France, 1998

Allow me at the outset to congratulate you, Mr. President,

on your election, which attests to the high regard in which

the international community holds you and your country,

and which France, as an old and true friend of Uruguay,

welcomes. We hope that the work of the fifty-third session

of the General Assembly will, under your presidency, lead

to the strengthening of the Organization.

It was 53 years ago in San Francisco that we, “the

peoples of the United Nations”, decided to join our efforts

“to save succeeding generations from the scourge of

war...to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in

the dignity and worth of the human person...to

establish conditions under which justice...can be

maintained, and to promote social progress”.

That immense ambition was justified by the recent

horrors, which at all costs were to be prevented from

happening again — a necessary utopia, perhaps, or a

superhuman task. But as the great French writer Albert

Camus put it:

”Superhuman tasks are the ones man takes a long time

to accomplish, that’s all.”

A long time has elapsed, and we are still working on

that, still toiling. We have no reason to be ashamed of what

we have done as the United Nations throughout these 53

years, of what the Security Council and successive General

Assemblies have done, as well as seven Secretaries-

General — in particular the current one over the last two

years, whose work has been so outstanding.

Over the decades, the Security Council, except when

paralysed by abuse of the veto, has almost always managed

to shoulder its primary responsibility for international

security. When it failed to do so, no other institution was

able to in its stead. Since its first peacekeeping operation 50

years ago, the Security Council has launched 49 operations

of this kind.

The institutional framework established by the

Charter has, in the most varied situations, ranging from

cold war confrontation to the cooperation of recent years,

proved its irreplaceable usefulness. This again was borne

out in the spring of this year during the Iraqi crisis, when

the Secretary-General was deservedly commended; in

Africa, during the creation of the United Nations Mission

in the Central African Republic, which was the first

entirely new peacekeeping operation in four years; and

even in the Balkans, where the difficult mission entrusted

to the United Nations in Eastern Slavonia achieved its

objective.

And yet, as the Secretary-General himself

emphasized recently,

“Unpredictability and surprise have become almost

commonplace” (A/53/1, para. 1),

and the illusions of the end of the cold war have not

stood the test of reality. Our world, let us acknowledge

this fact, is not moving towards greater harmony.

Sometimes our interventions are not appropriate; some

States take advantage of circumstances and deliberately

carry out archaic policies of force that contravene the

principles of the Charter. On other occasions, the

abdication or implosion of States has released among

various groups ancestral forms of hatred that are still very

much alive, thus facilitating organized crime. All these

are destabilizing factors which, while very different, all

help to disorganize and imperil international relations.

Several major crises have proved this recently. The

Asian financial crisis reminded us that strong growth,

when badly regulated, is vulnerable in a globalized world

that is all too often dependent on the ultra-sensitive

reactions of the trading floors and the increasingly rapid

spread of contagious effects. Each day $1,600 billion is

exchanged on the financial markets — huge sums of

money that are greater than the means of intervention of

all the financial institutions of the world. In 1970 those

amounts were equal to the world’s gross national product.

Today, they are 15 times greater.

The nuclear tests in South Asia were a dramatic

reminder that a very serious regional territorial dispute

combined with a feeling, justified or not, of insecurity

could open the way to nuclear and ballistic proliferation.

In East Africa, a typical armed conflict was born of

a border dispute. In the Great Lakes region, six or seven

States are in the grip of regional conflict on the territory

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of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Destabilization

is threatening Central Asia, starting with Afghanistan. I

cannot list them all, but currently more than 30 conflicts,

civil wars or State break-ups are under way that involve

more than 40 countries in their aftermath of suffering.

Twenty-two million civilians — displaced persons and

returnees — have been affected by these conflicts and

require assistance from the Office of the United Nations

High Commissioner for Refugees, which is currently active

in 118 countries. Nor can I fail to mention child soldiers;

slavery, which still goes on in a scarcely veiled form;

disappeared persons; and so many other tragedies.

But I do not wish my statement to be a long litany of

woe that is only too familiar to the United Nations, which

is the first to learn of these situations. Is it not at this very

moment trying to maintain peace on four continents with

approximately 15,000 personnel engaged in about 17

operations? To cite just one example, no fewer than 20

agencies are trying to rebuild Bosnia.

Nor do I intend to neglect the progress achieved in

1998, which I mentioned at the beginning of my statement.

I wish simply to explain that the United Nations and the

multilateral system do not today have the necessary means

to meet all these challenges. But we cannot and must not

give up. How can we restore the necessary vigour to our

action?

Allow me to make some suggestions in this area. First,

we can preserve the powers that the Charter has given our

institutions. The first priority is to reserve for the Security

Council a monopoly on legitimate enforcement action in the

case of “threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and

acts of aggression”.

Nothing can justify the use of force by a State, a

group of States or an organization, however powerful, if

prior authorization was not received from the Security

Council — except in cases of self-defence.

