Thailand, 2004

At the outset, allow

me to begin by congratulating you, Sir, on your

election to the presidency of the General Assembly at

its fifty-ninth session.

The United Nations has long stood for the loftiest

aspirations and the noblest causes of mankind. In times

of strife, it is the United Nations that holds out the

hope of harmony. In times of deprivation and suffering,

it is the United Nations that holds out the hope of

healing.

After almost 60 years, however, this

Organization, on which we pin so much hope, finds

itself in the midst of an existential crisis. In a world

ever more complex and less predictable, the United

Nations has been struggling to redefine its meaning,

identity and relevance for the era of globalization. To

confront those new realities and more, no challenge

will be greater than making the United Nations a more

effective Organization for the times. No challenge will

be greater than living up to the highest ideals of the

United Nations with more action and fewer words.

Our United Nations locomotive is powered by the

commitment and good will of its Members. It can take

us as far as we want to go, but only if we all pull

together. It can take us at any speed, but only if the

power of commitment and good will is fully energized.

For whatever it is and for whatever it will be, the

United Nations is the creation of its Members. So, in

demanding more of the United Nations, we must also

demand more of ourselves. And in asking the United

Nations to do more, we must also be ready to be

committed more.

The task ahead of us all is to make sure that all

concerted efforts are made nationally, regionally and

globally to advance the causes the United Nations

stands for and to restore total confidence in the

working of multilateralism. Multilateralism cannot

thrive or sustain without foundation. The foundation of

the United Nations and its multilateralism may be its

191 Member States, but what bond binds the 191

Member States to the United Nations multilateral

system?

The world’s strategic, political and economic

landscape of the twenty-first century is certainly far

different, more complex and more intertwined than that

of 1945. The layers of interwoven fibre that support

such a multilateral institution as the United Nations

must be modified and strengthened. It is Thailand’s

belief that, given today’s international landscape, there

is a greater need than ever to create new layers of

regional and subregional building blocks to strengthen

the United Nations multilateral foundation. Those

building blocks are the bond that binds nations to the

multilateral system.

In so doing, those regional and subregional

building blocks must bear the responsibility of

supporting and advancing the United Nations goals on

security and development: reducing poverty, combating

international terrorism, fighting transnational crime,

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promoting human dignity and human rights, and

upholding the human race as a whole.

In South-East Asia, the Association of South-East

Asian Nations (ASEAN) is to create its three-pillared

community — the ASEAN Economic Community, the

ASEAN Security Community and the ASEAN Socio-

Cultural Community — by the year 2020. The

realization of ASEAN communities, as in other

regional or subregional communities, requires bridging

the development gap.

It was Thailand’s initiative to take on the role of

building that bridge by introducing the Economic

Cooperation Strategy — known as ACMECS — and

thereby laying a faster track towards sustainable

development for its neighbours: Cambodia, Laos,

Myanmar and Vietnam. Through the creation of more

jobs and the narrowing of the income gap, that strategy

will serve as a building block for ASEAN’s three-

pillared community.

Further to the east, the ASEAN 10 are working

with its East Asian friends to create the East Asian

Community, comprising the ASEAN 10, China, Japan

and the Republic of Korea. To the west, Thailand sees

the need to connect south-east Asia’s development with

its friends in South Asia. The first summit of the

Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand

Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) — seven countries

in South-East and South Asia around the Bay of

Bengal — took place in Thailand in July, agreeing on a

free trade area within the group which forms an

economic and development bridge between the two

subregions.

These building blocks and that partnership are

part and parcel of the firm foundation for the Asia

Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), the first pan-Asian

development forum. The ACD was initiated on the

basis of Thailand’s conviction as to the virtue of

partnership in drawing strength from diversity and in

transforming diversity from a phenomenon that tears us

apart to a force that unites us.

With 25 member countries — countries from

every part of Asia — and still growing, the two-and-a-

half-year-old ACD will become an important building

block for multilateral cooperation and the United

Nations multilateral system. Through such building

blocks, we can learn to live with one another’s

differences and to cultivate a culture of peace and

tolerance in order to counteract the violence and terror

in today’s world.

We cherish multilateralism as the best means to

secure peace around the world. We cherish

multilateralism as the best means to develop prosperity

around the world. But above all, we cherish

multilateralism as the best means to achieve both

security and development worldwide. By the same

token, State security and human security, which foster

development, must always be two sides of the same

coin.

From Iraq to Saudi Arabia, from Indonesia to

Russia, shocking acts of terror have been perpetrated,

seemingly calculated to shake confidence and

undermine hope. As civilized societies, we must come

together to fight terrorism in all its forms and

manifestations, wherever it may occur. Terrorism is a

direct threat to State security, but it also undermines

human security.

That is why the development of human security

and State security must proceed on parallel tracks. The

world cannot be a secure place if its population is still

suffering from poverty and deprivation. The world

cannot really be peaceful if we cannot be successful in

our efforts to make progress towards achieving the

Millennium Development Goals.

