Ireland, 1994

I warmly congratulate you,

Sir, on your election to the presidency of the forty-ninth

session of the General Assembly. You take office at an

historic moment for the United Nations on the eve of its

fiftieth anniversary.

The past year has been one of progress and great

hope for many peoples and States represented in this

Assembly. In South Africa, the elections have given birth

to a democratic, non-racial society which offers a model

of tolerance and reconciliation for others on that tortured

continent. In the Middle East, the establishment of a

Palestinian administration in Gaza and Jericho paves the

way for a comprehensive settlement in a region that

several times in living memory has threatened global

confrontation. In Germany and in the Baltic States, the

withdrawal of foreign troops marks the end of the

division of our continent and heralds a Europe free and at

peace. And on my own island - the island of Ireland -

the declaration by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) of a

complete cessation of military operations has opened the

prospect of a peaceful resolution which has not existed

for a generation.

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For many years it has been customary for Irish

Foreign Ministers to report to this Assembly on

developments in relation to the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Too often they have spoken of killing and destruction, the

failure of political initiatives and controversies on human

rights. It seemed that the Northern Ireland conflict

belonged to the category of truly intractable problems

destined to outlive all change of circumstance and to defy

all attempts at a solution.

I begin my address this year on this question, because

my message is now one of hope. The past 12 months have

significantly enhanced the prospects for lasting peace and

stability on the island of Ireland. It is true that the edifice

of a solution still remains to be constructed, but I believe

very solid foundations have now been laid.

At the origin of the Northern Ireland conflict lies a

difference of view as to whether the partition of Ireland

earlier this century was or was not a denial of the right of

the Irish people to self-determination. This difference was

passionately and violently acted out by two communities in

Northern Ireland, who were and remain deeply polarized by

their division on fundamental constitutional issues. This

conflict has been costly for all the people of Northern

Ireland and for the British and Irish peoples generally. To

deal with it is one of the most urgent and important tasks

facing both Governments. Experience has shown that the

ability of the two Governments to do so will be directly

proportionate to the degree of agreement between us.

It is in the inherited gaps between our positions that

terrorism on both sides has taken root. For that reason,

cooperation and agreement between the two Governments

is vital for any solution. Last December, the Irish and

British Governments published a Joint Declaration which

significantly consolidated the common ground between us

and offered all the parties to the conflict a compelling

political alternative to the endless cycle of bloodshed and

retribution.

In the Joint Declaration, the British Government

recognizes that it is for the people of Ireland alone, by

agreement between the two parts respectively and without

external impediment, to exercise their right of

self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and

concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a

united Ireland if that is their wish. The Irish Government

accepts that the right to self-determination of the people of

Ireland as a whole must be achieved and exercised with,

and subject to, the agreement and consent of a majority

of the people of Northern Ireland.

The Declaration seeks to deal with the issue of

self-determination in a way which banishes the spectre of

coercion. Instead, political consent is now clearly set as

the necessary goal and touchstone for any stable

arrangement in Ireland, whatever the framework. The

Declaration makes clear that the British Government is

not the enemy of the Irish nationalist tradition and that

the Irish Government is not the enemy of the unionist

tradition. A crucial aspect of the Declaration is the

acknowledgement that future arrangements in Ireland are

for decision and agreement between the Irish people

themselves, North and South, and its formal commitment

that the role of the British Government will be to promote

such agreement.

The Declaration thus marks a decisive break with

any notion which has had such dark resonances in Irish

history that arrangements in Ireland might be decided as

a function of British rights over Ireland. This opens the

way, in turn, for a new and more developed

acknowledgement by the nationalist tradition of the

unquestionable rights of the unionist community, derived

from its position as a distinct tradition in Ireland. A

considerable section of the Joint Declaration is devoted to

this issue.

At the end of August, following a protracted internal

debate, the IRA decided in favour of a complete cessation

of military operations. That decision has been confirmed

by other statements in the interval. Much more

important, it has been sustained on the ground. This is a

development of very great significance.

