Canada, 2000

I would like to begin by

congratulating you, Sir, on your election as President

of the General Assembly. Your experience and wisdom

will doubtless guide us in carrying out the important

work ahead.

As we all know, that work is to immediately and

resolutely transform the high hopes of the Millennium

Summit into a better reality for the peoples for whom

the United Nations was founded.

(spoke in French)

This means assuming responsibility for our

actions and our inaction. It also means that

Governments must be ready to assume their

responsibility for their citizens.

Last week our leaders delivered here a message

of hope and determination. Their words clearly showed

that we all need the United Nations. The United

Nations is the only organization that embodies

universal values; that offers a global forum to address

common problems; and that is on the front line around

the world fighting for people.

(spoke in English)

There was another message from the Summit

about whether the United Nations is keeping up with

the times; about whether we, the Member States —

custodians of the Organization and guardians of the

Charter — have the political will to support renewal

and modernization.

When the lights turned off last Friday night here

in New York, did other lights go on around the

world — in our Chancery offices, Parliamentary

assemblies and Cabinet meeting rooms — to illuminate

the way forward? Are we all, each in our own way,

asking how we can change our ways to better help the

United Nations manage a new global agenda?

Clearly, globalization has brought unprecedented

benefits and possibilities. But it also clearly brings new

risks to people in all our countries. Many of those new

risks cross State lines, while most violent conflict now

occurs within States' borders. In both cases, the impact

is felt directly by ordinary people.

Yet the debate within the United Nations remains

driven — and too often circumscribed — by rigid

notions of sovereignty and narrow conceptions of

national interest. And action by the United Nations

remains hampered by inflexible institutional structures

that have become increasingly inward-looking, driven

by their own interests rather than by those they were

designed to serve.

The Secretary-General has, with a courage rarely

seen in public life, given us a vision of a way forward.

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It is a vision that serves the world's people, and one

that resonates with them, even though it may aggravate

some of their Governments. He has challenged us to

follow his lead, to adopt a people-centred approach to

international relations, to move this Organization from

the sidelines to the forefront of change.

This is not a new agenda for Canada. Indeed, over

the past five years, promoting human security has been

the focus of our own approach to our changing world.

And it has been encouraging to see the shift in attitude

toward a more realistic sense of what it means to be

secure in the world as an individual.

Our leaders endorsed this new vision in their

Summit Declaration. But if we have truly come to the

understanding that security means more than protecting

borders, we must now act to turn last week's good

intentions into effective action. This means taking

responsibility to adapt our institutions, broaden

participation in their functioning, and increase

transparency and accountability to make a tangible

difference for the people we represent.

It also means responsible, accountable global

behaviour, sharing and protecting the common space

that sustains life.

Aggressive pursuit of the global arms control and

disarmament agenda is the ultimate responsible act.

Our generation built the nuclear arsenals that are

outmoded and rotting; we produced the chemical

weapons that poison people; and today we still make

and distribute the small arms that are found

everywhere: in the hands of children, the arsenals of

drug dealers and the garrisons of guerrilla fighters.

But we have also had a certain foresight to begin

building a system of international obligations and

principles to contain such behaviour. We now have to

validate and implement these instruments. Above all,

we must do nothing to damage them.

Certainly, Governments must prepare for the

defence of their people. Responsible defence is an

element of responsible government. But surely, our

responsibility to defend our citizens begins not with the

development of new weapons systems, but by

dismantling old ones: by ratifying the Comprehensive

Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT); by joining the 104

States parties to the Ottawa Treaty on landmines; by

implementing the international non-proliferation norms

and disarmament obligations embodied in the Treaty on

the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT); by

developing comprehensive action plans to stop the

proliferation of small arms and missile technology.

The collective action of States working for the

long-term security of their people is clearly the

preferable path. But where States are unable, or

unwilling, to protect their citizens, the United Nations,

and in particular the Security Council, has a special

responsibility to act.

Today, most wars are fought within failed States.

In these wars, it is the victimization of civilians that is

the motive, the means and the manifestation of a

conflict.

If the Council is to acquit itself of its

responsibility to these people, their protection must be

at the core of its work, not at its periphery.

