,

Thailand fully supports the General Assembly’s decision

earlier this month to establish a high-level open-ended

working group on the strengthening of the United Nations

system in order to review and make observations on

reform proposals attained from various sources.

In line with this initiative, I should like to go a step

further and propose that, in addition to the high-level

open-ended Working Group, a focal point could be

designated to coordinate all reform initiatives in all

United Nations bodies. However, such a focal point need

not supersede or subsume existing reform mechanisms,

such as the High-Level Open-ended Working Group on

the Financial Situation of the Organization, the ad hoc

open-ended Working Group on an Agenda for

Development, and the Open-Ended Working Group on the

reform of the Security Council. All these bodies should

12

coexist and coordinate with one another, and complement

each other’s work.

Having been a United Nations Member since 1946,

Thailand shares the aspirations of all its fellow Members to

see a more consolidated, cohesive and efficient United

Nations system — one which would be able to fulfil the

noble purposes and principles of the Charter of the United

Nations; to deal urgently and effectively with threats to

international peace and security; to respond effectively to

the world’s economic, social and humanitarian needs; and

to promote the goals of human security and sustainable

development. Furthermore, Thailand is convinced that one

must also ensure that the United Nations of the twenty-first

century is more equitable, representative, democratic,

transparent and accountable, allowing for the widest

possible participation in all its decision-making and

activities and serving the interests of all mankind.

When speaking of these qualities, one is inclined to

ponder the work on the reform of the Security Council. As

the main organ entrusted with the primary responsibility of

maintaining international peace and security, the Security

Council must be restructured in such a way that it will be

able to perform its duties effectively, while also ensuring its

legitimacy and accountability. To achieve this goal, the

reformed working methods and composition of the Security

Council should allow for the widest participation by

Member States, particularly those that are developing

countries, while at the same time giving due recognition to

States whose present world positions reflect the current

global shift in power and influence.

However, to simply reform the Security Council

through its composition and working methods alone is not

enough. If the Security Council is to be truly efficient and

effective, we also need to rethink the way in which we

view the role of the Security Council. We need to be more

realistic in our expectations about what the Security Council

should do and should be able to accomplish in a conflict

situation. In other words, it is about time we considered

limiting the scope and depth of the peace-keeping activities

of the United Nations to a level where its involvement

would be practical, meaningful and cost-effective.

For this reason, my delegation welcomes the point

raised by His Excellency Professor Dr. Diogo Freitas do

Amaral, President of the General Assembly at its fiftieth

session, on the need to re-examine the United Nations

general policy on peace-keeping. My delegation also

welcomes the efforts being made in the Fifth Committee to

reform the process of approving peace-keeping budgets and

appropriations, which would help improve the

management of the United Nations financial resources.

My delegation is convinced that it would make good

managerial sense for us to try to curtail the dramatic

increase in the expenses of United Nations peace-keeping

and related operations, which, in 1995, have grown to

over $3 billion and are currently contributing to the

United Nations financial difficulty.

It is one thing to discuss United Nations efforts in

maintaining international peace and security in financial

and managerial terms and another to view them from the

human perspective. The tribal, ethnic and religious

conflicts that are the source of the ongoing hostilities in

places such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Somalia,

Lebanon and Cyprus existed long before the end of the

cold war, many of them even long before the United

Nations came into existence. There is not much the

United Nations can do as long as the peoples involved

have no desire to coexist in peace. That is why Thailand

fully supports the United Nations continuing work on the

Agenda for Peace, initiated by the United Nations

Secretary-General in 1992. In particular, Thailand believes

that the concepts of preventive diplomacy and

confidence-building, as espoused by the initiative, could

do much to promote peace and understanding in all

regions of the world.

Along this line, Thailand and the Association of

South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have, since 1971,

initiated the concept of a Zone of Peace, Freedom and

Neutrality in South-East Asia (ZOPFAN), the Treaty of

Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia in 1976, and,

most notably, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in

1994, involving 18 States from the Asia-Pacific region

and the European Union. It is most gratifying that, after

two years of existence, the ARF has increasingly proved

to be a useful instrument of peace and understanding and

has made significant contributions to efforts towards

preventive diplomacy and confidence-building in the

Asia-Pacific region.

During the past year, a number of important

developments have taken place within the realm of the

global economy. The establishment of the World Trade

Organization (WTO), although still in its initial stage,

augurs well for the eventual realization of a transparent,

balanced and effective world trading regime. Continued

efforts should be made to integrate major trading

economies, as well as those in transition, into the WTO

framework in order to more fully to globalize the norms

and practices of free and fair trade.

