Uruguay, 2014

Ours is a harsh and difficult world — a complex, sometimes

disgraceful world where 6 million children die each

year before their fifth birthday, many from problems

related to malnutrition; where violence has taken on a

new dimension of terror and horror, with hundreds of

thousands of deaths in Libya, Syria and Iraq; and where

human rights violations and crimes against humanity

occur more frequently and with greater ferocity and are

the daily reality in those countries.

It is a world where more than 8 million people

die every year from tobacco consumption — an

incredible genocidal activity that cannot be stopped

and is promoted by markets that are increasingly more

open, free, less regulated, and licensed to operate in

contravention of people’s rights to life and health. It is

a world where military bombs strike and kill those in

schools, ethnic or religious minorities, or those who

may adhere to different political beliefs. It is a world

where natural disasters devastate countries one year

and again the following year and the next, as they have

in the brotherly countries of the Caribbean. In this

world, those who act as global police have bequeathed

social and political disasters wherever they have gone.

Global governance has been inspired not by rights, but

by interests. Those narrow interests were paid for with

people’s lives, human rights violations and migration,

in which people have had to leave their homes, cities

and countries, vulnerable and facing anguish, violence

and death again and again.

The United Nations has been unable to build a

system to find solutions, and it has failed fundamentally

in its ethical dimension. There has been no dearth of

work, documents or meetings, but there has been a lack

of solutions for people. Our shared ethics should be

based on the people. Our shared ethical structure in this

case must be capable of incorporating our diversity, to

free us with democracy and participation. We need to

grow and develop multilateralism, which is the only

path and basic instrument to promote that shared

ethical structure, ensuring ever more rights for ever

more people. We need to grow and develop in freedom.

The political and financial crises of this world are

linked to common values and ethical standards. Today’s

world is one of sheer confusion in which humanitarian

crises follow upon political crises, which in turn follow

upon financial, economic and social crises. Here in

this building we have our own microclimate; we wear

elegant suits, eat in expensive restaurants and drive

large, modern cars. What happens to people who are

not insiders but who suffer in refugee camps where

their families are killed, their villages are destroyed

and they are tortured, or where their environments are

destroyed by the effects of climate change? No one who

has gained a right should lose it the next day; we need to

protect that right. We need to offer better opportunities.

The Millennium Development Goals have served

as a useful tool to foster and channel efforts for specific

purposes, but we should not leave countries alone in

those efforts. Within that framework, we should step up

our efforts every year and seek to define more clearly

the sustainable development goals that will make up

the post-2015 sustainable development agenda in a

balanced, transparent and consensual way that envisions

integration of the three dimensions of sustainable

development: social, economic and environmental.

We should eliminate poverty from the perspective

of human rights and the recognition of those rights. The

wealth that comes into the world causes an increase in

the gross domestic product and exports and creates

more dynamic investment, all of which must be

accompanied by a logical recognition of rights. We are

more developed and richer when we have more rights to

exercise, when those rights are protected, and when we

have more guarantees against the growing inequalities

in the world. Poverty is experienced at many levels,

and each country is responsible for granting ever more

rights to help its people overcome poverty, improve

conditions and eliminate discrimination.

All efforts are valuable in every one of our countries,

and as is every non-governmental organization that

charts the way or denounces an abuse of human rights

or seeks to improve opportunities for women, children,

youths, retired people and migrants in different areas,

such as health care, education, social protection, decent

work, social and economic opportunities, whether they

are employed as rural or domestic workers. In every

individual there is an enormous potential that needs to

be protected and fostered.

The gender perspective that we need to promote

should also be aligned with key rights for every

individual who may suffer from even a little bit of

discrimination in this world. The women’s agenda is one

of the most powerful vectors for development that we

can design. Any type of discrimination involves some

form of underdevelopment, because discrimination

based on gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual

orientation or migratory status is contrary to what our

societies need.

Our societies must be more inclusive. Our

societies should incorporate every single one of those

rights into our political system and legal protections,

whether they relate to the right of same-sex marriage,

the right of those who cohabit, or the rights of those

with HIV. It is essential to fight for equality and to

eliminate discrimination based on sexual orientation or

gender identity. All rights are part of the best social

structure — love. Love is the essential factor that

eliminates inequality and discrimination, that makes us

all equal and that allows us to identify with our fellow

human beings.

The comprehensive human rights agenda must

be based on an increasing number of rights for an

increasing number of people so that everyone is able

to grow in freedom and equality. We need to continue

to make definitive progress on social topics such as

communicable and non-communicable diseases. That

includes those related to tobacco consumption, from

which, as I mentioned, over 8 million people die every

year. It is expected that that figure will continue to rise.

It is therefore crucial that we have national policies that

focus on healthy lifestyles.

In 2013, Uruguay legalized the sale of cannabis,

choosing an alternative regulatory model to combat drug

trafficking and its disastrous consequences in society.

We do not claim to be an example or a trailblazer, but

we do, obviously, want to redesign the kinds of policies

that have categorically failed to date and that have not

produced the expected results.

The critical situation in the world today with

respect to food security is a structural problem. It is

the result of bad global policies. One of every eight

people, many of them children, suffer from chronic

malnutrition. Humankind wastes more than a third of

all the food we produce, which would be enough to

resolve the problem of hunger. It is estimated that 30

to 50 per cent of the food produced every year is never

consumed by people, and the situation is worsening due

to soil erosion, growing water scarcity, climate change

and the improper use of toxic substances in the food

production chain.

Combating climate change is a top priority. The

need to implement policies today and not put them

off until tomorrow is the moral imperative of every

single individual in this Hall, so that we can give

concrete content to the sustainable development goals

and continue to grow. It is also important to continue

to develop civil and political society, which we must

support. The principle of the legal equality of States is

essential. That is why my country rejects, for example,

any coercive, unilateral or extraterritorial measures

that contravene the norms of international law and the

principles of the Charter of the United Nations. The

clearest example of that is the unjust blockade imposed

against Cuba. We would like to once again express

our strongest rejection of it. Uruguay would like to

unequivocally demand that Cuba be stricken from the

list of countries who harbour terrorists.

In the same vein, Uruguay would like to call for an

end to be put to financial speculation by vulture funds.

It is important that countries be able to restructure

their sovereign debt in predictable, unchanging and just

conditions without impacting development and, thus,

the well-being of their people.

Global peace and security are essential. The

eradication of any form of violence in this world is a

crucial issue. It is essential to have negotiated solutions

that parties agree on, and contributions by peacekeeping

missions are essential to providing maximal guarantees

in the world.

Human rights should be fully respected. They

should be fully monitored, and guarantees should

be provided in that regard to every individual. The

authorities should ensure that human rights are fully

monitored to ensure that their people enjoy the broadest

possible freedoms.

Uruguay deplores violence in all its forms. The

substance of violence is bad at its core. There is no

justification for violence to continue to spread in the

world today. Every time one right is undermined, it

is our responsibility, as those who govern, to lead

the fight for its restoration. Every time justice is not

rendered, it must be our mission, as leaders, to demand

accountability. Every time we recognize a new right,

it is our obligation to remember those who still cannot

exercise that right and to work tirelessly for their

benefit.