My country shares the impatience of those who

deplore the fact that it should take so long to find a solution

to various cruel conflicts — for example, in Kosovo, where

the humanitarian situation is so critical. Since November

1997 France has warned of the risks of explosion; it has put

forward many proposals in liaison with Germany and its

other partners in the Contact Group to prepare the ground

for a realistic political solution. It has just begun action for

the return of refugees. It has never ruled out the possible

use of force. On this latter point, I hear voices urging us to

forgo the authorization of the Security Council. But after

this case there would be another exception, and then

another. Little by little, any country would declare itself

entitled to intervene wherever its interests, security or

ambitions so required, and we would have to begin all

over again. We must remain firm on this principle.

Second, we must make sure that the authority of the

Security Council is respected and its resolutions are

complied with. This goes for all its resolutions. But today

the question arises particularly in connection with Iraq.

The lifting of the oil embargo has, by the Council’s

resolutions, been made subject to the controlled

dismantling of its weapons of mass destruction. Iraq must

therefore meet these conditions — completely meet them,

but only them. Once that objective is achieved, our aim

must be to reintegrate Iraq into the international

community, starting with the region.

The only way to achieve that end is by Iraq’s

complete compliance with the relevant resolutions — all

the resolutions, nothing but the resolutions — which

means Iraq’s unreserved cooperation with the United

Nations and the bodies empowered to monitor Iraq’s

disarmament.

The third need is to increase the representativeness

of the Security Council in order to increase its legitimacy.

This is why my country has come out in favour of

enlarging the Security Council, with, on the one hand,

new permanent members — two seats for the North, to

which Germany and Japan have every claim, and three

for the South; on the other hand, there should be new

non-permanent members for the North and South. This

enlargement must at the same time preserve the Council’s

effectiveness and not prevent it from carrying out its

responsibilities under the Charter. I hope this fifty-third

session of the Assembly will see progress on this reform.

Fourth, we must increase the capacity of our

Organization to prevent or settle regional crises. There is

much to be done. Now that the international community

has just commemorated on a melancholy note the fifth

anniversary of the Oslo accords, what remains of the

peace process in the Middle East and the hopes born in

Madrid? There is no longer a light shining in the night,

and the fires of hatred are gaining ground. France

continues to support the persevering efforts of the United

States Secretary of State, but we do not wish to be left

without any prospects at all should those efforts

unfortunately not succeed. That is why President Chirac

and President Mubarak have proposed in that event

convening a conference of countries resolved to save the

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peace. This concern for the future has been very well

received. In liaison with Mr. Amre Moussa, we are working

to further our proposal. We must not abandon the goal of

meeting the aspirations of the peoples of this region for a

just and lasting peace which respects the resolutions and

agreements that have been reached.

Another region in crisis calls for our attention. As I

mentioned earlier on the territory of the Democratic

Republic of the Congo six or seven African States of the

Great Lakes region are engaged in confrontation in a tangle

of problems involving border issues, guerrilla activities,

ethnic strife, refugees, the quest for arable land and so

forth. It is illusory to hope for a separate settlement in each

of these States. A regional crisis such as this calls for a

regional solution. That is why my country has raised again

the idea of a conference for peace in the Great Lakes

region, which we suggested as early as 1995. The

conference would be placed under the aegis of the United

Nations or the Organization of African Unity, with the

active participation of the States of the region. Several

African diplomatic initiatives have the same goal. We

support those efforts.

Africa is currently the theatre of other crises. Let us

pay tribute to the tireless efforts of the Secretary-General’s

representatives. Here I salute in particular the memory of

Matre Blondin Beye, who died while on a peace mission.

Fifth, there is a need to reinforce the multilateral

disarmament and non-proliferation system. Following the

nuclear tests in South Asia, whose risks everyone

recognizes, we must strengthen the anti-proliferation regime

and pursue the disarmament process in all areas — nuclear,

conventional, chemical and biological.

Our primary objective here should be the entry into

force as speedily as possible of the Comprehensive

Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. France, together with the United

Kingdom, was the first nuclear-weapon State to ratify the

Treaty and is the only one to have completed the

dismantlement of its testing centre. I call on all States that

have not yet done so to accede to this Treaty — including

India and Pakistan, which have announced their intention

not to carry out any more nuclear tests.

Another objective here would be a treaty banning the

production of fissile material for military purposes. I

proposed at the meeting of the five permanent members of

the Security Council held in Geneva on 4 June last that we

should launch such a negotiation. A universal, non-

discriminatory and verifiable cut-off treaty would give

new impetus to disarmament.

We should also pursue relentlessly the prohibition of

chemical and biological weapons. Let us see to it that the

Convention banning chemical weapons becomes universal

and that the Convention banning biological weapons is

made truly effective through a verification mechanism.

Combating the proliferation of weapons of mass

destruction also means preventing the spread of vehicles

capable of delivering such weapons, while preserving

useful civilian applications.

In order to make progress in conventional

disarmament, let us ensure that the Ottawa Convention

providing for a comprehensive ban on anti-personnel

mines comes into force as soon as possible.

Sixth, we should continue to combat

underdevelopment, whose link with crises needs no

further demonstration. France remains heavily committed;

it is the second largest provider of official development

assistance. In order to modernize its aid and make it more

effective, France has decided to reform its cooperation

arrangements and increase coordination with other donors

— in the first place with the European Union. More than

60 per cent of aid to Africa comes from the European

Union. Europe is also the largest source of aid to Latin

America and the second largest to Asia.

