Ireland, 1995

I warmly congratulate the

President on his election to preside over the fiftieth session

of the General Assembly. We take confidence from the fact

that his experience and distinction will be available to guide

us in our deliberations at this historic session. I am

especially pleased to extend my congratulations to the

representative of a country with which we have the closest

and most friendly relations as a fellow member of the

European Union.

I wish at the outset to congratulate the parties to the

latest peace accord in the Middle East, which will be signed

in Washington tomorrow. It has required great

statesmanship, courage and perseverance on the part of

Palestinian and Israeli leaders alike to reach this agreement.

We in Ireland will continue to play our part in supporting

the peace process, together with our partners in the

European Union.

In the same spirit, we warmly welcome the agreement

reached yesterday in New York, which we all hope will lay

the foundation for a lasting peace in Bosnia and

Herzegovina and throughout the region.

If I choose to highlight two issues at the very

beginning of my remarks, Sir, you will understand, I am

sure, that it is because these two issues have created such

a resonance around the world. The first issue to which I

refer is the Fourth World Conference on Women. Ireland

stands committed to the principle that human rights are

indivisible — the rights of one are the rights of all. No

system based on a universal commitment to human rights

can survive if the rights of women are not seen as an

integral factor in the equation.

Women suffer disproportionately from the effects of

war and armed conflict, whether it be as casualties from

land-mines or as the victims of systematic rape. Women

and children form the great majority of the more than 1

billion people living in poverty around the world today.

Women in most societies are prevented from participating

fully in the decision-making processes and have unequal

access to power. Women continue to be prevented from

fully exercising their sexual and reproductive rights,

including the newly recognized right to have control over,

and decide freely and responsibly on, matters related to

their sexuality, free of coercion, discrimination and

violence.

The Fourth World Conference on Women, held

earlier this month in Beijing, addressed these and other

issues of relevance to women. The Declaration and the

Platform adopted by the Conference pose a major

challenge to Governments and the international

community to overcome the obstacles which continue to

face women around the world. They also represent a

solemn commitment by Governments and the whole

United Nations system to take all necessary measures to

eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and

to remove all obstacles to gender equality and the

advancement and empowerment of women. On behalf of

the Irish Government I pledge here that we will do

everything in our power to ensure that this commitment

is honoured and implemented.

The second issue to which I must refer is the

resumption of nuclear testing by the French and Chinese

Governments. It would be wrong if I were to address this

gathering and ignore decisions that have — almost

literally — sent shock waves around the world.

We in Ireland, confronted as we are by the

ever-present anxiety posed by ageing nuclear facilities on

our neighbouring island, have had many occasions over

the years to know the worry caused by the potential of

nuclear power. The great majority of the Irish people,

therefore, easily understand and share the deep concern of

the peoples of the South Pacific. Nor can we fail to

recognize the dismay and dejection caused by the

resumption of nuclear testing in the immediate aftermath

of the successful outcome of the Non-Proliferation Treaty

Review and Extension Conference. The finalization of the

comprehensive test-ban treaty early next year remains an

absolute imperative.

The President of the General Assembly is taking

office at an exceptional time in the history of the United

23

Nations. Next month the Heads of State or Government will

meet here in special session to commemorate the fiftieth

anniversary of the Organization. The General Assembly,

inspired by this anniversary, should mark a decisive new

phase for the United Nations.

The world faces a daunting array of new problems

which require the United Nations to adapt and revitalize its

resources. The representative of Spain, Foreign Minister

Solana, speaking on behalf of the European Union, set out

these challenges in his speech here yesterday to this

Assembly. Ireland associates itself fully with these remarks.

The fiftieth anniversary coincides with a more critical

attitude towards the United Nations in many countries.

There is a growing readiness to highlight shortcomings and

failures rather than the longer-term record of real and

substantial success. We cannot ignore this criticism,

particularly when it comes from many who are ordinarily

the strongest advocates of the United Nations. The United

Nations, like any other organization, can only benefit from

rigorous examination and adaptation.

But no organization can of itself provide wholesale

remedies for removing the hatred, the fear, the distrust and

the divisions in the world. Many of the shortcomings for

which the Organization is frequently criticized have more

to do with a flagging of the collective will to demonstrate

the determination, generosity, courage and tolerance to live

up to the obligations of the Charter.