This is the agenda that Canada has brought to the

Security Council over the past two years. It has not

been an easy task, but I would like to acknowledge that

the Security Council is meeting the new challenges. In

recent months, the Council's work has increasingly

focused on the protection of civilians, with action in

the areas of AIDS, physical protection, war-affected

children and sanctions reform. The Council has

recognized that dealing with these issues is critical to

building effective peace-support operations, and has

embodied this recognition in recent resolutions. Today,

we are providing members a checklist, a checklist of

responsible action in the Security Council.

(spoke in French)

The Brahimi report also proposes a plan of

action. It is a comprehensive strategy for strengthening

the United Nations capacity to help people. Canada

supports the panel's findings. We will be its strongest

advocate and can be counted upon to work tirelessly to

build the political support required to implement both

the spirit and the letter of its recommendations.

(spoke in English)

By far the most difficult challenge in protecting

civilians in armed conflict is in situations where abuse

is most severe: genocide, war crimes, crimes against

humanity, massive and systematic violations of human

rights and humanitarian law which cause widespread

suffering, loss of life and abuse.

We need a new form of deterrence against such

forms of behaviour. The establishment of an

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International Criminal Court (ICC), which makes

impunity illegal and which holds individuals directly

accountable for their actions, is that deterrent. And if

its power to deter the abuse of people fails, the Statute

provides both a basis and a structure to take concrete

legal action to redress injustice.

The Court's Statute provides us with a unique

opportunity to fix one of the worst failings in the

international system. Today I appeal to every

Government here that has not done so to sign the Rome

Statute by December and to ratify it on an urgent basis,

so that the world's people can finally have the justice

they deserve.

Canada seeks to systematically put in place the

building blocks for a new type of international system,

one that is inspired and guided by the United Nations

Charter, but that is also prepared to deal with the

underside and underworld of globalization.

Of course, prevention is the best form of

intervention. But when preventive measures fail; when

the quiet diplomatic efforts and the targeted sanctions

do not work; when the fact-finders find facts too

horrendous to imagine; then there must be recourse to

more robust action.

The question of intervention in these instances,

including, as a last resort, the use of military force, is

fraught with difficulty and controversy. Many would

sweep it under the rug as too divisive, too difficult, too

damaging to the status quo. But Rwanda, Cambodia,

Srebrenica and Kosovo remind us that it is important to

focus on this question. It would be easy to pretend that

the humanitarian tragedies associated with these places

are a thing of the past. It would be easy, but it would be

wrong. There is no certainty that similar atrocities will

not happen again. Indeed, the opposite is more likely.

The spiral into extremes of human suffering cannot

always be constrained.

Reading the editorial page of The New York Times

on Tuesday, 12 September, we realize that some would

have us believe that the United Nations Charter was

written only to protect States and State interests:

“intervening in civil conflicts takes the United

Nations a step too far”.

I disagree. I say that in the face of egregious human

suffering it is a step in the right direction.

Nothing so threatens the United Nations very future as

this apparent contradiction between principle and

power; between people's security and Governments'

interests; between, in short, humanitarian intervention

and State sovereignty.

Last fall I stood before this body and argued that

the United Nations Charter was written for people. Our

collective agenda here is not the nation States' agenda,

or the ministers' agenda, or the diplomats' agenda. It is

the people's agenda. Indeed, “We the peoples” are the

opening words of the Charter. Those who would seek

to hide behind that document to justify inaction need

only to read its preamble to reacquaint themselves with

its original intent.

Secretary-General Annan has challenged us to

rethink what it means to be responsible, sovereign

States. Canada has responded by creating an

independent international commission on intervention

and State sovereignty. Its purpose is to contribute to

building a broader understanding of the issue, and to

foster a global political consensus on how to move

forward. The commission will be led by two co-

chairpersons — one from the developing and one from

the developed world — with the participation of a wide

range of representatives of Governments and non-

governmental organizations from all regions and under

the overall guidance of an advisory board composed of

ministers, former ministers and distinguished

practitioners from the academic, humanitarian and

legal fields.

The commission will undertake its work during

this Millennium Assembly year, and will present its

recommendations in 12 months' time. I ask those

present here in the Assembly Hall to join in this

enterprise, difficult as it may be, so that we can seek to

reconcile these concepts to find the space that we can

all share.