It is first and foremost welcome because it saves

lives. Secondly, it opens the prospect of comprehensive

negotiations, governed by democratic principles, taking

place against a background of peace and embracing the

entire spectrum of all those involved in the conflict. Such

negotiations have the greatest potential for success.

Moreover, their outcome is likely to be more authoritative

than a less general agreement, which would have had to

be enforced against a background of continuing violence

and repression.

We still await the end of the campaign of violence

carried out by loyalist paramilitaries. I remain hopeful

that they, in turn, will come to realize that their violence

is repugnant to their own community as well as to others,

and counterproductive to their cause. We hope that

15

responsible political leaders in the unionist community will

make their voices strongly heard on this issue, as many

have done already, and that a complete cessation of

violence will ensue on the loyalist side also.

We have now an unparalleled opportunity to create the

basis for lasting agreement among our different political

traditions in Ireland. We can do so, no longer prisoners of

the past, but rather learning form our past mistakes on all

sides.

Perhaps the greatest such mistake, shared at one time

as an unquestioned assumption on both sides, was that this

conflict, concentrated in the narrow ground of Northern

Ireland, could only end in victory and defeat for one

tradition or the other. Compromise was seen as the first

step on the road to defeat. We have all learned, through a

costly process of trial and error, that in the Northern Ireland

situation notions of victory and defeat are an illusion. Each

community had the critical mass to thwart the other, but

neither can prevail alone. General political consent is

therefore a simple practical necessity, as well as an ideal.

The challenge now for the British and Irish

Governments is to seize on the momentum for peace.

Together with all the political parties in Northern Ireland,

we need to build new structures, reflecting the lessons of

our experience and building on the principles of the Joint

Declaration.

Experience has taught us that a majority "winner-

takes-all" system is profoundly unsuited to a society such

as Northern Ireland, where divisions are predominantly

communal and unchanging - rather than social or economic,

and therefore changeable. Let us apply that lesson, making

agreement and consensus the kernel of all new

arrangements.

Northern Ireland is characterized by a profound lack

of consensus on the constitutional issue of whether the

legitimate frame of reference is Northern Ireland or the

island as a whole. Let us anchor new arrangements in an

Agreement acknowledging and reconciling the validity of

both.

The political division of Ireland has inhibited many of

the constructive political, economic and social interactions

which can contribute to the welfare of both parts of the

island. Let us set that to rights in effective new structures

between North and South.

The choice of sovereignty has hitherto been a kind

of symbolic shorthand for the victory or defeat of one

community or the other. Let us divorce this notion as far

as possible from all partisan or tribal connotations, and

agree that the exercise of sovereignty, by whichever

Government, will at all times, now and in the future, be

qualified by scrupulously equal treatment of the two

Northern communities and of their rights, identities and

allegiances.

New arrangements on these lines would, I believe,

divest the conflict over sovereignty of much of its current

confrontation and passion. Under new arrangements on

these lines, buttressed and guaranteed by formal

agreement between the two Governments, conflict over

the choice of sovereignty might cease to become the

destabilizing issue it now is. Instead, it might be handled

under agreed political ground-rules, scrupulously even and

fair to both aspirations, as a question of mutual

persuasion and comparative benefit. Northern Ireland

could become a place specially dedicated to the protection

of the rights of both communities. Then, for the first

time, both communities there could be truly themselves,

and perhaps find common purpose in many areas where

at present there is only division.

The Irish Government will pursue progress towards

a lasting accommodation on a number of different levels.

We are establishing a Forum for Peace and

Reconciliation, to enable all democratic parties in Ireland

that are so minded to make recommendations on ways in

which agreement and trust between the two traditions in

Ireland can be promoted and established. This will not be

a negotiating forum, although we are hopeful that its work

will contribute positively to the climate in which

negotiations take place, and that many of its

recommendations can be translated into practice.

Simultaneously, the Irish and British Governments

are working on a joint framework document setting out

their own views on where a balanced accommodation of

the problem may be found. It is our hope that this

document, which we will commend to the other parties,

but cannot of course impose on them, will give fresh

impetus to the process of comprehensive negotiation.

The developments I have outlined have forged a

unique opportunity to achieve a comprehensive, just and

peaceful resolution of the Northern Ireland problem. It is

vital that their potential should be realized through early

negotiations and agreement on new political structures.

