Norway, 1996

Tomorrow, I am going

to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty on

behalf of Norway. We join with almost all countries in

celebrating our new freedom — freedom from fear of

nuclear contamination and proliferation. By our joint

resolve, the terror of competitive madness fell victim to

the sheer force of reason.

Thanks to the United Nations, the norm of

non-testing has been galvanized. It is today part and

parcel of international law. In the future, no country,

whether it has signed that treaty or not, will be able to

break that norm. That can no longer be done with

impunity. It will go down in the annals of history that

nuclear testing was carried out over a period of 40 years

in the twentieth century, and then never again.

The decades of negotiations seemed endless, and

without the perseverance of this Organization, it would

not have worked. Where else could we carve out a global

test ban? Where else can we cast norms of global

applicability? Where else can we extend an international

society based on law and contract?

That is what the United Nations does best. It is easy

to ridicule years of meticulous negotiations. It is easy to

deride the process as bloated bureaucracy and

inefficiency. It is easy because that also happens every

day, here by the East River. And we must never become

used to that.

But some processes take time because they are

difficult and because they have profound effects on the

whole world. Every country, every man, woman and child

depend on what we can achieve right here, and every

country represented here has a stake in our success or our

failure.

8

For more than 50 years, the United Nations has — for

better, but also for worse — reflected its Members, global

political trends, contrasts, conflicts and confrontations. It

has been judged, unjustly, more by its failures than by its

successes.

The integration of scores of new Member States,

peace-keeping operations, the promotion and protection of

human rights, and field activities in developing countries

bringing relief and consolation to millions of destitute

people all bear witness to how the United Nations has

harnessed the best of humanity and civilization. Today, the

threats to peace come not so much from contention between

great States. Today’s killing fields are within States. Out of

around 40 cases of armed conflict in the world today,

hardly any occur between States. These conflicts are deeply

embedded in the history of regions and peoples, where

disruption within societies date far back, some being

centuries old.

The price of intra-State conflict is being paid by

civilians. Ninety per cent of casualties in armed conflict are

civilians. They literally walk the minefields where millions

of anti-personnel mines are strewn. Not only is the

death-toll numbing; let us also count the many missed years

of economic production, the livestock lost, the schools

ravaged, the clinics destroyed.

Millions pay the terrible human price. But we all pay

a price if the gap deepens between the fundamental norms

of civilization and the daily suffering in too many countries

in too many parts of the world. Reversing that trend is our

moral obligation; preventing deadly conflict is our common

challenge.

True, the United Nations is increasingly involved in

internal crises. We still do not possess the necessary means,

mandates and mission capacity to suppress devastating

conflict. All too often, intervention comes when the conflict

has erupted, when the battles have been fought and the

dividing lines have been cemented. When the peacemakers

are ready to go, it may be late — often too late.

We lack efficient procedures for dealing with

emerging conflicts. To individual countries, emerging

intra-State conflict may not be deemed vital. But to the

United Nations, any armed conflict or threat of conflict

must be vital. We need more preventive action and more

preventive diplomacy. Here at the United Nations, we need

to develop the institutional, legal and managerial capacity

to act, which would provide a model for regional action.

Preventing conflict and human suffering must not be

hampered by the traditional norm of what is essentially

within the domestic jurisdiction of States. Killing people

cannot be protected by the Charter.

A situation which is not visibly dangerous and which

does not offer spectacular pictures for the evening news,

is all too often silenced and out of the news picture. And

since those who suffer have no vote in any of the

countries which command the resources to help, it may be

all too convenient to look the other way.

But reacting in time need not be costly. On the

contrary, there is so much to gain, there is so much to

save. Much could be achieved if the United Nations were

better able to send experienced diplomats and support

missions to conflict-ridden areas in timely endeavours to

deescalate conflict and reconstruct civil society. We know

that the hands of the Secretary-General are often tied in

such cases, when it comes to redirecting resources. That

is another challenge. United Nations expertise — our

expertise — may not show up in a situation because there

are insufficient funds to pay for air tickets.

