Ireland, 2011

We are living in times of

breathtaking change. Much of it is good change:

scientific and technological progress making real

advances for humankind, an ever more interconnected

world strengthening economic opportunity and

developmental potential, the profound transformations

that are sweeping through North Africa at present.

But there is also much that is disturbing: violent

conflict in many parts of the world, growing

environmental damage to our planet, the ravages of a

global financial and economic crisis, the continuing

scourges of poverty, inequality, human rights abuses,

terrorism and extremism and a range of other threats to

global peace and security.

To respond to these multiple and interrelated

challenges, we have one constant anchor: the United

Nations. No other organization is as well equipped to

develop common answers to the big questions of our

time. No other organization has the same global impact

and legitimacy. With our increasing need for global

solutions, the United Nations, which represents almost

all the countries on earth, has the political, moral and

legal authority to act. While there may be no easy

answers to the questions being posed, our best chance

of finding effective responses lies in the collective

deliberation and action provided for by this

Organization.

Ireland is deeply committed to the United

Nations. We look to it to uphold and defend the

universal values of peace, security, human rights and

development that are set out in the United Nations

Charter. The Charter tells us that all human beings are

born free and equal in dignity and rights. The United

Nations is the embodiment of freedom and equality. It

is a bulwark defending these core human values in a

changing and uncertain world.

Freedom and equality: these are the values that

underpin Ireland’s response to key global and regional

challenges. It is our deep commitment to freedom and

equality that places Ireland in the vanguard of

international efforts to resolve conflict, to create and

maintain peace, to eradicate hunger and

underdevelopment, and to put an end to human rights

abuses around the world.

The values of freedom and equality and the

essential ideals of the Charter are not just words

written on a page. Since we assembled here 12 months

ago, we have seen them expressed in North Africa and

the Middle East in a million acts of courage and

liberation. We have watched the people of the Arab

Spring, who have asserted their rights and stood up to

oppression and corruption. Tahrir — freedom — has

now passed into all our vocabularies as a byword for

all those no longer prepared to see their basic human

rights suppressed.

The events of the past nine months in North

Africa and the Middle East are historic in their sweep

and profound in their implications. These have been

genuinely popular movements demanding reform,

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freedom and equality. The leadership role exercised

within them by women has been striking and

inspirational.

The people of the Arab Spring have stood up and

stood together to assert their basic rights and freedoms:

the right to choose their own leaders, the right not to

live in fear of the knock on the door, the right to live

freely and openly, the right to provide a decent life and

a hopeful future for themselves and their families.

They remind us that the human thirst for basic

freedoms is unquenchable, and they should inspire us

in the work we do here. In rising up to grasp their own

destiny, the peoples of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are

tracing the path of those others, once in the shadow of

the Iron Curtain, who, in demanding those ordinary

freedoms, created extraordinary history.

The United Nations has, of course, played an

indispensable role in supporting these developments.

Starting with the key Security Council resolutions 1970

(2011) and 1973 (2011), it has led international efforts

to support the Libyan people. I would like to extend a

warm welcome to the representatives of the National

Transitional Council who took up Libya’s seat at the

United Nations this week, and I pledge Ireland’s full

support as they seek to rebuild Libya and to fulfil the

democratic aspirations of the Libyan people.

We cannot know the final outcome of the events

we are witnessing. We must ensure that the democratic

changes under way are consolidated and that the

promise of profound improvements in human rights in

the countries concerned, in particular in relation to the

role of women, is fully realized.

However, the situation in Syria continues to

arouse the deepest international concern. President

Al-Assad and his Government seem oblivious to the

demands of the Syrian people for change and to the

lessons of the Arab Spring elsewhere. They appear

determined to respond with further oppression and

violence. Our basic message to the Syrian leader is

this: no leader who refuses to listen to what his people

are saying and to act on their clearly expressed desire

for peace and reform can expect to remain in power.

In the Middle East peace process, the search for

freedom and equality has yet to bear fruit. The Arab-

Israeli conflict remains depressingly deadlocked.