A new beginning for all our relationships in Ireland is

16

within our reach if we have the collective courage and

imagination to avail ourselves of the opportunity. The

desire for a lasting peace and a political accommodation

has never been stronger across the entire population of the

island.

If in many parts of the world the message is one of

hope, we know that in other places old enmities and ethnic

animosities have surfaced, with vicious and indeed deadly

consequences.

The conflicts in Somalia, in the former Yugoslavia, in

Rwanda; the gross abuses of human rights in Haiti and East

Timor; the suffering of millions who are denied their basic

rights to food, water or shelter; these remind us that we

cannot let up in the struggle to create a peaceful world and

to uphold human dignity.

A characteristic feature of many contemporary crises

is that they are essentially conflicts within States, rather

than between them.

And this, I believe, is the central question facing the

United Nations as it approaches its fiftieth anniversary: can

the United Nations, which was born out of the greatest

inter-State conflict the world has ever seen, and which is

designed specifically to prevent and resolve such conflicts -

can this Organization deal adequately with internal crises

and civil strife?

I know that there are some who argue that the United

Nations has no place in such matters, that many internal

conflicts are not amenable to outside intervention. I can

understand such arguments and the cautious desire not to

get involved in other people’s internal quarrels.

But can we let a crisis such as that in the former

Yugoslavia escalate to the point where it threatens a wider

Balkan conflict?

Can we stand aside while millions are slaughtered by

their compatriots in Rwanda?

By what calculus do we divine that death in civil strife

counts less than death in inter-State warfare, that those

threatened by their own countrymen are less deserving of

our efforts than those who are threatened by their

neighbours?

I can find no moral justification for such distinctions.

The appalling escalation of terror and violence in

Rwanda demonstrates the truth of this. To the names that

have come to be associated in recent years with human

suffering - Sarajevo, Gorazde, Mogadishu, Baidoa - we

can now add Goma, Bukavu and Ngara.

The tragedy of Rwanda has gripped the hearts and

minds of the Irish people. Today there are over 100 Irish

aid workers in the area. More than 70 Irish public

servants and military personnel are working with the

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees (UNHCR) and the aid agencies.

And our President, Mary Robinson, hopes shortly to

visit Rwanda to show solidarity with the people of that

troubled land and to emphasize the need for international

action.

In its response to the crises in Rwanda and Somalia,

the international community has shown a generous

willingness to help. Much human suffering has been

alleviated. But we have not come near to achieving

durable solutions. Nor are we any nearer to constructing

a system to prevent similar horrors in the future.

We must ask how the United Nations could have

played a more active mediating role in Rwanda.

Could it have prevented the outbreak of genocidal

warfare when political unrest rapidly deteriorated into

civil strife?

Could it have responded more coherently when

genocide was followed by a mass exodus?

How can it now assist in the resolution of the

conflict?

I believe that unless we equip the United Nations to

deal with these kinds of problems - the most characteristic

and pressing of our time - the credibility and relevance of

our Organization will increasingly be called into question.

The roots of civil disorder and internal strife are

often complex and deep - deeper and more complex,

indeed, than the causes of inter-State war. Recent

experience has shown that recourse to Chapter VII action

alone is inadequate and that outside involvement, unless

carefully prepared and sensitively executed, can add to,

rather than diminish, the crisis. We must learn the

lessons of this and realize that building a United Nations

17

capable of meeting the challenges of the new era will

require coordinated action in many areas.

I will mention seven points on which I believe there

should be priority action:

We must reform the Security Council to make it more

representative of the United Nations greatly expanded

membership and to reflect the great changes in

international relations of the past 50 years.

We must develop the Organization’s capacity for early

warning and mediation and for timely intervention in

disputes before they escalate out of control.

We must enhance the United Nations peace-keeping

capabilities to make them more flexible and

responsive when crises erupt.

We must develop the United Nations operational

capacity in the area of human rights. In particular, we

need a more developed system of human rights

monitors.

