Tunisia, 2012

I should like

to start by conveying to the friendly Republic of Serbia

and to President Jeremić personally my most heartfelt

congratulations on his election to the presidency of

the General Assembly at its sixty-seventh session. I

should like also to congratulate Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz

Al-Nasser, President of the Assembly at its previous

session, as well as Mr. Ban Ki-moon, for the efforts that

they have undertaken in favour of all peoples’ aspirations

that are aimed at achieving stability, peace, security

and development throughout the world. I should like to

convey to them the congratulations of my people, who,

through the revolution of 17 December 2010, entered

the fraternity of free people and democratic States.

I should now like to express our views regarding

the major issues facing our world today.

Today we are witnessing the great evil perpetrated

by a few groups that are using the media to disseminate

their destructive and chaotic views. That makes clear the

great chasm that exists with respect to the psychological,

social and economic crises of our societies, which,

unfortunately, exacerbate the phenomena of violence

and extremism. Those warning signals need to be

addressed very seriously. The First and Second World Wars did not happen in a vacuum; they were the result

of extremist statements and policies that led to human

carnage and claimed tens of millions of lives.

We in Tunisia believe that we must work under the

auspices of the United Nations to bring about peace

for all humankind and to avert confrontations between

civilizations. Tunisia’s access to this forum of free and

democratic peoples came at a very high cost. Tens of

thousands of political prisoners, as well as exiles, were

tortured before the revolution; they were the ones who

paid the price. During the revolution, more than 300

citizens were killed and 2,000 others injured.

A year and a half after the revolution, Tunisia

continues to move forward. We are, however, faced by

a great many difficult economic and social problems,

the legacy of a regime that lasted for more than two

decades and whose practices included corruption,

fraud and repression. But that price is negligible when

compared with that paid by our brothers in Egypt,

Yemen and Libya, and, of course, by our brothers in

Syria, more than 25,000 of whom have been killed and

tens of thousands injured, along with the destruction

of the country’s infrastructure. All of that will forever

mark the Syrian people and affect their future for

decades to come.

That high price is something we all should

remember in facing the difficulties that hamper us in

the building of an international system that will work

to avert, lay siege to and curtail those accursed political

systems that threaten the freedom of peoples and peace

among peoples. The Republic of Tunisia, which has just

emerged from dictatorship and which is well aware of

the high toll taken by such a regime, proposes that we

create a new mechanism to fight dictatorships, which

are a disease threatening peace, stability and security

as well as the prosperity of peoples. They not only have

an impact on the freedom of people in a given country,

but they also give rise to hatred and wars.

Europe was able to enjoy peace, stability and

prosperity only after the fall of the fascist, Nazi and

Communist dictatorships. In the medical field, methods

were developed by the World Health Organization that

made possible the elimination of polio in the twentieth

century; that would have seemed pure fiction to doctors

in the nineteenth century. We have acquired political

maturity and awareness in the face of dictatorship,

which, more than diseases, poses a serious threat to the

lives of hundreds of millions of people.

Because the United Nations, through its Charter

and institutions, has at its disposal a legal arsenal that

can serve to bring about basic freedoms and peace

among peoples, we invite the Organization to declare

that dictatorship is a social and political scourge that

must be eliminated through the combined efforts

of all peoples throughout the world. It behoves us

to implement a bold and ambitious programme to

eliminate dictatorship in the same manner in which we

got rid of polio and smallpox.

The creation of the International Criminal Court

(ICC) demonstrates that we are on a historic journey of

building international institutions that has not yet been

completed. The ICC is but a further step in the direction

of the complete elimination of dictatorship. However,

the Court tackles crimes only after their commission;

what we require are mechanisms to prevent dictatorship

from taking root in the first place.

Contemporary dictatorships are based on the use

of excessive force and give themselves false legality

through the holding of fraudulent elections. They use

the appearance of democracy to undermine democracy

itself. Those kinds of elections took place in Tunisia

in 1999, 2004 and 2009. Our deposed dictator was

prepared to remain in power forever. He intended, for

the 2014 elections, to rewrite the Constitution so he

could run for a third term. Each time he re-imposed the

status quo because he knew that no internal domestic or

international mechanisms existed that could rein in his

political activities.

During that entire period, the Tunisian democratic

opposition could not but note the paralysis of domestic

and international laws and legal mechanisms. It was

simply impossible for the opposition to turn to a

Tunisian or international constitutional court. Although

it was normal that such a constitutional court did not

exist in the country, it certainly was not normal that

a mechanism to that effect should fail to exist within

the United Nations, because the Charter of the United

Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights, as well as many other international conventions

and instruments, backed by General Assembly

resolutions, all are texts that could be viewed as being

the charter of humankind. The only thing missing is an

implementation mechanism.

The Republic of Tunisia therefore proposes the

creation of an international constitutional court similar

to the ICC, which could be seized of challenging illegal constitutions or charters, or fraudulent elections. Such a

court would have to be competent to consider a number

of disputes and issues, to rule on the legality or illegality

of elections that are not in line with the Charter of the

United Nations. All systems, especially democratic

ones, would face the clear duty of being recognized by

the international constitutional court. The court would

also make recommendations and provide the necessary

advice to all those who so request. The body could serve

as a deterrent against any despot, any tyrannical regime,

in the case of any such regime forging election results.

The court would contribute to the very disappearance

of those regimes, because it would strengthen the role

of peaceful civic resistance. Otherwise, the only choice

would be to live under oppression or to turn to violence.

We all know just how expensive that can be.

Tunisia strongly advocates the protection of

the environment to ensure that we leave succeding

generations a sustainable world.

We also want to leave a world living in peace and

to douse the flames of war in Afghanistan, Mali, the

Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Sudan and

the Middle East. Tunisia requests rapid humanitarian

intervention to help save the heroic Syrian people and

to ensure the departure of President Bashar Al-Assad

and his criminal regime. We call for the deployment of

an Arab peace force to guarantee the transition and to

create a democratic State, which would be pluralistic

and that could live in peace.

Tunisia wishes to reiterate its support for the

Palestinian people and their right to a just peace and

the release of thousands of prisoners. We support the

creation of a Palestinian State with Al-Quds as its

capital and with membership in this Organization.

We condemn violence against women and children.

We denounce the fanaticism, the anti-Semitism and the

Islamophobia that one often sees. We call for tolerance

to allow all religious minorities, including Muslims in

Burma and Christians living in all Muslim countries, to

exercise their faith freely. The chasm between the rich

and the poor must be reduced.

During the upcoming Nuclear Materials

Conference, Tunisia will insist on the need to free

the Middle East from nuclear weapons and all other

weapons of mass destruction.

We champion pluralistic, tolerant civilian societies

and institutions. Tunisia is the country of peaceful

democratic revolution. Tunisia asks the General Assembly to draw upon

Article 22 of the Charter of the United Nations, by which

it may establish such subsidiary organs as it deems

necessary, and create an international constitutional

court and to include this item in the agenda of its

sixty-eighth session. I hope this proposal will enjoy

the broadest possible support by democratic States and

the mobilization of the international community, which

played such an important role in the creation of the

International Criminal Court. We hope that the same

will be done to ensure that the proposed international

constitutional court becomes a part of a comprehensive

system that would enable our people and succeeding

generations to avoid a scourge of blood and tears like

that which has cost us so dearly.