Ireland, 1997

I would like to offer Foreign

Minister Udovenko of Ukraine my warmest

congratulations on his election as President of the

General Assembly at its fifty-second session. His skill

and experience will serve us well in directing the vital

work to be undertaken at this session. Ireland, and you,

Ambassador Campbell as Vice-President of the General

Assembly, will spare no effort in assisting the President

in the important tasks of his office.

I also wish to thank Ambassador Razali Ismail for

the energy and commitment he devoted to guiding the

Assembly at its last session.

My colleague Foreign Minister Poos of

Luxembourg, speaking on behalf of the European

Union, set out clearly in his speech to the Assembly the

agenda for action by the United Nations and its

Member States in facing the challenges of the world

today. Ireland associates itself fully with his remarks.

This session is a crucial one for the United

Nations. Decisions must be taken to make the United

Nations more effective in meeting its real objectives

and priorities in future years. The Secretary-General has

presented us with a considered, balanced and substantial

package of proposals for United Nations reform. This

package marks a turning point in the reform and

revitalization process. The Secretary-General has

recognized that the future of the United Nations can be

secured only by a clearer focus and better coordination

of effort, expertise and resources on the key

priorities — real peace and security, sustainable

development, equitable economic and social progress,

humanitarian action and, underlying all of these, the

safeguarding of universal human rights.

Ireland welcomes in particular the proposals for a

more concerted effort in the economic and social

development sector. Together with our European Union

partners, we have been developing our own contribution

in this area. Our aim is a more effective and coherent

United Nations effort which would finally make real

inroads, particularly in the least developed countries, in

the fight against poverty and underdevelopment. We

welcome the intention of the Secretary-General to

channel the resources saved in this exercise to

development programmes of the Organization.

I know that some will feel that the proposals do

not go far enough in one direction, and others in

another. It is not possible to accommodate fully all

concerns. But there is enough in these proposals to

make the start on reform that we have all been looking

for. I therefore earnestly appeal to all Member States to

join this broad consensus of support.

We should also, at this session, work to achieve a

solution to the difficult questions of the financing of the

United Nations and of the enlargement and working

methods of the Security Council. Ireland, my country,

has declared its candidacy for the Security Council in

the year 2000. We shall do everything possible to earn

support for our candidacy.

24

Living through times of dramatic change is rarely

easy. Globalization and liberalization of the international

economy have brought significant benefits to many

countries and are changing the shape of our world. Some

developing countries have benefited from these processes

and made significant economic and social strides. Others,

especially in sub-Saharan Africa, have become even more

marginalized from the world economy, and this is

unacceptable.

Ireland has been increasing its official-development-

assistance budget over a number of years. My

Government is committed to making steady progress

towards achieving the United Nations target of 0.7 per

cent in our development-cooperation assistance.

Specifically, we are committed to having Irish aid reach

0.45 per cent of gross national product by 2002.

Some critics contend that development cooperation

has not succeeded. The best response to this is to point to

what it has already achieved. In regard to the most

fundamental of all human rights, life expectancy around

the world has increased by a third in the past three

decades; infant mortality has been cut in half. These are

not small achievements.

In our present globalized and increasingly

interdependent world economy, we need to seek a new

partnership between developed and developing countries

to address those issues which affect the entire

international community. In this the United Nations has

an indispensable role to play, and we pledge our full

support to assist the Secretary-General in his task.

In June 1998 the General Assembly will meet in

special session to address the drugs issue, both at the

national and international levels. I had the honour, as

Minister of Justice and in the role of President of the

Council of Ministers of the European Union, to address

the General Assembly on this question in 1990. The

Assembly has regularly considered further action to deal

with this menace. But the action that has been taken so

far has clearly been inadequate. We must redouble our

efforts. Drugs are an international cancer which threaten

the lives of the present and future generations,

particularly our young. For all our people, they pose a

real threat to the very fabric of society.

Last week saw the conclusion of negotiations in

Oslo on a global Convention banning landmines, without

reservation, without exception and for all time. This

major step forward will be particularly welcomed by

those countries which have suffered so much as a result

of the use of these barbaric devices. Those countries

not present there and not yet ready to sign in December

must take account of the widespread international

support for this agreement. We appeal to them to help

ensure the maximum degree of adherence to the

Convention. The international community must now

work together with ever greater determination to

provide for the clearing of mines already placed and for

the care and rehabilitation, as well as the social and

economic reintegration, of mine victims.