France would like development resources to be more

predictable. The Secretary-General has made proposals

that we welcome in a constructive spirit, in particular the

idea of a development account. We encourage the United

Nations to continue its discussions in this area.

Seventh, we need to work with the non-

governmental organizations. They are capable of sounding

the alarm, making proposals and cooperating in very

practical terms to help build States governed by the rule

of law. Parallel to these actions, we expect much from the

activities of Mrs. Robinson, United Nations High

Commissioner for Human Rights, both in the Commission

on Human Rights and in the various United Nations

agencies, which must also — all of them — integrate the

human rights dimension into their activities.

After more than 10 years of negotiations, 1998 will

see the adoption of the declaration on the defenders of

human rights. This is a crucial text because these are the

rights that dictatorships try to stifle and threaten.

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However, even if we reinforce the Security Council,

strengthen the hand of the Secretary-General and better

handle future crises and other aspects of existing ones, this

will still not be enough. We must regain the initiative, and

for that we must extend our efforts to bring worldwide

regulation to other fields. This brings me to my final points.

The eighth requirement is to extend the rule of law in

all its aspects. The Statute of a permanent International

Criminal Court was adopted in Rome after intensive

negotiations. It is a major step forward in the fight against

the impunity of the foremost criminals. France was one of

the first to sign it. The Statute achieves an essential

synthesis of the various legal traditions in the world and

strikes a balance between the Court’s competences and the

powers of the Security Council that is in keeping with the

spirit and calling of the United Nations. We hope that those

countries that still have reservations will be able to join us.

In another field of law, the International Labour

Organization has taken a historic step towards universal

compliance with basic labour standards through the

declaration adopted at its eighty-sixth conference, which is

a commitment on the part of the 174 member States of the

Organization.

On 11 November 1997 the United Nations

Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization adopted

the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and

Human Rights. This is the first normative framework to

guide the international community in an area of scientific

research where advances are already shaking our traditional

concepts of life and social organization. France is

submitting a draft resolution calling on the General

Assembly to endorse this Universal Declaration.

Ninth, we must contain and reduce the scourge of

organized crime, beginning with drugs. The volume of

illegal drug trafficking now approaches $500 billion — 8

per cent to 10 per cent of world trade. According to the

International Monetary Fund, money-laundering operations

represent from 2 per cent to 5 per cent of global gross

domestic product.

At the special session in New York in June we

decided to put more emphasis on reducing the demand for

drugs, in addition to what we have done about supply. Let

us do so.

Tenth, we must combat terrorism in all its forms,

whoever the perpetrators and whatever their motivation.

The recent International Convention for the

Suppression of Terrorist Bombings is an important step

forward, but that is not enough. We must also acquire the

means to hunt down those who finance and instigate these

attacks. France is proposing the negotiation of a universal

convention against the financing of terrorism.

We need to define concrete mechanisms for legal

measures and mutual judicial assistance against those who

finance terrorism. Effective sanctions, such as the seizure

or the freezing of the assets of organizations or

individuals that have participated in terrorist acts must be

provided for. Innovative measures, such as making it

impossible to invoke banking secrecy in judicial bodies

investigating a terrorist attack, should be introduced. If we

have the will to do this, we can launch this negotiation at

the end of the present session of the General Assembly.

President Clinton spoke here on Monday of this

common struggle as a shared obligation. This is correct.

In addition, we need to attack the multiple causes that

breed terrorism.

The eleventh point I would like to make concerns

the remedy for not only the current financial crises, but

also the malfunctioning of the international financial

system as such. That is the issue here, as is shown by the

increasing calls for a “new Bretton Woods”. Financial

globalization is running wild now. New means urgently

need to be found. It is the responsibility of each State to

make its contribution. We need also to define new rules

adapted to today’s financial realities. My country is today

presenting to its European partners some proposals to

counter international financial instability.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) must

naturally remain the pivot here. But the IMF must be

more legitimate and more effective, working on the basis

of clear, realistic, political and strategic guidelines,

cooperating with other competent bodies, organizing

dialogue between industrialized countries and emerging

countries, ensuring the transparency of the financial

system and reflecting the economic, social and political

realities of partner countries — an IMF that can detect

early warning signs to prevent crises from happening.

Within this transformation, to which the Director-

General of the IMF is making an important contribution,

and also in order better to stabilize the international

economic and monetary situation and to support world

growth, Europe will play an increasingly important role

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since it is finalizing the introduction of its single currency,

the euro, and we are anticipating the benefits.

From this period we are living through, which is so

full of contrasts, consisting of unprecedented progress and

of crises threatening to wipe out our efforts, in particular

those made under the aegis of the United Nations,

additional progress must be forthcoming in building a more

just and more peaceful world, because this is what we all

want.

Today’s world needs rules. The United Nations must

remain the unifying framework, and the Charter must

remain the reference point. Preserving what has proved its

worth, adapting when necessary, inventing new forms of

regulation — these are three main areas for our work.