Costa Rica, 2010

From this universal podium I convey a warm

greeting to the Assembly and the whole of humanity. I

especially commend my fellow Costa Rican citizens

for their free and sovereign decision, which has given

me the great honour to represent them before you all.

I begin my remarks with renewed support for the

United Nations, for its contributions to human rights,

peace, security, comprehensive sustainable development,

tolerance, solidarity and respect for diversity and for

international law. It is without doubt an organization of

States, but more, it is an organization of peoples, who

from their differences embrace and take shelter in the

humanistic and universal values that support the United

Nations.

At this moment, around the world those values

and their implied commitments are flourishing, but

they are also suffering.

We can congratulate ourselves on the children

who are receiving a good education and on the parents

who see them grow up without fear that they will be

consumed by war. We are inspired by young people,

workers and peasants with opportunities for a worthy

life, and by the women who benefit from full equality.

In that context, we welcome the appointment of

Ms. Michelle Bachelet as Under-Secretary-General for

Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.

However, at the same time we also are concerned

about those women who as heads of households can

barely feed their children. We are worried about the

adults who grow old in poverty and loneliness and

about children whose lives lack affection and

stimulation. The catastrophic effects of climate change

demand our immediate and determined attention. And

it offends us that even today, there are women awaiting

execution by stoning, populations stifled by brutal

genocide, and nuclear weapons that are being

stockpiled while granaries are being depleted.

When we refer to the United Nations and global

governance, we must remember that such governance

starts with good national government. But at the same

time, the success of our domestic administrations

depends upon an international system that is fair,

efficient, open and responsible and that is capable of

dealing with the great challenges of our time.

As President, I am subject to the constant

scrutiny of my people, from whom I came and to

whom I am accountable. I am aware that the best

sermon comes from example. Thus my Government

strives to represent the values, promote the

development and increase the integral welfare of all

Costa Ricans. We are promoting economic growth, the

opening of trade, solidarity, environmental

responsibility and political transparency in the

framework of civil liberties. That course of action is

rooted in our history. It is why we introduced free

compulsory primary education in 1870, abolished the

death penalty in 1877, disbanded the army in 1949,

preserved 25 per cent of our land in the 1960s and

created universal access to health in the mid-1970s.

My Government stands on that legacy in order to

act in the present and to construct the future. We strive

for attention to and early stimulation of our children

and for care of adults and the elderly. We fight

inequality, strive to improve education and health, and

foster economic development increasingly based on

clean energy, a sustainable economy and creative

intelligence. I mention all these things as humble

national experience, not as a pretentious global lesson.

History, geography and circumstances frequently

shape us — but only up to a point, because individual

and collective will, responsibility, and constructive

leadership can break down the obstacles and trace

better paths. Thus we must pull back the curtains of

prejudice that dim reality, exchange the echoes of the

past for the sounds of the future, and bury

recrimination of others as an excuse to avoid our

duties.

Beyond the national sphere, good governance

means that there are responsibilities incumbent on all

world leaders with regard to the peoples of the United

Nations. The starting point must be respect for

international law and multilateral organizations. For an

unarmed and peaceful country such as Costa Rica,

those are the main instruments for our security, the

indispensable requirement for living in peace and

fostering development.

Last Tuesday we celebrated, with profound

personal and national conviction, the International Day

of Peace, in whose creation our country played a key

role. It is significant that, through the initiative of

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Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, its theme was “Youth

for Peace and Development”. That triad — youth as

incentive, peace as a framework, and development as a

goal — is critical to building a better world. But that

triad would be truncated without freedom as

opportunity, human dignity as an inescapable

commitment and tolerance as a habit of coexistence.

For the countries and leaders committed to those

fundamental values, the main question is how to

advance them in today’s world. I propose to empower

even further the concepts, organisms and instruments

for the promotion and protection of human rights. It is

in our interest to participate constructively as members

in the activities of the Human Rights Council. Here

also lies our adherence to the main covenants and

protocols on the subject, our insistence on the

responsibility to protect civilians and our commitment

to human security.

Costa Rica, besides hosting the conference that

approved the American Convention on Human Rights

in 1969, was the first country to ratify it. Today it is

home to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. I

am convinced that respect for human rights depends to

a great extent upon international justice. Its most recent

and innovative manifestation, thanks to the Treaty of

Rome, is the International Criminal Court, for which

we reaffirm our support after a decade of contributions.

To use the weapons of the law actively is another

unavoidable responsibility of global governance.