The Charter remains the bedrock for what lies ahead,

as it has been for all that has been achieved over those 50

years. The United Nations has a remarkable record on

which to build: it has enshrined the universal obligation of

respect for law and good conduct between States as the

centre-piece of international relations; it served in numerous

ways during the long years of the cold war to dull the edge

of great-Power rivalry and reduce the dangers of global

confrontation; it provided an indispensable framework for

the negotiation of crucial arms-control agreements which

hold the promise of a world free of weapons of mass

destruction; it facilitated the process of decolonization and

helped bring about the dismantling of apartheid; it

prevented numerous conflicts through its peace-keeping

operations and restored stability to many parts of the world;

it set the basic international standards for human rights and

monitors their observance; it has sustained efforts to

eliminate poverty, alleviate distress and deprivation, and

improve the health and living standards of millions of the

world’s most vulnerable citizens.

We may ask, what of the recent past? The United

Nations has seen great recent achievements — in

Mozambique, in Cambodia, in Haiti, in El Salvador, to

take some examples. The peoples of those countries can

bear witness to new hopes for a better and more secure

future.

In other local and regional conflicts, however, the

United Nations experience, in the face of extraordinarily

complex and painful circumstances, has seen serious

setbacks. The human misery resulting from the wars in

former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Somalia has shocked the

world.

Almost 50 years after the adoption of the Universal

Declaration, human rights violations remain a major

widespread problem. With a resurgence of regional

conflict and ethnic tensions in many parts of the world,

we have been confronted with virtually every imaginable

human rights abuse. In contemporary warfare, more than

90 per cent of the casualties are non-combatants who are

often directly targeted because of their ethnic or religious

affiliations.

Children, like women, are especially vulnerable.

During the last decade, nearly 2 million children have

died in wars and more than 5 million have been forced

into refugee camps. More children die in wars than

soldiers. At the present time throughout the world there

are almost 30 million refugees and displaced persons in

need of assistance. In the Great Lakes region of Africa,

as the refugee nightmare deepens, we require urgent and

concerted action to avert any danger of new tragedies.

The scale of all these problems has already stretched

to the limits our ability to respond, and has heightened the

problem of United Nations credibility. It is against this

background that we the Member States must revitalize the

United Nations in its mission and equip it with the means

to react with vigour and determination to the new crises

which constantly arise. This means improving the

response to humanitarian emergencies. But it also means

tackling more effectively their root causes, poverty and

deprivation, preventing conflicts before they arise, and

more quickly containing and resolving them when they

do.

The Secretary-General’s Agenda for Peace and

Agenda for Development are landmark documents that set

out clear priorities and a programme for action.

24

One of the many bitter lessons that we have to draw

from recent experience in Rwanda and Bosnia is that the

traditional deployment of peace-keeping units is no longer,

on its own, a sufficient response to the type of crises which

we face. In the past, peace-keeping operations were

primarily concerned with policing cease-fires between

Member States, pending diplomatic efforts to resolve the

substantive political issues. That, unfortunately, is no longer

the case: 11 of the 13 operations established since 1991

have involved internal conflicts. Peace-keeping contingents

increasingly find themselves operating in situations where

government and civil order have broken down. There are no

longer clear points of reference for such operations which

have become politically and logistically more complex, and

financially more onerous.

There are a number of ways in which the management

and conduct of peace-keeping operations must be improved.

Perhaps most urgent is the need to improve the response

capability of the United Nations in dealing with sudden or

complex emergencies. Important initiatives have already

been taken in this regard with the development of the

United Nations stand-by arrangements system. Such

arrangements might perhaps be extended to other areas to

ensure that a full range of humanitarian, logistical and civil

defence as well as military options is available to the

United Nations in dealing with the many crises which it is

called upon to address. In Ireland we are actively exploring

the possibility of bringing together a humanitarian liaison

group comprising experts from a wide range of fields which

could be deployed at short notice when emergencies occur.

Command and control of United Nations operations

also needs to be improved. Greater attention needs to be

paid to ensuring that the distinction between peace-keeping

and peace enforcement is not blurred in devising mandates

for operations, if the confidence and willingness of troop-

contributing countries to continue providing troops is to be

maintained.

Regional organizations can also play a valuable role in

support of United Nations peace-keeping activities. It is of

course essential that such organizations in carrying out their

role do so strictly in accordance with the mandate which

the Security Council has laid down. The United Nations

should benefit from the support of regional organizations,

as the Charter envisages, but should not in doing so

relinquish its overall control and responsibility.