Unless this deadlock is broken, the opportunities for

yet another generation of children will be destroyed.

The situation in the Middle East is urgent. After

20 years of failed initiatives, disillusionment about the

ability of the political process to deliver a settlement is

deepening. Young Palestinians in particular are

frustrated and despairing. The position of the moderate

Palestinian leadership is under threat. Never has it been

more important to show that politics works and that a

peaceful, just and lasting settlement is within reach

through negotiation.

Everybody knows what a final and

comprehensive settlement would involve: two States,

based on the 1967 borders with mutually agreed land

swaps, living side by side in peace and security. It is

more pressing than ever to launch direct negotiations

that would address all the core issues and culminate in

such an agreement within a specified time frame.

Ireland has long been an advocate of the

establishment of a sovereign, independent Palestinian

State within borders based on those of 1967. We want

to see the peoples of Palestine and Israel living as good

neighbours in peace, security and prosperity as soon as

possible — and this can come about only through

negotiation. Ireland strongly opposes all action that

serves to hinder or delay negotiations, such as violent

attacks on civilians and their property or Israel’s illegal

settlement of occupied Palestinian territory.

The decision of President Abbas to seek

membership in the United Nations for Palestine is

entirely legitimate and understandable. Palestine has

the same right to membership in the United Nations as

Ireland or any other Member of this Organization.

Some would seek to argue that Palestine cannot be

recognized as a State because its borders remain to be

agreed on. But if the borders of Palestine are still a

matter for negotiation, then so, by definition, are those

of Israel, which is rightly a full Member of the United

Nations.

Membership in the United Nations of itself,

however, would not change the unstable and

unacceptable situation on the ground. It does not

remove the compelling need for negotiations. Nor will

it offer a legitimate excuse to avoid negotiations.

Whatever happens here at the United Nations,

negotiations must resume as soon as possible. The

statement issued last Friday by the Quartet provides a

framework for precisely that.

What recognition of Palestinian statehood would

do, however, is to give dignity and support to the

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Palestinian people, who have suffered for too long. It

would also be a tangible demonstration of the

commitment of the international community and the

United Nations to an agreed settlement between two

sovereign States, living side by side in peace, security

and prosperity.

The day will come, not too far off, when the

General Assembly will be asked to vote on a proposal

to admit Palestine as a Member of the Organization, or

perhaps, as an interim step towards the achievement of

that goal, to accord Palestine non-member observer

State status. Provided that the resolution is drafted in

terms that are reasonable and balanced, I expect Ireland

to give its full support. In Ireland, we know from our

own experience that peace does not come easily. It

requires political will and difficult compromises. But

we also know the benefits of peace. There can be no

doubting the hugely transformative power for the

Middle East region of a final end to the Arab-Israeli

conflict.

The international community has invested far too

much effort and resources over the past decades not to

do all it can now to assist a return to direct talks by the

two sides. In the words of Martin Luther King, we

cannot ignore the fierce urgency of now.

I again urge the Government of Israel to halt all

settlement expansion. I also call on it to end the unjust

blockade of Gaza by opening up land crossings to

normal commercial, human and humanitarian traffic.

The search for freedom and equality drives the

enormously important work being done by the United

Nations and by its individual Member States in the area

of development.

The Millennium Development Goals provide the

essential framework for international development

efforts up to 2015. As we look beyond 2015, the United

Nations must remain central to the fight to end poverty

and hunger in the world.

A century and a half ago, the streets around this

building where we now meet, and throughout this great

city, were thronged with tens of thousands of Irish

people who came here as refugees from famine. To this

very day, the memory of that time remains with the

Irish people.

Hunger remains humankind’s greatest enemy. As

we meet today in New York, some 12 million people

are struggling to find food to keep their families alive

in the Horn of Africa. Seven hundred and fifty-

thousand are at imminent risk of death from hunger.

