Poland, 2004

The agenda of this

session not only is full of importance and burning

issues but also brings great hopes and expectations. In

his statement, Mr. Bernard Bot, the Foreign Minister of

the Netherlands, presented the European Union’s

position on the most important problems. That

statement fully reflects our thinking and concerns. One

issue, however, that deserves our special attention

today is the reform of the United Nations.

The present session of the General Assembly

must be remembered as a session of reform. It should

lay the foundations for a profound and

consensus-based reflection on the relevance and the

effectiveness of the United Nations. This reflection

should result in bold and imaginative decisions

providing for a substantial overhaul of the

Organization. That is how we in Poland see the

preparations for the major event of 2005, which will

undertake a comprehensive review of the

implementation of the Millennium Declaration Goals

and mark the sixtieth anniversary of the United

Nations. As Secretary-General Kofi Annan noted, the

United Nations is at a fork in the road. It is time to act.

Every year, at the annual general debate of the

General Assembly, we take the floor to express our

views — sometimes very critical — on the work of the

Organization. However, there is little evidence that

these debates have had any significant impact on the

future of the United Nations. Indeed, over the past

years, the United Nations has seen many celebratory

and majestic gatherings. Unless we are able to build a

political consensus and work out efficient,

forward-looking and workable decisions, we should cut

down on high-level ceremonies.

46

Poland has frequently voiced its conviction that

we have to carry out a comprehensive, strategic review

of the role of the United Nations in both its normative

and institutional aspects. It was with this in mind that,

on behalf of my country two years ago, I had the

privilege of putting forward the idea of a new political

act for the United Nations. We are pleased to see that,

two years later, that belief and determination are

widely shared.

Bearing in mind the unique momentum for

reform, we look forward to the recommendations of the

High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change.

They should provide the critical mass for the reform

efforts and form a solid basis for further actions.

In that context, I express my gratitude to the

members of the Panel, who came to Warsaw in May

this year to consult with representatives of our part of

Europe on the most important conceptual aspects of the

reform. The Warsaw Regional Conference was a

rewarding experience. The report issued following the

conference has been made available to all delegations

at the Assembly.

We have never had any problem with ideas,

excellent proposals and promising initiatives. The

biggest obstacle to reform, rather, has been the lack of

political consensus. The reform cannot be effective if it

reflects the ideas of small groups of specialists or

politicians alone. It must rely on a broad consensus and

reflect a shared community of values and a sense of

identity and purpose. Building that consensus is our

major, common task.

The reform of the United Nations has to go

beyond institutional aspects, but we recognize the fact

that institutions are important. Therefore, any reform

package lacking ideas for reforming the organs of the

United Nations would be considered inadequate by the

majority of Member States.

Poland shares the common opinion that it is hard

to imagine strengthening the role of the Security

Council without increasing its legitimacy. Today’s

discussions on Council reform are focused mainly on

expanding its membership. However, the key to a more

effective and legitimate Security Council does not lie

in the number of its members. A Council of

24 members would probably have no more powerful a

voice than a Council of 15. However, at the present

stage of discussions, we agree that the Security Council

has to be expanded.

One of the deficiencies of the United Nations, as

it transpires from the conceptual discussions, is that

there is too great a gap between the functions of

mandating and implementing. Therefore, we believe

that it is the responsibility of the members of the

Security Council to take the lead in providing political

and material support for implementation of Security

Council mandates. Security Council reform should be

based on the assumption that membership on the

Council not only confers additional privileges but also

brings additional responsibilities.

The reform should preserve the inherent balance

among the various organs of the United Nations. While

we support the tendency to expect more from the

Security Council, any reform should be accompanied

by a more effective role for the General Assembly. The

two bodies should be seen as mutually supportive and

reinforcing organs.

However, in order to use the potential of the

General Assembly effectively and optimize its

performance, we must profoundly change the way we

speak to one another in this forum. This must be a

forum of dialogue. Occasionally, one hears jokes along

the lines that the General Assembly is a place where

everybody speaks but nobody listens. We have to

change that. We must start talking to one another more

directly, more candidly. Let me assure the President, as

we congratulate him on the assumption of his post, that

Poland will support all his efforts in that regard.

We need to enhance the performance of the

bodies of the United Nations in social and economic

development and the environment, as well as in other,

related, no less pressing areas. There is a real danger

that the Millennium Development Goals will not be

fulfilled. That would deliver a serious blow to the

credibility of the United Nations. Given that the

distinction between socio-economic and political issues

is becoming increasingly blurred, we need a unified

approach.

However, the existing efforts are often too

fragmented, uncoordinated, and even contradictory and

self-paralytic. In this context, the role of the Economic

and Social Council and its reform should be strictly

linked with other United Nations bodies.

In order to be comprehensive, the reform cannot

stop at its institutional dimension. We need to revisit

the nature of current security challenges that expose

the deficiencies and shortcomings of our Organization

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in the most systematic way. Predictable threats caused

in the past by wars between countries have been

replaced by indefinite and unpredictable threats caused

by international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons

of mass destruction (WMDs), and an increasing

number of States in distress, whose Governments are

unable to exercise effective power over their territory

and population. As a consequence, we are facing an

unprecedented spread of terrorist acts and violence.

In this context, on behalf of the people of Poland

and myself, I express our deepest condolences to the

relatives of the victims of the recent events in Beslan.

We condemn this barbaric act and offer our solidarity

with the victims.

To cope properly and successfully with the new

nature of threats and challenges, it is necessary to use

this opportunity to examine the functional and

conceptual basis of the Organization. Therefore,

Poland advocates that the important part of the reform

should be re-examination of the conceptual foundations

of the United Nations.

In today’s world, new threats cast a new light on

the concepts that we use to regulate the international

order. Principles such as non-use of force, sovereignty,

legitimacy, accountability for both States and their

leaders, subsidiarity, complementarity, solidarity and

responsibility still occupy the highest level of

importance. What we need is their adjustment to the

current reality, new political guidelines on how we, and

how Security Council members in particular, should

translate them into action.

Among these concepts, the principle of solidarity,

is for us more than just assisting the poor and

underdeveloped. Solidarity is an operational principle

that should generate cooperative attitudes for countries

in need, including those plagued by terrorism, natural

and man-made disasters and calamities, weak State

structures, and so forth.

One of the most important issues, in the light of

the particularly threatening nexus of terrorism and

weapons of mass destruction, is the principle of the

non-use of force. The following aspects should be

examined: anticipatory self-defence, humanitarian

intervention and collective use of force with

authorization by the Security Council.

In this respect, we need a code of conduct that

will give us sufficient predictability as to how we, as

Members of the United Nations, will act on the

international scene when employing the United Nations

as our instrument of choice and how we will make the

best use of its potential.

We also hope that the reform will strengthen the

role of the United Nations as a community of values.

The United Nations was born to unite its Members

against threats and enemies. Today, it should unite us

for positive change in the consolidation of values, such

as human rights, democracy, social justice, and

development, which constitute the backbone and moral

foundation of humankind.

When preparing future decisions, we should

discuss not only the content but also the form. Poland

believes that the best approach to this is to have a

political document that would both spell out the

reinforced message about the role, principles and

values, and also contain the necessary institutional

adjustments. We most definitely regard this document

as something more than a set of amendments to the

United Nations Charter.

We have to completely change the way we

perceive the United Nations. For many years, most of

our countries have been asking themselves what they

can get from the Organization. Today, it is time for all

of us to secure the future of the United Nations.