My delegation shares the concerns which the

Secretary-General has expressed about the safety of United

Nations personnel in the field. We would like to see the

United Nations Convention on the safety and security of

United Nations personnel enter into force as soon as

possible.

Our concern extends to all personnel who find

themselves in dangerous situations, including

humanitarian experts working with non-governmental

organizations, who are frequently the first to arrive in the

field in the early, and often most dangerous, stages of an

emergency.

On the basis of the recommendations of the

Secretary-General, we need to look again at how we can

develop the United Nations capacity for preventive

diplomacy, early warning and mediation, and for timely

intervention in disputes before they escalate out of

control.

Ireland continues to believe that the task of

preventing conflict would also be facilitated by the

creation of a mediation body which would work closely

with the Secretary-General and the Security Council.

The dispatch of special teams of advisers and

monitors to areas of crisis and tension should be placed

on a more assured and regular basis than in the past. I

believe that a small investment here would be amply and

quickly repaid.

There is a growing acceptance that violations of

humanitarian law are a threat to international peace and

security. The case for the establishment of a permanent

international criminal court is therefore more obvious than

ever before. It is only through such a body that the

international community can effectively demonstrate that

massive human rights violations will never go

unpunished.

The international community is attempting to break

the pattern of violence in Rwanda and the former

Yugoslavia by ensuring that those who are guilty of

human rights abuses are punished and that minimum

standards of accountability are set so as to deter future

offenders. We have rightly responded by establishing

teams of United Nations human rights monitors as well as

ad hoc tribunals to try the perpetrators of war crimes.

This is a good beginning. It is also necessary to devise

measures which would extend vigilance and provide early

warning of potential situations of human rights abuse. The

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,

supported by human rights monitors, is already playing a

25

key role in meeting this objective. He must be given our

full cooperation and adequate financial support.

The promotion of the universality of human rights

achieved a significant breakthrough with the Vienna

Declaration and Programme of Action. However, our

concerns are that implementation will suffer unless there is

a significant increase in the proportion of the regular budget

devoted to human rights activity. As a demonstration of our

own national commitment, the Irish Government has this

year increased substantially its contribution to the various

United Nations voluntary funds in the field of human rights.

It is now time for the United Nations to pay more

attention to constructing the foundations for peace through

development. As part of the process of renewal, we need to

work in partnership to pursue a new approach to

cooperation for development — a cooperation which

redresses the imbalances and has as an objective the

realization of sustainable human development for all.

Ireland has consistently supported the elaboration of

“An Agenda for Development”, and we look forward to a

substantive and relevant outcome.

Most of the zones of insecurity in the world are to be

found in developing countries, and the Charter clearly

recognizes that lack of development is one of the root

causes of conflict between States.

This year is the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary

of the Great Famine in Ireland, a catastrophe of enormous

proportions, which has had a lasting and searing impact on

Irish life. Its memory is still very much alive, and it has

reinforced the Irish commitment to the prevention of similar

catastrophes in other parts of the world.

While many areas of the world, including my own

country, have seen great economic and social progress over

the past 50 years, the developing world, especially in

Africa, has not enjoyed the benefits of this progress. How

can we explain the fact that, in a world of plenty, one fifth

of the world’s population still goes to bed hungry?

Earlier this year the World Summit for Social

Development agreed on a consensus approach to the

development of international norms in the economic, social

and related spheres. We now need to act at both the

international and the national levels to implement the

commitments and consolidate the achievements.

In recent years new opportunities have opened up for

disarmament; we should now move decisively to grasp

them. Never has the continued presence of huge arsenals

of mass destruction been so out of step with the hopes

and aspirations of the international community. Never has

the logic underpinning nuclear deterrence been so much

in need of fundamental and critical reassessment.

There has been progress in some areas. The Treaty

on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) has

been made permanent and its Parties have been made

more accountable. Renewed commitments to nuclear

non-proliferation and disarmament were accepted by all

participants at the NPT review and extension Conference.

My country looks to all nuclear-weapon States, and in

particular the five permanent member States of the

Security Council, to keep faith with the spirit and letter of

these commitments.

We welcome the progress being made in the

negotiations for a comprehensive test-ban treaty. Their

conclusion next year would be warmly greeted by public

opinion in our countries and would facilitate new steps in

the field of nuclear disarmament, in particular the

successful conclusion of a treaty which would ban the

production of fissile materials for weapons purposes.