That is why Thailand believes in the

enhancement of human security as a means of making

the nation secure. Domestically, the Ministry of Social

Development and Human Security is in charge of our

policy and implementation. Internationally, we are

active in the Human Security Network and in other

international arenas in which human security issues are

paramount.

Thailand has long advocated balanced

development, with freedom from fear and freedom

from want as the two inseparable prongs of human

security. We intend to continue to do so even more

intensively as Thailand prepares to assume the

chairmanship of the Human Security Network in 2005-

2006. We intend to further advocate such balanced

development by embracing partnership between the

Government and civil society.

The Human Security Network statement issued in

Thailand on the eve of the 15th International AIDS

Conference in Bangkok last July — which was

attended by more than 25,000 people and recognized

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HIV/AIDS as an issue of both development and human

security — clearly reflects development and security as

interconnected.

We view the issue of landmines in the same light.

They are as much a humanitarian issue as a

development one. As President of the Fifth Meeting of

the States Parties to the Mine-Ban Convention, I have

been working with the World Bank to reflect that

approach in carrying out mine action. I am grateful for

the Bank’s cooperation in realizing the development

dimension of the landmine issue. I also appreciate the

Bank’s readiness to mobilize resources for the training

of deminers and capacity-building for survivors so that

they may function as productive members of society.

We are confident that the World Bank partnership will

provide States parties to the Convention with greater

resources that will help to achieve the Convention’s

goal.

As we try to secure peace for the world; as

attempts are made to shatter our world’s peace and

security with terror, fear, hatred and violence; as many

struggle against poverty; and as we pledge our

commitment to the Millennium Development Goals,

the multilateral system that we need to rely upon is

facing challenges and threats to its effectiveness of

unprecedented a magnitude and proportion.

However, amid those challenges, we are fortunate

to see today nations building partnership with nations;

nations learning to live with differences, and even

turning differences and diversity into a common

strength; and nations learning to achieve a higher level

of tolerance, working at the economical, cultural and

political levels to nurture a culture of peace and a

culture of tolerance.

Through building blocks like the ones Thailand

has been initiating in Asia, throughout Africa, Latin

America, Europe and elsewhere, and through South-

South cooperation, a number of responsible nations are

ready to make contributions, in their own way, to turn

differences into cooperation and partnerships. Those

partnerships and building blocks deal with security and

development, the two defining principles of the United

Nations.

Those partnerships and building blocks can lay

the foundation for a more effective functioning of the

United Nations multilateral system — a system that

needs redefining and redesigning to respond effectively

to the new geosocial and political landscape of the

world.

Present-day realities — the emergence of

building blocks, the inextricable linkage between

development and security, and the need to develop

human and State security on parallel tracks — clearly

reflect how much the world has changed since 1945.

That is why United Nations reform is not a

question only of the effectiveness of any particular

organ of the Organization. Nor is it merely a question

of numbers or composition. It is fundamental,

therefore, to ask some pertinent questions.

How can the United Nations be made more

responsive to current needs and realities, so that it

devotes equal attention to the issues of security and

development? What would be the best mechanism to

deal adequately with issues of development and long-

term global economic issues? What would be the best

mechanism to deal adequately with post-conflict

nation-building and reconstruction? What would be the

best mechanism to ensure a greater participation of

civil society, recognizing it as an important

constituency for development and conflict resolution?

How to ensure cooperation among the multilateral

United Nations system and regional, subregional and

interregional organizations, recognizing them as

important building blocks for a more effective

multilateralism?

Security Council reform is needed. That much is

not in doubt. But if expansion is needed, what realistic

criteria are necessary for the expansion to reach greater

effectiveness? Does it need to be more transparent?

What are the roles and relationship among its

members?

Concerning the General Assembly, a body

represented now by almost 200 Member States, more

than three times larger than at the time of the founding

of the United Nations, is it too cumbersome and do we

remain content with its work process? How can the

Assembly be streamlined, energized, and become more

focused?

Those are not all the questions asked, and

Thailand is not the only one asking. But all of us will

have to find the answers. While we are all entitled to

different views, opinions, and analyses, ultimately the

decision must be made by us, the Member States of the

United Nations.

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Reform of such a venerable institution is never

easy. We have to be realistic about that. But we have

faith in the far-sightedness and wisdom of United

Nations Members to take a holistic view and choose

the right path, even if it is the path less travelled.

Thailand pledges to apply all our experiences in

forging partnerships in order to play a responsible and

constructive role in contributing to the United Nations

reform process. We have supported the High-level

Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and will look

forward to its report in December, as well as to the

fruitful and constructive debate by all of us thereafter.

Whether the United Nations recovers from its

mid-life crisis or sinks into irrelevance is up to us, the

Member States. For what it is and what it will become,

the United Nations is our own creation made of our

own commitment and goodwill. It is up to us to rise to

the challenge. Only when nations are united, will we

get the United Nations.