In 1961, when the then-Foreign Minister of

Ireland, Mr. Frank Aiken, introduced a resolution at the

sixteenth session of the General Assembly calling for

the conclusion of an international agreement that would

prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, he launched a

process which the Irish Government firmly believed

would eventually lead to total nuclear disarmament.

Then as now, our conviction was that genuine

international peace and security can never be achieved

as long as nuclear weapons remain part of the

armouries of States.

We welcome the achievements of recent years,

whether bilateral or multilateral: the START Treaties,

the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, the global

ban outlawing chemical weapons and present efforts to

strengthen the ban on biological and toxin weapons.

These show that with the necessary will progress is

possible.

Now is the time for serious consideration of an

integrated approach, encompassing both bilateral and

multilateral negotiations, culminating in an international

agreement on a total ban on nuclear weapons. We must

inject a real sense of urgency into translating the goal

of the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons into a

more concrete reality. My plea is for reflection on the

part of all; for compromise and for cooperation, and for

a flexible rather than a dogmatic approach. I believe

that we can offer no better vision, courage and

leadership in the service of peace than to take up this

challenge.

While we can look forward one day to a world

free of nuclear weapons, no time should be lost in

agreeing how the peaceful uses of nuclear energy can

best be managed. We in Ireland live in close proximity

to a nuclear-fuel reprocessing plant which poses a

considerable threat to us because of the ever-present

risk of a major accident at the plant. In many countries

25

today, nuclear energy is viewed with alarm and

apprehension. Public resistance has persuaded some

Governments to renounce the nuclear option because the

benefits of nuclear energy have failed to convince a

sceptical and questioning public.

The impact of accidents involving nuclear-power

reactors can cross international frontiers. The legitimate

interests of States affected by such accidents demand that

high priority be given to strengthening nuclear safety

worldwide. Reactor safety and the closure of sub-standard

reactors represent for my Government fundamental

necessities that nuclear-energy States must meet.

It is simply unacceptable that poor management of

radioactive waste and spent fuel should threaten the

health and safety of populations or cause serious long-

term damage to the environment of States which have no

nuclear programmes. The recent Joint Convention dealing

with these matters will hopefully bring about

improvements. However, much more needs to be done

through international cooperation to allay the deep

misgivings of a concerned public.

Transport of nuclear materials and radioactive waste

raises the most serious and justifiable fears. We must

insist that this, along with all other nuclear activities, be

carried out in strict accordance with the highest

international standards of safety and security.

Furthermore, the entirely legitimate sensitivities of transit

countries affected by such movements must be

recognized.

As we approach next year's celebration of the

fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights, we must recognize that we have fallen

short in implementing the goals and aspirations of the

Declaration. While recognizing that none of us has

grounds for complacency in this regard, it is a reality that

the human rights situation in certain countries remains of

particular concern to the international community. The

European Union, in its memorandum to the General

Assembly, has listed the areas of particular concern to us,

including the human rights situation in Myanmar, East

Timor, Nigeria and Afghanistan, to name but a few.

We must all work together — Governments and

non-governmental organizations and civil society

generally — in dialogue and partnership to ensure that

the human rights principles enshrined in the Charter and

the Universal Declaration are respected to the full.

The current reforms proposed by the Secretary-

General, in particular his decision to consolidate the

two existing human rights offices into a single office of

High Commissioner for Human Rights, are to be

welcomed. They provide a clear opportunity to

strengthen significantly the human rights programme of

the United Nations by fully integrating human rights

issues across the full range of United Nations activities.

It is a cause of great pride to the Government and the

people of Ireland that the Secretary-General has chosen

Mrs. Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland,

as the new High Commissioner.

I wish to turn now to an area of United Nations

activity which is of particular concern and interest to

my country — that of peacekeeping. Ireland has a

proud record of service in almost every major United

Nations peacekeeping operation. We will continue this

role, including our contribution of personnel from the

Irish police force — the Garda Siochána — to the new

and important role for civilian police in United Nations

peacekeeping operations.

Our peacekeepers have at times paid a heavy

price: some 75 Irish peacekeepers have died in the

service of United Nations peacekeeping.