It is difficult, but it is not impossible. We have

done it before. Thirteen years ago, the Brundtland

Commission's report, “Our Common Future”, took two

seemingly contradictory ideas — economic

development and the protection of the environment —

and out of that contradiction forged a synthesis called

sustainable development. That new concept

fundamentally changed the way in which the world

thinks about those issues, and its work informs our

thinking to this very day. It is Canada's hope that this

new commission can diffuse the anxiety that surrounds

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the issues of intervention and sovereignty by building a

similar bridge between our current notions of these

concepts, and in so doing help to define the way ahead

for Governments and the United Nations to tackle the

most challenging international dilemma of the twenty-

first century.

However, the responsibility no longer stops just

with Governments. The private sector must also take its

responsibility for the communities on which it depends

for its business. Ethical business is good business. The

many companies that have joined the Secretary-

General's Global Compact with Business recognize

that profit made on the backs of exploited and abused

children — by gun-running, drug dealing or conflict

diamonds — is no longer acceptable. In the globalized

economy, the world's people are the ultimate

shareholders. If they do not profit, no one will. We

must therefore work on all of these fronts and with all

of these new players to build a future where human

security is universally respected and protected. In the

meantime, there are steps that we can take to protect

the most vulnerable.

To build a world that values human security we

must start with concern and action for those who will

inherit it. It is fitting, therefore, that in this year of

fresh resolve the future of our children is a key element

of the agenda, particularly through the special session

on children that is to be held next year. Nowhere is the

safety and well-being of children more at risk than in

conflict situations. Children should have no part in war.

Yet today they are among its main victims, counting in

the millions.

(spoke in French)

Four years ago, Graça Machel brought attention

to the horrific plight of war-affected children. Since

then, action has been taken too reduce their suffering,

most notably with the appointment of Olara Otunnu as

the Secretary-General's Special Representative for

Children and Armed Conflict and, more recently, with

the historic agreement last January on the Optional

Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child

on the involvement of children in armed conflict.

This week, with Graça Machel as honorary

Chairperson, Canada is hosting in Winnipeg the

International Conference on War-Affected Children.

This meeting, the first of its kind, brings together more

than 130 Governments, 60 non-governmental

organizations and private sector groups, international

organizations and young people from every region of

the world.

(spoke in English)

I am pleased that so many ministers and senior

officials from the Organization will join us in

Winnipeg this weekend. I encourage those not already

represented to attend.

The aim of the conference is twofold: to

formulate a comprehensive, global action plan and to

forge the necessary political will to implement it.

Together, we hope it will help children traumatized by

war, and ultimately eliminate their involvement and

victimization in conflict.

Earlier this week in Winnipeg, as we opened the

conference, a young Ugandan girl named Grace spoke

to me, at a meeting of young people affected by war,

about her experience as a child soldier. Her story was

one of victimization and chilling brutality. Her belief

that the international community could help her and

others like her was touching and inspiring. Her plea for

us to do so is the essence of the Organization's

vocation. Indeed, it is one of our basic responsibilities.

For me, that young woman's simple appeal makes it

clear that we have no option but to be ready, to be

willing, and to be able to forge a United Nations for the

twenty-first century.

In view of the daunting challenges ahead, any

attempt to retreat, to shut out the world or to turn away

from international engagement would be to follow a

dangerous path that is neither practical nor desirable.

The truth is that we share a common humanity. The

reality is that we are linked by the forces of history into

a common destiny. The fact is that the answers to our

problems lie in strengthening, not diminishing, global

cooperation and global solutions.

In today's world, the security of States and the

security of people are indivisible. Providing for that

security is a necessary precondition for success in other

important endeavours, such as advancing economic aid

and trade development. In this new century, too many

people like Grace are still subject to the worst of the

past century: to the scourge of war, to human rights

abuses and to too few prospects for social progress and

a better standard of living. Yet the hopes contained in

the United Nations Charter still have meaning for them,

and indeed relevance for all of us. Fulfilling its

aspirations is our enduring goal and fundamental

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responsibility. With human security as our guide, let us

make it our focus as we renew our commitment to the

purposes of the United Nations and to a better future

for Grace and for all the people that we represent.

This goal is a responsibility that I have been

honoured to share with many of those present here over

the past five years. It is a goal that we must all

continue to strive towards — whatever our position in

life, whatever our title — in order to ensure that this

system we have built does not surrender to the cynics

who offer no alternatives, or to the game players who

paralyse the transcendent purposes of the United

Nations for simple transitory diplomatic points.

Only in so doing will we truly live up to the

promise contained in the Charter: to serve the majesty

of the people and to make this Organization work for

them.