Italy, 1998

I congratulate you, Sir, on your

election as President of the General Assembly, a sure

guarantee of the success of the fifty-third session. At the

same time, I wish to thank your predecessor, Mr. Hennadiy

Udovenko, for his fine job in handling the difficult issues

that arose last year.

On the broader issues facing the General Assembly in

the year to come, Italy associates itself with and supports

the statement made on Tuesday by the Foreign Minister of

Austria on behalf of the European Union.

Fewer than 10 years have gone by since the euphoric

days that surrounded the fall of the Berlin Wall. As our

decade began, “a new world order” was on everyone’s lips.

Many believed that we were at the threshold of a new age

of stability, freedom and prosperity. In the ensuing years,

we have indeed witnessed rapid growth in the world

economy, but we have also seen an outbreak of new forms

of nationalism, ethnic hostilities and acts of aggression.

Our peoples have grown apprehensive about the future

as they watch the performance of the stock market, internal

instability in various regions of the world, the failure of

financial institutions, the rise and unpredictability of

terrorism, unchecked waves of immigration, the constant

flow of refugees and the resurgence of misplaced nuclear

ambitions. In some countries, a few short months of crisis

was all it took to wipe out the gains of an entire generation.

Such crises shed light on an improper balance

between the power of the market and the power of

institutions. Globalization and liberalization certainly have

great merits. They have forced the national political

classes to set public finances in order and to promote

economic efficiency. But a global market requires some

measure of global government built on the knowledge that

the wealth of single States cannot be separated from the

welfare of the international community, a government

whose strength rests on the democracy of institutions. As

Secretary-General Kofi Annan underlined in his speech,

globalization requires good government.

This is why we urgently need to strengthen

international leadership. The institutions are still not

strong enough to provide such leadership, restore

confidence, introduce change, stabilize the global

economy, guarantee growth and protect the most

vulnerable of us in the race towards development.

Technology, communications and the market are

progressing at a much faster pace than politics and

institutions, thus creating a widening gap.

In the final years of this century, our challenge is to

strengthen institutions and their capacity to coordinate the

action of Governments. Globalization has impacts on

ideologies and behaviour, societies and institutions. The

opening of markets to competition must be accompanied

by reaffirmed cooperation among the largest possible

number of States. The burden of responsibility falls on

the shoulders of the stronger nations, particularly those of

the G-7. They have a duty to show solidarity,

transforming their privileges into benefits for all

humanity.

The system of international institutions has the

United Nations as its paramount and most authoritative

benchmark. The United Nations must be the driving force

behind a review of the network of interdependence. Like

industrialization in its early days, globalization produces

both great progress and dangerous imbalances. Thus, it

requires governance. No one country can govern it,

however great its political, economic and military power.

Our century is drawing to a close with a revitalization of

institutions upon which we can build the three pillars of

stability: prosperity, security and respect for fundamental

freedoms.

The first pillar of stability is governance of the

economy to prevent crises from degenerating into

catastrophes. The time has come to perfect the rules of

conduct that guide the development of the global market.

19

While these rules are imperfect and not always respected,

we must assert the conviction that it is important and

appropriate to observe them. This is the secret of their

success. It is up to the economically stronger countries to

guarantee continuity in the development of the market.

They must be buyers, lenders and the final guarantors if we

are to instil confidence and forestall the threat of a global

recession. The forces that drive the global economy are the

same as those that uphold the fundamental freedoms: the

circulation of information and ideas; open borders and

societies; the rule of law and individual rights. The

challenges facing the economy are the same as those facing

freedom.

At times, the markets are driven by a short-term logic

that privileges the earnings of today over the growth of

tomorrow. They conduct constant but instant referendums.

The stock market does not always move at the same pace

as the economy and society. Relentless technological

progress can lead to the exclusion of many from the world

of employment. Recent major economic and financial crises

show that the market does not always grow when the State

shrinks. Rather than enhancing freedom, sometimes it only

increases the power of the strongest. It is a dangerous

illusion to think the economic sphere can be unhinged from

the political system, the social context and the history of

nations. There can be no healthy economy without a strong

State, without the rule of law, without social cohesiveness

and protections — in other words, without respect for

peoples or awareness of their history.

The market’s supporters should not turn into the

standard bearers for a new fundamentalism. The

international financial institutions must know how to couple

theory and practice, how to avoid strategies that damage

society and destabilize the political system for the sake of

defending the market. They must initiate policies and

reforms that minimize moral hazards in their rescue

operations. They must look at society as a whole and not

just at its financial dimensions. Otherwise, some will rebel

against or flee the market.

The United Nations and the international community

can rely on the new cohesiveness of the European Union.

The European currency, the Euro, demands new

responsibilities at the international level as a repository of

value and as an investment and reserve currency. It will

allow the Union to project abroad standards that it would

not otherwise be able to preserve, such as stability,

competition and social solidarity. The European Union has

no intention of hiding behind the shield of its currency. It

has no illusions of being an oasis of prosperity sheltered

from the tempests of the world.

The politicians of Europe are the first to have

rethought the limits of national sovereignty. Today, the

European Union, in the wake of the single currency, is

about to become a political subject, and to participate as

such in world leadership, to correct the fragility of the

complex systems that govern the world. It is not enough

to have strong national powers. For the European Union,

too, the time has come to be a “leading nation”. The time

has come to further enhance the rules that have allowed

us to unite the continent, banishing war within our

borders.