Ireland is deeply committed to stemming the

excessive flow of conventional arms worldwide, and we

support the objective of a ban on anti-personnel

land-mines, which have caused civilian suffering on a

huge scale. The elaboration of a United Nations code of

conduct on conventional arms transfers, which I have

proposed to the Assembly, remains a valuable practical

priority in developing greater international controls over

the flow of conventional weapons.

In conducting its mission and fulfilling its

responsibilities under the Charter, the United Nations

must also begin a process of institutional reform and

renewal. This should begin with the Security Council. The

Security Council needs to be enlarged in order to increase

its effectiveness and its ability to act, both clearly and

unambiguously, as the expression of the common will of

Member States.

Enlargement should enhance the representative

character of the Security Council, taking into account the

emergence of new economic and political powers as well

as the increase in United Nations membership. It should

also enhance equitable geographic representation, and it

should not diminish the possibility for smaller Member

26

States to serve. Enlargement should take place in both the

permanent and non-permanent categories of membership.

After two years of discussion we have now reached the

point where we should begin to clarify the elements of a

balanced solution.

The Secretary-General has made it very clear to us

that the Organization is now facing an unprecedented

financial crisis. How can we expect the United Nations to

discharge the responsibilities given to it by Member States

if the Member States themselves are unwilling to meet their

basic obligations under the Charter to provide the necessary

resources? Unless urgent steps are taken, what we say here

will be no more than empty words.

My delegation fully understands the reason why the

Secretary-General has found it necessary to take various

measures to reduce costs. We support the thrust of his

proposals. However, as the European Union has made clear,

we view with considerable concern the decision of the

Secretary-General, as part of these cost-saving measures, to

suspend payment of all troop reimbursement costs. Even as

a short-term measure, this imposes a heavy and unfair

burden on troop-contributing countries, particularly those

which, like Ireland, have fully discharged all their financial

obligations to the Organization.

If all Member States were to declare here their

intentions to pay assessed contributions in full, on time and

without conditions, both for peacekeeping and the regular

budget, this single commitment would do more than any

other to strengthen the United Nations capacity to act

effectively.

When I spoke last year to the Assembly about the

Northern Ireland situation, I stressed the importance of the

announcement, a few weeks earlier, of the complete

cessation of military operations by the IRA. This was

followed, some weeks afterwards, by a similar

announcement by representatives of the loyalist

paramilitaries. Thankfully, the guns have now been silent in

Northern Ireland for the past year. This has brought the gift

of peace, and the gift of hope, to a situation where both had

been sorely lacking.

The gift of peace has been profoundly welcome. The

unremitting toll of death and destruction which disfigured

Northern Ireland for the past generation has been halted.

The economic opportunities offered by peace have rapidly

begun to be exploited. Freed from the shadow of terrorism,

human contacts have multiplied across the divide in

Northern Ireland and between both parts of the island.

The paramilitary leaders, through the maintenance of

their cease-fires, have made an important first

contribution to the climate of hope. However, only the

two Governments and the political leaders in Northern

Ireland can consolidate the hope implicit in the cessation

of violence by underpinning it with an agreed political

settlement which can enjoy the consent and allegiance of

all. That is now the paramount goal.

In the Joint Declaration of 15 December 1993, the

British and Irish Governments acknowledged as their goal

“to remove the causes of conflict, to overcome the

legacy of history and to heal the divisions which

have resulted”.

This task can now be addressed free of the

polarizing and distorting influences which terrorism, and

the countermeasures it calls forth, exert on the political

process. It is vital that this unprecedented opportunity

should be grasped.

A settlement of the Northern Ireland conflict requires

the engagement and cooperation of both Governments and

of the political leaders of both communities in Northern

Ireland. The close cooperation of the two Governments

has been the enabling condition for the progress to date.

The Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 and the Joint

Declaration of 1993 are landmark documents in that

process. Last February we published the New Framework

for Agreement, setting out the shared assessment of the

two Governments on how a balanced and honourable

accommodation could be envisaged across all the key

relationships. While this is not a blueprint to be imposed

on the parties, it reflects long and careful consideration

between the two Governments on how the underlying

realities should be addressed and is designed to give

impetus and direction to the process of negotiations.

The role of the two Governments is crucial because

the Northern Ireland conflict is primarily about the wider

British or Irish allegiances resolutely cherished by the two

communities there. For that reason, there can be no purely

internal solution. Innovative thinking and potentially

difficult decisions will be required on both sides of the

Irish Sea if the two Governments are to create the context

and conditions where the conflicting allegiances can at

last be reconciled.