We must act to establish a permanent international

criminal court. We must intensify our efforts to

eliminate the root causes of many conflicts -

inequality, social injustice, and poverty - by acting on

the Secretary-General’s agenda for development.

We must restrict the international flow of the

instruments of war and oppression by adopting a code

of conduct for conventional arms transfers.

There is now widespread agreement on the need for

the Security Council to be more representative and more

responsive to the needs of the general membership of the

United Nations. I believe that early decisions to increase

the overall membership of the Council are needed, and that

an increase in the permanent membership should reflect the

changes in international life over the past 50 years.

Our discussions have shown that concrete decisions

will not be easy, but we must avoid getting bogged down

in narrow considerations of optimal numbers and the

competing claims of regional Powers. One way of handling

this would be to build into our decision a commitment to

review again the membership of the Security Council at a

specific date in the future. In this way we could work for

a result that reflects current geopolitical realities, that

acknowledges that these realities can change over time and

that recognizes that all Member States have the potential

to contribute to international peace and security.

Measures already taken to improve transparency are

welcome, but more must be done to facilitate interaction

between the Security Council and the general

membership. And surely the time has also come when

we can delete from the Charter references to enemies that

no longer exist.

The terrible crises in Rwanda and Somalia have

shown that we need to look urgently and more closely at

the role and capacity of the United Nations in preventing

and defusing conflicts. And we need to consider ways of

strengthening the capability of regional organizations to

engage in conflict resolution. We must be prepared to

avail ourselves in full of the functions bestowed by the

Charter on the General Assembly, the Secretary-General

and the Economic and Social Council, as well as on the

Security Council.

We must ensure that information on economic and

social conditions likely to result in a threat to security or

stability is brought quickly to the attention of the

Organization, and in particular to the Security Council.

We have the instrument for this in the Economic and

Social Council. We should now act on the

Secretary-General’s proposal that a reformed Economic

and Social Council provide reports to the Security

Council on those economic and social developments that

may threaten peace and security.

Beyond this, we must strengthen the United Nations

capacity for mediation. The Security Council and the

General Assembly, despite their undoubted authority

under the Charter, are not always the most suitable

instruments for the direct mediation of conflict. In

practice, the Secretary-General has on many occasions

appointed a representative to mediate in particular crises,

often with considerable success. I believe that the time

has come to put these arrangements on a more organized

basis. This could be done by constituting a mediation

body to which the Security Council or the Assembly

could refer difficult issues. Acting in consultation with

the Secretary-General, this body would be distinct from

the International Court of Justice, in that it would have

the role of political mediation rather than that of

pronouncing a verdict in terms of international law. I

believe that such a body, drawing on the pool of

personnel skilled in mediation, backed by effective staff

and properly resourced, could rapidly acquire an expertise

18

and authority that would significantly enhance the

peacemaking capabilities of the United Nations.

The United Nations is now conducting more peace-

keeping operations and has more personnel in the field than

at any time in its history. Ireland is participating in many

of these operations and devotes a significant proportion of

its defence forces, and of its defence expenditure, to United

Nations peace-keeping. That is one reason why my

Government is particularly concerned at the under-funding

of peace-keeping operations and at the failure of certain

Member States to pay their assessed contributions.

But there is a deeper and more important reason. The

Secretary-General has pointed to the difficulty in finding

personnel for the many new demands on United Nations

peace-keeping. Recent experience has shown that a

Security Council mandate no longer ensures that an

operation will soon take place. I can think of nothing more

serious or more damaging than the failure of the

Organization quickly to mount an operation at the outbreak

of a crisis. The crisis itself escalates out of control, the

credibility of the United Nations is called into question and

the authority of the Security Council is undermined.

We must act to ensure that operations are properly

resourced, that troop contributors can take decisions on

participation, secure in the knowledge that they will be

adequately funded, and that there is greater consultation

between the Council and troop contributions.

The cost of peacekeeping will always be less than the

cost of war. There could be no better way to mark the

fiftieth anniversary than to address once and for all this

most critical constraint on peacekeeping operations.

As our understanding of civil strife develops, we are

coming to see the vital role that action in the area of human

rights can play in helping to prevent and resolve conflict.