Our support for the role of the United Nations in

its peacekeeping role has not wavered. But it is

tempered by the sober recognition that, despite many

significant successes in past decades, United Nations

peacekeeping, particularly in recent times, has not

always been effective. We must become better at

averting conflicts, through more vigorous preventive

diplomacy and action in dealing with the roots of

conflict. When we are forced to intervene, our response

must be prompt and better informed through effective

early warning systems. Our tasks and objectives must

be better defined, both as regards keeping the peace and

making the peace. The full support, political and

material, of the Member States is essential if they are to

be achieved effectively.

Too often the United Nations has been asked, to

its cost, to keep the peace indefinitely in conflict areas,

without any corresponding efforts by the parties to the

conflict to make peace. All Member States of this

Organization have a responsibility to ensure continuous

and honest efforts to make the peace permanent.

The changing international situation of the last

decade has seen the emergence of new sources of

26

conflict and tension. Old ethnic rivalries and hatreds have

resurfaced, leading to new local and regional conflicts. In

Bosnia and Herzegovina, the killing has stopped, but

progress in building the peace has been painfully slow. In

the Middle East, too, moving the peace process forward

is proving enormously more difficult than could have

been imagined. We call on all parties to live up to their

responsibilities and put the process back on track. In

Cyprus, in the Great Lakes region of Africa and in many

other places, the serious efforts of the international

community to secure lasting peace are making very slow

headway.

In the island of Ireland, we face the task of forging

reconciliation and, leaving behind us the bitterness of

history, ensuring that the root causes of the threat to

peace are addressed effectively.

Successive Irish Foreign Ministers have addressed

this Assembly over the years and informed

representatives of the efforts being made to resolve the

conflict in Northern Ireland and bring about a lasting

peaceful settlement. They have brought news of

significant advances, from the launching of the

intergovernmental approach by Ireland and Britain in

1980 and the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in

1985, to the formulation of the Joint Declaration in 1993

and the publication of the Joint Framework document in

1995.

I now bring to the Assembly the joyous news that

yesterday in Belfast we succeeded in launching

substantial and historic all-party talks in which the future

of a peaceful and agreed Ireland is to be mapped out.

What is notable about all of these developments — each

an important foundation stone in the current peace

process — is that they were undertaken in partnership

between the Irish and British Governments. Progress has

been driven by our two Governments, united in the quest

for peace and a lasting and just settlement. That progress

has been defined and directed by the concept of the

“totality of relationships”, with which our two islands are

intertwined and which bears directly on the question of

Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland represents the

interface between the respective traditions and future

aspirations of both Ireland and Britain. Only in the

totality of our relations can we come to terms with our

differing visions of the past and reconcile our hopes for

the future.

The notion of the “totality of relationships” has been

reinforced recently by profound shifts in political and

social attitudes in both Ireland and Britain. The

character of these shifts has much in common in that

they serve to illustrate the commonality that the peoples

of Ireland and Britain share.

Ireland has been undergoing a dramatic and

invigorating process of renewal. This has been most

evident in our economic performance, but it is evident

too in our social and cultural life. I have a deep sense

that it has been encouraged and shaped by our

involvement in the evolution of Europe and the

development of our multilateral relations through the

United Nations itself. This renewal has been marked by

inspiration about what can be done and by what is

needed pragmatically to achieve what we set out to do.

In Britain, there has been a dramatic development

which redefines and reshapes the nature of its political

union. And we too detect that same impulse to

reinvigorate the institutions of the state, to undertake a

reappraisal and a renewal as the new millennium

approaches.

I believe that this sense of change in both islands,

this quickening pace, will be a very important factor as

both Governments and all the parties to the negotiations

in Northern Ireland take the peace process forward. It

will, I believe, impart an urgency and focus to the

deliberations. More importantly, it means that those

who form part of the talks process have the opportunity

to shape their future rather than surrender through

indifference or apathy to the inexorability of change.

For we live in a time which offers an invitation to

shape our common future. That invitation is open to all

those with the courage and vision to participate in the

talks process, which seeks to reshape the relations

which are central to the solution we seek — relations

between the two communities in Northern Ireland,

relations between the North and the South of our island,

and relations between Ireland and Britain.