Norway is ready to make an extra contribution. We

offer to establish a fund for preventive action here at the

United Nations. We pledge to fill it with approximately 1

million dollars on an annual basis, and we invite other

Governments to join us. The fund would facilitate

immediate deployment of first-class expertise for

proactive diplomacy.

Any organization that fails to change is bound to

lose its effectiveness. So we must press on with reform.

But we cannot accept intimidation. Withholding legally

assessed contributions amounts to just that. Today, some

countries in fact pay more than their fair share. Other

countries voluntarily pay more than their fair share. Many

countries pay too little, or hardly anything at all. We now

need to settle on a long-term solution based on a more

equitable scale of contributions and scrupulous respect by

Member States for their financial obligations and the

payment of arrears.

We must press on with reform of the Security

Council. We are not served by protracted denials of the

world as it is. The Security Council must reflect this

world, and the issue of a regionally-balanced enlargement

must now be addressed. Asia, Africa and Latin America

should be represented on a permanent basis. Japan and

Germany should each have a permanent seat. And as we

enlarge the Council we must see to it that the efficiency

9

of decision-making is retained and that the Council’s

implementing ability is greatly enhanced.

If we had sat down at the drawing board to create the

United Nations today, we would have grouped the most

closely interlinked challenges together and designated a

limited number of agencies to deal with them. Today, in the

social and economic field, responsibility for sustainable

development, poverty, population and education is divided.

There is too much fragmentation and too many turf battles.

We need a leaner — and thereby, I believe, stronger

— structure to deal with what we decided in Rio,

Cairo,Copenhagen and Beijing. Now we must do what we

said there.

The Nordic countries, in their ongoing project for

United Nations reform, have focused on the other end of

the spectrum — the country level. Today, there are several

United Nations representatives in one country, often

overlapping each other and often contributing to more

fragmentation. But political issues, humanitarian issues and

long-term development are interlinked. Our organizational

set-up should be the same. Let us coordinate our

humanitarian assistance activities better, thus allowing us to

react more quickly and more effectively. And let us speak

out more openly about human rights.

Human rights are violated all over the world. But only

in a few countries is the human rights situation

deteriorating. We may be impatient; we may find that

progress is too slow in important countries; and there may

be temporary set-backs.

But in a world of global communication, facts can no

longer be hidden. We cannot build fences around ideas in

the age of the Internet. It will become increasingly

impossible to derive the benefits of the global economy

without exposing political power structures to the scrutiny

of democracy.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

established a global norm. This is what the United Nations

does best and what it must continue to do. The first Chapter

of the Charter calls for effective collective measures for the

removal of threats to the peace. Our challenge is to grasp

the complexity of today’s threats. No single country is

powerful enough to deal alone with the threats that

transcend our frontiers — terrorism, nuclear proliferation,

drugs, crime, disease and damage to the environment. They

all require common action. They all belong on our common

agenda.

Five years ago in Rio we reached consensus on

Agenda 21. That was a call for action. Together we

sowed the first seeds of a global norm for sustainable

development. Now we must struggle on towards its

implementation.

Later this year we will start the final work on a

climate protocol. No challenge is more global than

climate change. We owe it to present and future

generations to come up with a binding agreement that is

cost-effective, equitable and verifiable. That process will

require a combined political and scientific craftsmanship

which will need to draw upon every experience we have

had in multilateral diplomacy so far.

There can be no civilized world unless we unite to

strengthen multilateralism by establishing global

norms, by building and raising the minimum standards of

inter- and intra-State behaviour, and by building new

norms of international accountability.

The war crimes tribunal in The Hague is a

building-block in that edifice. The preventive aspect

would be served if the Karadzic´s and Mladic´s of this

world were brought to justice to answer for their crimes.

But again, conflicts should not be allowed to go that

far. We must be able to address the root causes of

conflict in time. That is what prevention is all about. That

is the win-win game we should all be playing. We cannot

afford not to do so.