The immediate cause of this crisis is drought, but its

severity is the result of a combination of factors,

including conflict, insecurity and persistent

underdevelopment. We have a moral obligation to act

in the face of such suffering.

Ireland is providing over $67 million to the Horn

of Africa in 2011 and 2012, in direct life saving

humanitarian assistance and through measures to

enhance food security. The clear lesson of previous

humanitarian emergencies in Africa is that we must

address the causes in order to prevent future crises. The

need to address the systemic global hunger crisis is,

and will remain, central to Ireland’s development

assistance programme. Our objective is to save lives

today and build new futures for communities ravaged

by hunger. The Scaling Up Nutrition movement,

launched at the United Nations a year ago, makes a

clear link between under-nutrition among mothers and

babies and the building of a healthy, educated and

prosperous society in the future.

We need to act together now to provide long-term

sustainable solutions that will decisively break the

cycle of food shortages. We believe that a strong focus

is essential on building the productivity of smallholder

farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, 80 per cent of whom are

women and the primary care givers of children and

providers of food, fuel and water.

We know that climate change is

disproportionately affecting their lives and their

livelihoods. Their farms and livestock are less

productive. Their coping mechanisms are less

effective. Over time, they are vulnerable to abject

poverty and despair. I believe that there is a compelling

case for “climate justice”, namely, bringing

developmental fairness to bear on the climate change

agenda.

The global financial and economic crisis presents

major challenges for all of us in our efforts to maintain

solidarity with developing countries. Aid budgets are

under significant pressure. But we will not turn our

backs on the world’s poorest. In Ireland, despite the

economic difficulties that we are facing, and because

we recognize our moral obligation and our interests,

values and principles as a member of the international

community, development will remain at the heart of

our foreign policy. We remain committed to the United

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Nations target of providing 0.7 per cent of gross

national income to Official Development Assistance

(ODA). We will continue to work to achieve that

target.

As Ireland will sustain its ODA effort, we will

also maintain our longstanding engagement across

critical areas of United Nations work. We remain

strongly supportive of the vital role of the United

Nations in peacekeeping and conflict resolution.

Recently a 440-strong battalion of peacekeepers from

the Irish Defence Forces returned to serve with the

United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, the first

country to which we deployed peacekeepers more than

half a century ago.

A deep attachment to the values of freedom and

equality and other core human rights principles

underpins our candidature for election to the Human

Rights Council at the elections to be held in 2012. If

elected, we look forward to making a strong

contribution to the work of enhancing the Council’s

performance and promoting respect for human rights

worldwide.

We will continue to push for the disarmament

machinery of the United Nations to become more

responsive to twenty-first century imperatives. Key

challenges for the year ahead include the

implementation of the agreements reached at last

year’s Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, as

well as the negotiation of a robust arms trade treaty.

We will maintain a strong focus on the implementation

and universalization of the Convention on Cluster

Munitions, adopted in Dublin three years ago.

Regional organizations have always been vital

partners for the United Nations in the areas of peace,

security and conflict resolution. Next year, Ireland will

chair the Organization for Security and Cooperation in

Europe (OSCE). We look forward to making our

contribution to the resolution of the so-called

protracted conflicts within the OSCE region. Our

chairmanship will be a practical demonstration of

Ireland’s strong commitment to multilateralism and

will draw on our own national experience of conflict

resolution.

Over the past week, the Assembly has heard of a

formidable array of challenges facing the world. Peace

and security, human rights, the elimination of hunger:

these are among the great moral imperatives of our

time. Underlying each of them is the need to assert the

freedom and equality of all human beings. Now more

than ever, the United Nations is demonstrating that it is

the home for these fundamental values and goals and

the arena in which we can best pursue collective

solutions.

Ireland will play its full part in the search for

those solutions. Whether it is to bring peace to parts of

the world ravaged by conflict, relief to those threatened

by famine and starvation or protection to those

afflicted by human rights abuses, we will make our

contribution. We will stand up, in the Assembly and

elsewhere, for fairness, for justice, for freedom and for

equality, in the conduct of international relations.