The efforts of both Governments to construct the

complex structures on which to base a peace process

were undertaken with the very clear acknowledgment

that ultimately it was there to serve all the parties most

directly involved in the conflict and, through them, the

wider community. As the leader of the Social

Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), John Hume, so

clearly recognized, it had to be an inclusive peace

process if it was to be a lasting one.

27

Creating the conditions for this inclusive process

was a difficult task in the face of continued violence by

paramilitaries on both sides — violence which has been

ongoing for over 25 years; violence which threatened to

limit the boundaries of a whole generation to suspicion,

mutual mistrust and division; violence which still seeks to

threaten and disrupt our efforts to build a lasting peace.

The task of creating an inclusive peace process

required us to call on our friends in the international

community. I want to acknowledge those friends,

particularly in the European Union, Canada, Australia,

New Zealand and, most important, in the United States.

The partnership between Ireland and Britain has

been consistently encouraged and assisted by the United

States under the leadership of President Clinton and with

the backing of friends and supporters in the United States

Congress. In particular, President Clinton offered his

personal support and active engagement in the search for

peace. The President undertook to share the risks for

peace which were being taken by both Governments. And

in doing so, he added significantly to the momentum

which secured the ceasefire in 1994 and re-established it

in July of this year.

The United States has been a resource offered

generously in the name of peace. I want to acknowledge

the invaluable role played by Senator George Mitchell in

chairing the multi-party talks in Belfast. And I also want

to express my Government's appreciation for the

cooperation and assistance provided by the Governments

of Finland and Canada, particularly by making available

as co-chairmen of the talks former Prime Minister Harri

Holkeri and General John de Chastelain. They have

shown unfailing forbearance and unremitting commitment

to this delicate and complex process.

With this help, and with the resolve of both

Governments to ensure that an unequivocal ceasefire was

a necessary condition for involvement in the talks

process, another ceasefire was, as I said earlier,

established in July this year. Because the ceasefire has

been re-established, all parties to the problem of Northern

Ireland have now been invited to join the talks process in

Belfast and to begin the task of shaping our respective

interwoven futures.

We have, in the course of the Anglo-Irish peace

process, sought to accomplish the purpose for which this

Assembly was established — to replace mistrust and

violent confrontation with dialogue, negotiation and

agreement between all the parties to conflict. We do not

underestimate the difficulties that lie ahead. As the

history of the United Nations itself has shown, major

conflicts have, for the most part, been avoided.

However, the resolution of localized conflicts has

proven elusive and problematic.

The principles, purpose and practice of this

Assembly and the United Nations itself were formed to

replace conflict — of whatever scale — with peace

through dialogue. In our approach to Northern Ireland,

we have been guided by the same impulse to create

principles, purposes and practices which will replace

the method and means of sectarian hatred and

intercommunal violence.

We have made it clear that in our talks, all issues

are on the table, that no outcome is ruled out of bounds

for discussion or is predetermined. We have constructed

a process and rules of procedure by which the parties

can discuss, refine and eventually agree on the

structures which will embrace the totality of relations

on the two islands and which command the consent of

both unionists and nationalists in Ireland.

We have established as an integral part of the

dialogue that we recognize the rights and wishes of the

unionist community in the same way as we insist that

parity of esteem for Nationalists is a necessary and just

component of any eventual settlement.

We have set out our view that the resolution of the

issue of the decommissioning of arms is an

indispensable part of the process of negotiation. We

have emphatically declared, in our insistence on

adherence to the Mitchell principles of democracy and

non-violence, that only those committed to democratic

and exclusively peaceful means of resolving political

issues and those who renounce force or the threat of

force to influence the outcome of the negotiations can

be a party to the talks process.

We have embraced as a founding principle in the

current talks process and its eventual outcome that any

agreement must command sufficient consensus between

both sets of participants. We have accepted that the

agreement reached will be put to the people of Ireland,

North and South, for their approval.

Both Governments have set a target to conclude

these talks by next May and present proposals to the

people of Ireland, North and South, in parallel

28

referendums. I believe that this target is necessarily

ambitious and realistically achievable.

We may well have setbacks in the interim. We

certainly have difficult issues to confront and

compromises to make which will require courage and

vision.

But both Governments — and I believe the parties

currently in the talks process — are collectively

determined that this process will be pursued, that there

will be no going back, and that the future we seek of

harmonious relations and an honourable and

comprehensive agreement will be secured and that lasting

peace will be brought to our island.