Belize, 2008

On behalf of the

Government and people of Belize, I congratulate you,

Mr. President, on your assumption of the presidency of

the General Assembly at its sixty-third session. It is a

distinct honour for all Central American and Caribbean

peoples. I assure you of Belize’s fullest support during

your term of office.

I would also wish to thank your predecessor,

Srgjan Kerim, for the sterling manner in which he

presided over the sixty-second session. I also wish to

pay tribute to our very capable Secretary-General, who

works so assiduously to discharge the multifaceted

responsibilities of the United Nations.

Belize accepts with pride and humility the

invitation so kindly extended to us to share our vision

of how we should address the great challenges of the

day and how we can achieve the unity we need in order

to do so effectively.

Being a very small State in a world that has long

been characterized by greed, indifference, arrogance,

apathy, selfishness and myopia, Belize is no stranger to

crises. In our evolution from colonialism to

independence, we have had far more than our fair share

of them and we survived them all.

Thus, while we join in the consensus, so

forcefully articulated over the past week, that never has

there been a time in the recorded history of humankind

that the world has been beset at one and the same time

by so many crises of potentially catastrophic

proportions as it is today, we remain convinced that the

solution to those crises is not beyond the collective

wisdom of humankind. On the contrary, we are

convinced that our world leaders, who gathered within

these hallowed walls this past week, possess the moral,

intellectual and financial capacities to overcome the

present challenges and to secure the future of our

planet Earth and of all who dwell upon it. We therefore

look to the future with optimism.

My Government believes that there are a number

of preconditions that must be satisfied before we can

hope to successfully combat the challenges we face.

The first is the acceptance by all peoples that we are

our brothers’ keeper and that, as you, Sir, so poignantly

stated, “either we treat each other as brothers and

sisters or we witness the beginning of the end of our

human species” (, p. 5).

The second and equally important precondition is

the acceptance by all peoples that we are heirs to and

owners of the Earth and of all the resources thereon

and that no individual race or nation has a greater

claim to them than anyone else. And the third and

perhaps most important precondition of all is the

acceptance by all peoples that our planet as we know it

is not indestructible, that it can be mortally damaged, if

not destroyed, by what we do to it, and that none of us

would escape the consequences of such a tragic turn of

events.

The experience of our own country, Belize, bears

out the fact that the treatment we mete out to each

other determines to a large extent our own destinies.

The hardships and deprivations which Belizeans

suffered in the past and continue to suffer even today

have been caused in large part not by nature dealing us

a bad hand but by the human exploitation and

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selfishness of which we are the victims. Nature itself

has been bountiful to us — so much so that our

national poet, Samuel Haynes, who penned the lyrics

of our national anthem, was moved to begin one of the

stanzas with the following line, “Nature has blessed us

with wealth untold”.

Yet with all our abundant natural resources, it is

very doubtful whether we will, despite our best efforts,

be able to achieve the Millennium Development Goals

by the year 2015. We are not in a position to say today

with any degree of certainty that by 2015 all the

children in our country, boys and girls alike, will

complete publicly funded primary education. Nor can

we forecast that by 2015 we will attain gender equality,

reduce childhood mortality by two thirds and maternal

mortality by three quarters, and reverse the spread of

HIV/AIDS and other diseases.

The truth is that small countries like ours are not

the masters of our own destinies. We are severely

constrained in what we can do to advance our own

development agendas because we simply do not

possess and cannot readily access the human, financial

or technological resources needed to develop our

people and to secure our futures. And given the

predatory nature of the world we live in today, we will

never be able to attain those resources using our own

devices. We will most certainly need the assistance of

the international community. We live in an

interdependent world.

While the developed countries may possess all

the human, financial and technological resources we

lack, the crises which now confront us are making it

manifest that not even the richest and most powerful of

them can successfully withstand and combat the

catastrophic consequences of nature’s fury and man’s

excesses by relying on their own devices and

resources. They must join forces with the rest of the

world. That imperative was articulated by Mr. Gordon

Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, on

26 September in this very Hall (see ) when

he stated, in essence, that every global problem

requires global solutions, that we cannot solve the food

crisis, climate change and the pressures on resources

without involving Africa and the developing countries,

and that Africa and the developing countries are not the

problem but part of the very solution to today’s

problems.

What Gordon Brown speaks to and what many of

the leaders in this general debate have highlighted is

the global leadership challenge we face. In addressing

that challenge, we would propose that we first examine

how our multilateral institutions function. Joseph

Stiglitz in his book Making Globalization Work wrote

that:

“The nation-state, which has been the center of

political and ... economic power for the past

century and a half is being squeezed today — on

one side by the forces of global economics, and

on the other side by political demands for

devolution of power. Globalization — the closer

integration of the countries of the world — has

resulted in the need for more collective action,

for people and countries to act together to solve

their common problems.”