The success of these intergovernmental efforts will,

however, be measured ultimately by attitudes of the two

communities within Northern Ireland. The attitude of the

27

nationalist tradition has been characterized by an ever

growing acceptance of the principle that there would be no

change in the status of Northern Ireland without the consent

of a majority of the people there.

They look in turn to the unionist community for an

acknowledgement that the principle of consent, as well as

being a rightful protection for unionists against the

imposition of a united Ireland against the wishes of a

majority of the people in Northern Ireland, also implies the

rights of nationalists in Northern Ireland to be governed by

structures which are relevant and responsive in terms of

their allegiance and aspirations. The denial of the principle

of consent, and of mutual respect, has been costly in the

past. The relative weights of the communities within

Northern Ireland, as in Ireland as a whole, mean that

coercion is quite simply impossible, even if anyone were

foolish enough to attempt it. Cooperation and consent at all

levels are not just the best policy, but the only possible

policy.

Because of this reality, the politics of the peace

process must be resolutely inclusive. Any viable settlement

must deal with each community as it defines itself, not as

others would find it convenient for it to be. For that reason,

I welcome the fact that the new leader of Ulster unionism

is among the most forceful and assertive representatives of

his community’s philosophy.

The test of statesmanship for any leader in Northern

Ireland and the kind of solution we seek are not about

abating the rights of either community. They are about

finding ways to respect them which are compatible with

equally important rights on the other side. We know that

talks can succeed only if both communities in Northern

Ireland are reliably and authentically represented at those

talks. Nationalism should be represented in its integrity at

those talks, and so also must unionism. Both have to spell

out how they propose to accommodate satisfactorily a

tradition and an identity which is not their own.

Both Governments have explicitly set inclusive and

comprehensive negotiations as their goal, yet these have not

yet begun. That failure is frustrating and threatens to

dissipate the momentum towards a lasting peace. It would

be ironic and dangerous if those who have been persuaded

to abandon violence were now to be denied the chance to

make their case politically. It is vital, therefore, that

obstacles in the way of comprehensive negotiations should

now be overcome.

One of the most difficult obstacles is that the

continued existence of arsenals of guns and explosives is

a source of fear, anxiety and mistrust. The Irish

Government, for its part, is absolutely determined that all

arms should be erased from the political equation as soon

as possible. Any debate is about the best means of

achieving this, not about whether it should be done.

It is because of the importance of this goal that we

wish to situate it in the context where it is most likely to

be achieved in practice. We seek to avoid, as far as

possible, symbolic overtones of surrender or of a

one-sided admission of guilt. In this context, no less than

in other contexts in Northern Ireland, the concepts of

victory and defeat will never offer a solution.

To make the decommissioning of weapons a

precondition for entry into negotiations, as opposed to an

important goal to be realized in that process, ignores the

psychology and motivation of those on both sides in

Ireland who have resorted to violence and the lessons of

conflict resolution elsewhere. We should treat

negotiations, as far as possible, as a practical step. Rather

than surrounding entry into negotiations with

preconditions, we should instead seek to build golden

bridges to enable and encourage all to take part.

We need all those who have been part of the

problem to become, as far as possible, part of the

solution. Given the depth and cost of the problem,

participation in negotiations should be treated as a

necessity and a duty, not a privilege to be jealously

withheld or awarded. If we multiply preconditions, we are

in danger of saying, in effect, that negotiations can take

place only when the problems they are supposed to

address have already been largely solved.

In saying this, I do not wish to be in any way

dismissive of the genuine difficulty many people in

Northern Ireland have in dealing on an equal footing with

those who have in the past used or condoned violence and

coercion. It is clear that there is ample room for further

guarantees and assurances aimed at building trust and

confidence in relation to this sensitive issue. If these

guarantees and assurances can be authoritatively and

credibly underscored by a respected and objective outside

agency, so much the better. That is why the idea of an

international dimension to this confidence-building

process is so appealing. We continue to work on it, in the

hope that it can provide a bridge for all sides to overcome

the present difficulty.

28

The Secretary-General has eloquently expressed the

essence of our task in this anniversary year by saying,

“To support the United Nations is not, and never has

been, to subsidize a separate, independent entity.

Today, more than ever, to support the United Nations

is to participate in the only world Organization

composed of all humanity and in the service of all

humanity.

“Today, a half-century later, it is our duty and

our privilege to take this project to its next stage —

the achievement of an age of peace, development and

security.”