Costa Rica, 2007

The 192 Member States gathered here have not yet taken

the qualitative leap called for by Woodrow Wilson in

1918 for our international order not to be based on

organized rivalries, but rather on an organized common

peace.

We must learn to tone down our national

interests. We must foster a shared sense for what is just

and what is necessary. We must understand that the

basic premise of collective security is that we must

agree upon the threats that we face and the manner in

which we must tackle them.

We must accept that collective security, in order

to be legitimate, must defend international law in the

abstract, without preference for some over others.

Nevertheless, we continue to have an unequal

commitment to international law. Some of us have

accepted a multilateralism that is based on open

agreements openly arrived at, whereas others refuse to

yield imaginary shares of sovereignty. As long as the

latter continue to understand sovereignty as the

absence of obligations and responsibilities to others,

multilateralism is compromised.

Cultures and viewpoints from all parts of the

world gather here. They do so because they know that

the solitude of unilateralism is a dead-end road.

Multilateralism must, however, have preconditions.

Those who want to be treated as a partner must behave

as one. If not, we will never be able to live up to our

promise of “never again”. The “never again” that we

pronounced at the end of the First World War and the

Second World War or that we asserted following the

genocides in Kampuchea and Rwanda, still fails to

mobilize us today to solve other situations that are just

as unacceptable, just as intolerable and, on occasion,

just as unimaginable.

It is not right to compromise multilateralism; it is

especially wrong to do so when, through a lack of will,

we affect one or more partners making a desperate

appeal for help. In that regard, we welcome the fact

that this General Assembly has put climate change at

the top of its agenda. But how long has it taken us? We

simply cannot be satisfied with a “better late than

never”, when in 1987, exactly 20 years ago, President

Maumoon Abdul Gayoom of the Republic of the

Maldives alerted us that he did not come to speak

about international political issues but rather about “the

death of a nation”, the death of a nation whose 1,190

islands will be virtually submerged with the rise in sea

level owing to climate change. The emergency hotline

must respond not only to 11 September but to all the

emergencies covered by the Charter of the United

Nations.

It is time to pay our debt to nature. We simply

cannot continue to distort the evidence of climate

change. Regardless of how inconvenient the truth may

be or what our respective shares of responsibility are,

the truth is here to stay. Year after year we are

reminded of it with greater frequency and intensity.

In Costa Rica where the most species per square

kilometre of anywhere in the world are found, we are

committed to going beyond our obligations. We have

adopted concrete and sustainable actions, such as

setting aside 27 per cent of our national territory as

preserves, the generation of energy using renewable

energy sources for 98 per cent of our generating

capacity, the introduction of environmental service

payments and the commitment to advance towards a

carbon-neutral economy by the year 2021. However, no

matter how sustainable our commitment at the national

level, our efforts will have less impact if they are not

met by similar commitments in other parts of the

world. Since climate change does not recognize

borders, others with large environmental debts simply

cannot continue to live in debt, as this accelerates the

coming of the day of judgement.

Although we have seen some strides in

international environmental governance at both the

global and regional levels, we continue to be indebted

to nature. The Kyoto Protocol is an incomplete

instrument, not only because it has not attained

universality, but also because it does not incentivize

the sustainability of the primary forest and its

ecosystem. In that respect, Costa Rica is working on

compensatory mechanisms to avoid deforestation with

different intergovernmental groups, such as the

Coalition for Rainforest Nations and the Group of 11,

to make sure that the post-Kyoto scheme does not

exclude primary forests.

We cannot compromise on multilateralism. It is

unrealistic to press others for compliance with the

obligations that arise from the Treaty on the

Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the

Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT),

while disregarding one’s own obligations. Both treaties

and all of their articles are part of an intricate

architecture of mutual trust that does not allow for any

partial constructs. We must avoid both horizontal and

vertical proliferation, promote compliance with all of

the obligations that arise from those treaties and

condemn every attempt to break the regime of mutual

trust. We cannot allow for the proliferation of

exceptions to non-proliferation.

Multilateralism is not built on a show of strength.

In 2006, the world reached a record $1.2 trillion in

military spending. According to the Millennium

Project, with one tenth of this amount, that is, $121

billion, we would have met the targets for 2006 for all

the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in all

countries of the world. In 2006, on average, for every

dollar spent on official development assistance by the

member States of the Organization for Economic

Cooperation and Development, $7.5 were spent on

weapons.

Security does not come from multiplying

weapons; history has proven this time and time again.

Security comes from remedying injustices, easing

shortages and creating opportunities so that we can

have collective prosperity on par with collective

security. In this regard, Costa Rica has been calling for

compliance with the Charter of the United Nations,

Article 26 of which commits us to promote “the

maintenance of international peace and security with

the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human

and economic resources”. Thus says the dead letter of

the Charter of the United Nations.

It is in this spirit that we have pressed for the

adoption of an arms trade treaty, a legally binding

instrument that codifies the existing obligations of

States under international law that may apply to the

arms trade. Therefore we celebrate the adoption, by a

significant majority, of Assembly resolution 61/89,

which allows us to re-activate this noble objective of

the Charter.

It is also in this spirit that we have called for the

animation of the Costa Rica Consensus, so that

international donors can reward those developing

countries that are making sustainable and verifiable

efforts to meet the most pressing social needs,

including the MDGs, while increasing social

investment and reducing military spending.

Multilateralism requires a shared sense of

urgency. We need to face all global threats, all global

challenges in a timely fashion, not creating a world

with two different speeds: one in which we need two

decades to respond to the call made by President

Gayoom, among others, and another in which we

respond in a just a few days, with binding resolutions

like Security Council resolutions 1373 (2001) or 1540

(2004).

Our commitment to combat terrorism must aim at

prevailing not only over the terrorists, but also over the

root causes from which they draw strengthen and

renewal. In this regard, it is as important to combat the

manifestations of terrorism, its financial channels and

physical hideouts as it is to fight the poverty and

despair that provide an easy harvest for extremists. To

succeed we can no longer afford to be late in dealing

with the challenges of development.

Multilateralism also requires a shared sense of

justice. For that, we need more States to ratify the

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. As

we advance towards the universality of the Statute and

the acceptance of its complementary jurisdiction, we

will close the gaps and loopholes by which the worst

criminals in the world escape and hide.

Finally, we must have the courage to look at

ourselves in the mirror, as an Organization and as

Member States. We cannot permit this Organization’s

foundations to be weakened by a few errors. We need

to learn from our mistakes and allow space for self-

criticism. We do a disservice to the credibility and the

effectiveness of this Organization if, each time a

difficult or inconvenient situation arises, we simply

produce a report for the archives. Our scant follow-up

to the reports on Srebrenica and the Oil-for-Food

Programme provides two clear examples of our

apparent incapacity for learning.

As Harry Truman said, referring to the convening

of the San Francisco Conference, “it was important for

us to make a start, no matter how imperfect”. Since

1945, this Organization has expanded and changed,

improving through experience and reform,

incorporating more and more cultures and views,

putting into practice, with more or less success, the

principles and purposes of the Charter. This

Organization certainly does not have all the answers

and does not possess all the resources required, for in

the end, it is restrained by the lowest common

denominator, that is, by ourselves, the Member States.

We have a world of reasons to persevere and

prevail over the challenges we face. Neither the

chronic pessimism of some nor the ungrateful egoism

of others will check the slow but determined march

forward of those of us who believe in multilateralism

and in a future of greater shared welfare for all.