Stiglitz continued that

“while the nation-state has been weakened, there

has yet to be created at the international level the

kinds of democratic global institutions that can

deal effectively with the problems globalization

has created.”

There is no disputing that the interests of the

developing countries are poorly represented and dealt

with in the present global institutions. That is clearly

manifested in the multilateral trade and financial

institutions, where negotiations are closeted in green

rooms and where the fundamental democratic principle

of one vote per country is subverted in a system that

determines voting rights based on economic power. If

the developing countries are to become developed, it

will be imperative to revisit those structures and

transform them into institutions that are representative,

transparent and democratic.

In addition to the systemic issues that must be

addressed, we must also tackle the crisis of

implementation. If we consider the numerous

conferences and summits that have been convened to

craft global responses to development, sustainable

development, financing for development, trade, climate

change and more recently the food crisis, there is no

want of commitments and common objectives.

The Millennium Development Goals promised to

the world’s peoples that we would take concerted

action to improve the quality of their lives. The

Monterrey Consensus promised a new global

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partnership that would support those efforts to

eradicate poverty and promote sustainable economic

growth and development. The Doha Ministerial

Declaration promised to put the needs and interests of

the developing countries at the heart of its work

programme.

But we know from the reports that our progress

towards the realization of the MDGs has been slow and

uneven that the realization of the Monterrey

commitments has been dismal particularly on the part

of developed countries and the international financial

and trade institutions, and that the Doha Development

Round has collapsed. Indeed, were these commitments

not set down on paper, one might question their very

existence.

We also know that the failure of the full

implementation of our global commitments is not for

want of resources but for want of compassion and

empathy. Globalization may have forced the world into

a closer relationship, but at the political level it has not

managed to calibrate national interests vis-à-vis global

interests. We therefore still act only when it is in our

narrow self-interest to do so.

However, the current crises are signalling clearly

that we can no longer subsume the global interests

under our own. The challenges we face clearly

demonstrate how our fates are intertwined. As leaders,

we must start now, with a sense of urgency, to take the

necessary action to deliver on the promises of

development. More importantly, we must commit to

submitting our actions to international oversight.

The United Nations must play the pivotal role in

addressing the global leadership crisis. Belize holds the

view that the way forward is for the United Nations to

concentrate its efforts on convincing the leaders and

peoples of the developed world that the security,

development and well-being of all peoples of the world

afford the best guarantee for their own security, safety

and development and ultimately their very survival. It

is our conviction that the adoption of that view by the

developed world would prove to be the catalyst for

achieving the unity that the world now needs to be able

to address successfully the challenges of our day.

To that end, the United Nations must be

strengthened so as better to serve to monitor the

implementation of the globally agreed commitments.

Its universality must be reinforced with the

participation of all relevant stakeholders in its

elaboration of responses to our threats and challenges.

In that regard, my Government wholeheartedly

supports the participation of the Republic of China on

Taiwan in the United Nations specialized agencies.

Finally, its decisions must carry the full weight that

impels action.

The United Nations still represents the great hope

for all our peoples. The principles upon which it was

founded and the objectives for which it was formed are

no less relevant today than they were in 1945. For my

own country, our membership in the United Nations

secured the hope of peace, security and development,

even as we continue to struggle with a long-extant

claim to our territory. It provides the framework within

which we can peacefully settle our differences. Today,

the Governments of Belize and Guatemala have an

opportunity finally to settle that dispute by juridical

means, specifically through referral to the International

Court of Justice (ICJ). We have reached a major

stepping stone, but we are not deluded by the

challenges ahead. Not only must we negotiate a

compromise for the referral of the matter, but the

question of taking the claim to the ICJ must be put to

national referendums in both countries. The road to the

ICJ and the final resolution of the territorial difference

will undoubtedly have many high tolls. Belize appeals

to the international community through the United

Nations for its continued solidarity and support.

Sixty years ago when we adopted the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights, humanity had been

wrested from the throes of war. The Declaration

confirmed in article 1 that

“All human beings are born free and equal in

dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason

and conscience and should act towards one

another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

The global conscience was awakened and alerted,

because our forebears knew that continued disregard

and contempt for human rights and freedoms would

lead to barbarous acts between peoples and nations.

They foresaw the advent of a world in which human

beings would enjoy freedom of speech and belief and

freedom from fear and want, and proclaimed those

freedoms as the highest aspirations of the common

people.

My Government holds an unflinching

commitment to those values and aspirations. We are

still soldiers in the battle for freedom, equality and

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justice, but in fighting that battle we no longer need the

crude instruments of war. Instead, we have as our

weapon the power of the rule of law, cooperation and

friendship between peoples and nations and an abiding

faith in multilateralism. Let us be so guided.