In the area of peace and security, Costa Rica

adheres to the five points on arms control advocated by

the Secretary-General. In particular, we insist on the

necessity for starting negotiations for an arms transfer

treaty, while at the same time progressing with the

model convention for the prohibition of nuclear

weapons and completing ratification of the

Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The

accumulation and transfer of weapons, especially

nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons, is not

only a threat to humanity’s peace and survival; it is

also an assault on development. Every soldier who

enlists, every missile that is activated, every isotope

enriched for military purposes means fewer schools

and hospitals, fewer food programmes, fewer roads,

fewer wireless networks, fewer seeds for farmers and

fewer good judges to administer justice.

But peace must go beyond action; it should

become embedded in the minds and imaginations of

human beings. To educate for peace is to vaccinate

against war. Thirty years ago, our country launched,

and the United Nations supported, a pioneer and

visionary institution for this area: the University for

Peace. Today its contribution reaches every continent

of the world, and our commitment to it increases day

by day. For this reason we proudly celebrate its

anniversary.

It is a paradox that while many countries waste

resources on weapons, the international community has

been incapable of dealing effectively with the scourges

of drug trafficking, organized crime, terrorism, arms

trafficking, and the perverted exploitation and

trafficking of human beings. My country and Central

America suffer increasingly from the aggressions of

the drug cartels. We risk being virtually taken over by

their gangs, with consequences that will go beyond our

borders and become a clear threat to international

security.

My Government has made its citizens’ security

one of its chief goals. Our people demand it, and we

will never fail them. We are fighting crime with energy

and determination, as well as with full respect for

human rights, intelligent policies and the supremacy of

law.

But the great battle against transnational crime

demands much more from us all. Today drug-related

activity is endangering the improvements in

development achieved in Central American countries.

From being merely a transit zone, due to our

geographic location between the great drug producers

to the south and the great consumers to the north, our

countries have, to different degrees, been becoming

producers, traffickers and consumers of drugs.

Today we are free of none of the manifestations

of the drug trade, which has extended its tentacles into

many areas of our social life. Young people in their

schools and neighbourhoods see their future menaced

by the easy offer of drugs, our health-care systems are

almost overwhelmed by the problem of addiction, the

integrity of our institutions is menaced by corruption

and coercion, and violence is reaching levels never

seen before.

The battle against the drug trade can be won only

with coordination, global cooperation and a major

revision of the strategies pursued so far, many of them

incomplete or failed. From this rostrum I call on the

countries with the highest rates of drug consumption to

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take more effective action against this enormous

problem, and to cooperate with the countries suffering

from a problem we did not create. I also call urgently

for global solidarity in this task, and for multilateral

organizations to increase their activity by developing

an agenda with more comprehensive strategies, with a

better balance of resources and responsibilities, and

with more focused goals. If new and good efforts are

not vigorously initiated, we will soon regret our

inaction.

If Costa Rica, a middle-income country, has

achieved human development rates comparable to

those of high-income countries, it is because, among

other things, our social investment has replaced

military spending. That is why we insist that

international aid should not ignore the ethical

dimension of development. We support preferential

allocation of such aid to countries in the most

precarious situations. But countries like mine that,

thanks to good investments and astute political

decisions, have improved our conditions of life, should

benefit from innovative technical cooperation schemes,

productive financing and public-private alliances.

Above all, we must successfully complete the Doha

Round of international trade negotiations, an essential

engine for economic growth.

We must also establish peace with the

environment and development. Organizing the

economy in a sustainable manner in order to produce

material and social well-being is a task we cannot

avoid. Today we have high hopes for the next

Conference of the Parties to the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held

in Cancun. We hope that all countries, but in particular

the big polluters and generators of carbon emissions,

will shoulder their responsibility towards humanity. In

Costa Rica, we have shouldered ours by setting the

goal of becoming one of the first carbon-neutral

countries in the world. We are also advancing in the

application and development of clean energies and the

protection of our watersheds and biodiversity.

Let us not forget, however, that sustainability,

above all, must be human; hence the importance of the

Millennium Development Goals. Attaining them in five

years’ time is an unavoidable goal for this

Organization.

The challenges of global governance are many,

and they are overwhelming, but the possibilities to

confront them exist. Their promotion is part of our

responsibility as leaders. This also requires that the

United Nations improve its own governance. If it does

not respond to new realities and if its Member States

do not help with the task, the Organization runs the risk

of sinking into irrelevance. The adaptation of the

United Nations to the challenges of global governance

demands greater effectiveness, efficiency and

transparency in its administration, its decision-making

processes and its field operations.

In this universal Organization, we must also

preach through example. That is why Costa Rica has

strived to collaborate in an active and constructive way

in the reform process. And, like many other countries,

we still need the help of the world. The world needs

the help of all countries. That is the only way to

advance the causes of our peoples. Costa Rica

modestly offers its contribution, its effort and its voice.