The value of integrating peace-keeping and human rights

has proved its worth in Cambodia, in El Salvador and

elsewhere, but our approach has been piecemeal and

tentative. Even in Rwanda we still await an adequate

deployment of human rights monitors. Resources will have

to be found for this activity. For its part, Ireland intends to

contribute to the voluntary fund for Rwanda established by

the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

There is a clear need to put in place an effective

system of monitoring and adjudicating human rights

violations. One important step would be to develop a

standing team of human rights monitors reporting to the

High Commissioner for Human Rights. This would make

it easier to integrate human rights action into peace-

keeping operations, and the mandate for peace-keeping

operations could include a human rights dimension with

clearly established reporting and verification procedures.

In addition, we should move now on the

establishment of a permanent international criminal court.

The United Nations must demonstrate that it has the will

to bring to justice those responsible for crimes against

humanity, summary executions, torture, rape and

mutilation. If we fail to do this, we will have failed to

learn the lessons of Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and we will,

of course, risk their repetition.

Our efforts to deal with war and civil strife cannot

ignore what the "Agenda for Peace" has described as the

root causes of conflict: economic despair, social injustice

and political oppression. Maintaining the peace is

impossible in an unequal world. Conversely,

development is the most secure basis for peace.

It can be no coincidence that Rwanda and Somalia

are among the least developed countries of the world.

Thus, when the Secretary-General himself tells us that

development is in crisis, we are compelled to listen, and

we are compelled to agree with him that an alternative to

the United Nations in development simply does not exist.

The truth is that the agenda for development and the

"Agenda for Peace" are complementary. They are

different sides of the same coin, and we must make

progress on both if we are to reach our common goals of

peace and prosperity.

What has been called a "culture of development"

must extend beyond the provision of financial assistance

to embrace economic progress, the environment, social

justice, democracy and good governance. At next year’s

World Social Summit and at the Conference on Women

we can build on the progress already made in the

Conferences on Environment and on Population.

The tragedy of war and civil strife underlines the

need to address more seriously the question of

disarmament. The easy availability of arms contributes,

not just to the scale of the carnage and suffering in

conflict, but to the outbreak of conflict itself.

At the global level, the volume of trade in major

conventional weapons has declined in recent years. But

19

in some regions large stockpiles have accumulated. In

others the arms trade continues to grow.

There is a need for States to exercise greater

responsibility and restraint in their arms transfers. Already

the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms has led

to greater transparency. But I believe that we should now

go further. That is why Ireland has proposed that the

United Nations elaborate a code of conduct for conventional

arms transfers which would set out common principles to

be observed in this area. It is my hope that the General

Assembly will now decide that work on such a code should

be put in hand.

The lives of millions of people have been put at risk

and large areas rendered unsafe as a result of the

indiscriminate use of land-mines. Since last year many

Governments have introduced moratoriums on the export of

anti-personnel mines. I welcome President Clinton’s call

for an agreement to reduce the number and availability of

these mines.

I welcome also the very considerable progress made

in the reduction of nuclear arsenals and towards a

comprehensive test-ban treaty. The threat of nuclear

conflict between the major Powers no longer overshadows

our daily lives. But there is disturbing evidence that some

States still want to acquire a nuclear-weapon capability.

Their ability to do so is helped by the growth in the world’s

stocks of fissile materials and in personnel with the

requisite technological skills.

Next year’s Conference to review and extend the

Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

provides an opportunity to address these issues. Ireland

wants to see an indefinite extension of the Treaty. We

want to see the principles on which the Treaty is founded

maintained; the non-proliferation regime strengthened; all

States becoming members; and progress made towards the

complete elimination of nuclear weapons, as envisaged in

the Treaty.

The agenda for United Nations reform is formidable -

for the Organization itself and for the States that make up

this Assembly. But whatever the difficulties, reform is a

vital and urgent necessity. I am convinced that unless we

act in a broad and imaginative way, bringing together the

political, peace-keeping, development and human-rights

instruments of the United Nations, we will prove inadequate

to the great contemporary challenges.

We now have an opportunity such as has not existed

for a generation. I urge all of us to grasp it.