To the South, Europe is facing massive waves of

immigration. Europe is well aware of the needs that drive

to its shores so many people trying to escape from

suffocating demographic trends. Europe knows that the

only solution is an ambitious policy of solidarity and

development. Otherwise, like King Canute, it would be

trying to hold back the sea with a wave of its hand.

Our cooperation policies must be revitalized to help

close the gap between North and South. The Economic

and Social Council, whose presidency will be assumed by

Italy at the start of the coming year, can be instrumental

in eradicating poverty and harmonizing the differences

between and the needs of the two hemispheres.

Renewed institutions will also have to manage the

second pillar of stability: security. Here, too, the United

Nations must play a central role. I refer not only to its

traditional role of direct involvement in peacekeeping

operations. Italy, I would underline, continues to provide

a strong logistic base, as well as men and resources, for

such missions and has long proposed ways to make these

operations more efficient and effective.

I refer also to the novelty of the future: growing

relations with other institutions, including the North

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to which the

transatlantic community entrusts its defence. The Atlantic

Alliance is redefining its strategies, missions and

membership, but it is also rethinking its relations with the

United Nations in a new spirit. It is looking to the United

Nations for additional legitimacy to broaden the scope of

its mission. This is another crucial aspect of the system of

institutions that can guarantee peace and stability and on

which we must build our future.

20

Peace is also jeopardized by resurgent temptations to

brandish nuclear weapons in an effort to restore regional

balances, enhance national prestige and consolidate national

unity. While such goals can be in themselves legitimate,

they become totally illusory if entrusted to the proliferation

of weapons of mass destruction, instruments that threaten

the very right to life. In the framework of institutional

strengthening, we must, as a matter of priority, root out

senseless ambitions that rely on lethal weapons. We must

aim instead to complete the non-proliferation regime and

make it more effective and more universal.

Security is jeopardized by a breed of terrorism that has

become more and more irrational, threatening fragile peace

processes, privatizing terror and directing its hatred mostly,

but not exclusively, against the Western world and the

values it represents. We must therefore redouble our

common efforts to fight this scourge.

Individual rights are the third component of

institutional strengthening, along with prosperity and

security. The market and fundamental freedoms, as we

increasingly discover, are two sides of the same coin. But

human rights are likely to remain abstract or illusory if the

United Nations cannot enforce them to the benefit of all

individuals and, if necessary, also against their

Governments.

The international community, and all of us

individually, must deepen our commitment to safeguard

these rights. The measure of our civilization is the

protection we afford to the weakest and most vulnerable

social groups. I am thinking first of children who are

victims of atrocities whose true dimensions the media is

only now beginning to expose.

The Rome Statute to establish the International

Criminal Court represents what is probably the greatest

institutional advancement since the San Francisco Charter.

In this field, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration

of Human Rights, it confers certainty and universality on

the Charter’s system of values. But here, too, we must

complete our journey. Therefore, I urge those countries that

have not yet done so — and they are the majority — to

sign the Statute and to start to move towards prompt

ratification.

The core of every reform touches on the Security

Council. It is not enough to strengthen institutions: we must

make them more democratic and representative. And it is

on the concepts of democracy and representation that the

debate over the future of the Security Council pivots.

Significant progress has been made in recent months

in identifying measures aimed at improving the

transparency and the working methods of the Security

Council: greater openness of informal consultations; more

involvement of countries that contribute troops to

peacekeeping operations and multilateral forces; more

prompt and detailed briefings on the Council’s activities

by the President-in-office; and ready availability of texts

and documents being examined by the Council.

But the stalemate continues on the issue of enlarging

the Council. The Italian Government will be willing to

support any reasonable formula, provided that it does not

prejudice the eventual establishment of a common

European seat on the Council, distance Italy from the

other principal industrial countries or increase the number

of countries that are “more equal” than others,

transforming the majority of Member States from

protagonists into mere spectators.

The essential problem is one of principles and

criteria. Italy has made and will continue to make an

active contribution to this question that is of fundamental

importance to international peace and stability. It will

continue to fight for a more democratic, efficient and

geographically representative Security Council. No one

should feel excluded. Every country, no matter how large

or small, has a contribution to make, an experience to

share.

Given the current stalemate over increasing the

number of permanent members, we wonder whether it

would not make more sense to concentrate for the time

being only on an increase in non-permanent seats. The

solution of increasing the number of elective seats for

every regional group would make it easier for all Member

States to have access to the Security Council. After all,

this is the same solution that was adopted in 1963, when

the only previous enlargement of the Council took place.

As to the method we should follow to get there, we

believe that on a matter of such crucial importance it is

essential that any decision with Charter amendment

implications should be adopted by a majority of two

thirds of all Member States, as prescribed by Article 108

of the Charter.

These are some of our suggestions for the “quiet

revolution” of the United Nations, to which Secretary-

General Kofi Annan has dedicated such passion. We are

grateful to him for his efforts.

21

The century that is about to end has taught that there

are no definitive and total solutions. Although the

institutions are imperfect, they are flexible instruments. It

is our high duty to improve them so that they can become

the visible hand of stability, together with the invisible hand

of the market. Institutions are the only truly indispensable

power.