13

Similarly, the conclusion of the Uruguay Round

agreements provided hope for a more equitable and open

global trading system. It is essential that these agreements

be implemented in full as soon as possible. It is essential

also that States parties refrain from using unilateral and

arbitrary measures, which would be contrary to the spirit

and provisions of the agreements and obstruct the free flow

of trade between States and regions. The sad reality is that,

in spite of the agreements, trading States, such as Thailand,

still suffer from unilateral and arbitrary measures in areas

such as agriculture, textiles and light-manufacture products.

For this reason, Thailand believes that further

discussions and negotiations on the accelerated

implementation of the Uruguay Round commitments and

related issues are still necessary. Efforts should also be

made to ensure that the outcome of these discussions and

negotiations would make it possible to strike a balance

between the interests and concerns of developing countries

and that of their more developed counterparts. Thailand

further believes that to this end, United Nations institutions

such as the United Nations Conference on Trade and

Development (UNCTAD) can play a major role in

amalgamating, and giving expression to, the interests and

concerns of all involved, particularly those of the

developing, and least developed, members of the world

economy.

Global trade agreements are not the only ones that

bring countries closer together. Another welcome

development in the international economy is the closer

cooperation among regional and subregional economic

groupings. The linkages among these entities in various

parts of the world have, in effect, created a network of

interdependence that has tremendous potential and would

benefit all concerned. However, continued care must be

exercised to make certain that these groupings will not turn

inward and become mutually exclusive regional trading

blocs. Such a development would be detrimental to the

spirit of multilateralism that has been fostered by this body

for the past 50 years and to the world’s trading system.

While economic cooperation within a regional context

such as ASEAN has become commonplace, it is noteworthy

that cooperative frameworks now span the divide of North

and South, East and West. Oceans are no longer a

separation. Efforts such as the Asia-Pacific Economic

Cooperation (APEC) and the ASEAN-European Union

promise to forge closer economic cooperation across the

regions, regardless of geographical distance and boundaries.

As these growing networks of cooperation extend their

reach across the globe and transoceanic trade multiplies,

geographical and economic distinctions become

increasingly irrelevant. The sharp dividing lines between

the rich and the poor, the Western and the Eastern

hemispheres, are indeed diminishing.

Sustainable economic development must go hand in

hand with sustainable human development. There can be

no prosperity as long as people are denied their basic

rights and the satisfaction of their needs. As a country

that attaches high importance to the principles of social

equity, social welfare and human rights, Thailand fully

supports the United Nations efforts in areas such as the

alleviation of poverty, education, health care and the

combating of drug abuse and trafficking. Drug trafficking,

in particular, has always received special attention from

Thailand. Geographically located near the so-called

“golden triangle”, Thailand has consistently supported, at

both the global and the regional level, international efforts

aimed at the prevention, control and suppression of

narcotic drugs. This support has been intensified in recent

years with the advent of the twentieth-century epidemic

of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

Thailand believes that like the drug problem, the disease,

with its devastating effects on mankind, is of global

concern and should be dealt with jointly by the

international community. In this context, my delegation

would like to voice its support for the United Nations

ongoing work on initiatives relating to the Agenda for

Development, which would help us find more pragmatic

approaches to development and address the

aforementioned economic, social and human security

issues in all their dimensions in a more effective and

fruitful manner.

In spite of the many achievements of the United

Nations during the past 50 years, in the year 1995, we

still find ourselves far away from what the authors of the

United Nations Charter had hoped for and dreamed of in

1945. Therefore, in this fiftieth anniversary year, it is

most appropriate that we, the peoples of the United

Nations, rededicate ourselves to the realization of the

hopes and dreams of the framers of the United Nations

Charter, for our own sake and for the sake of our

children. Through the years, we have asked and taken

much from the United Nations. We continue to do so with

much greater intensity and in much greater multitude. It

is now time for us to reinvest in the United Nations. We

must give back not only quantitatively but also

qualitatively. Imperfect as it is, there is no substitute for

the United Nations.

14

The generation of the Second World War created the

United Nations for us. They lit for us all a beacon of hope.

It is now our responsibility to bequeath to our posterity a

brighter beacon, a revitalized and strengthened United

Nations which would withstand the test of time and help us

overcome the challenges of the next century.