United Kingdom, 1996

May I begin by

congratulating Ambassador Razali of Malaysia on his

assumption of office as our General Assembly’s new

President and offer our thanks to his predecessor,

Ambassador Freitas do Amaral, for all his valuable work

during the fiftieth session.

The late twentieth century is an exciting time. For the

fortunate among us, the world has never offered more:

travel with unheard-of ease, a tantalizing cornucopia of

consumer goods, 100 or more television stations in our

homes, the Internet. But these fruits are denied the vast

majority of the planet’s population. The number of people

who live in absolute poverty is still growing. Their misery

is a challenge to all our consciences, and I want today to

talk about what we all, the developed countries as well as

the developing, can do for those trapped in poverty — what

we can do together to open the door to development.

But first of all I would like to say a few brief words

about four other issues of particular importance at this

moment in time.

First of all, Hong Kong. The year 1997 will be a

special one for Hong Kong. Less than 300 days from now

the world will witness history. The peaceful transfer of

sovereignty over a territory of 6 million free and prosperous

people is an event unparalleled in modern times. A transfer

on the basis of an international Treaty, registered here at

the United Nations — a Treaty between two members of

the Security Council, which guarantees that for 50 years

after 1997 there will be “one country, two systems” and

that “Hong Kong people will rule Hong Kong”. Let there

be no doubt of Britain’s continuing commitment to the

future of Hong Kong and its people, well into the next

century.

Thanks to the efforts of the Hong Kong people

themselves, the development of Hong Kong is one of the

world’s great success stories. The Chinese Government

has made clear its determination to preserve Hong Kong’s

prosperity, its stability and its way of life as a free and

open society based on the rule of law. For Britain, a

successful transfer will be the closing of a chapter, but

also a new beginning to our relations with both Hong

Kong and with China.

I suggest that all Members of the United Nations

have a stake in this historic exercise. As long as the

promises of the joint Declaration are turned into reality,

Hong Kong has a bright future, as part of China and as

one of the world’s leading cities, contributing enormously

to growth and prosperity throughout the Asia-Pacific

region. And I am sure that all here will join me in

welcoming that prospect.

I want also to take this opportunity to commend the

International Court of Justice in its fiftieth anniversary

year. The International Court has performed

groundbreaking work in settling disputes between States,

and I am proud that the United Kingdom has always been

among the States that accept its compulsory jurisdiction.

I hope that others will join us in pledging both moral and

material support to the International Court. The more who

accept that international law must be the foundation of

international relations, the safer we shall all be.

The world is safer today too with the historic

signature of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

Earlier this morning I had the privilege of signing the

Treaty for the United Kingdom. It shows that we can, by

acting with determination and by making sacrifices, reap

the benefits of the end of the cold war, and I firmly

believe that the Treaty can make an important

contribution to preventing the proliferation of nuclear

weapons and in promoting international security. The

Treaty was the product of a multilateral negotiation and

was adopted here in the General Assembly. But that alone

is not enough. If it is to be fully effective, it must

command universal support, and the United Kingdom will

now put in hand the steps to allow us to ratify the Treaty.

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It is the sovereign right of every State to decide whether or

not to be bound by international agreements. But it is our

firm conviction that this Treaty is in the interests of all, and

I urge all States to give it their full support.

Meanwhile, other threats still loom large. The

insidious spectre of terrorism is a concern to all of us here,

and it is right that the United Nations should be the forum

for debate on this worldwide menace. The United Kingdom

is proposing for adoption at this session a United Nations

declaration which will spell out unequivocally that acts of

terrorism, and the financing, planning and incitement of

these acts, are contrary to the purposes and principles of the

United Nations. People who do these evil things and who

seek asylum under the United Nations refugee Convention

do not deserve to benefit from it.

The United Nations faces a critical year. It remains the

hope of people across the world in search of peace and

development. But the changes required to adapt and

strengthen the United Nations to meet the challenges of the

future have not yet been completed. This year must see a

solution to the financial crisis. Reform must be part of the

solution, including a thorough updating of the system of

assessing contributions to the United Nations, so that

contributions match real ability to pay. But all Members

must pay what they owe, both their assessments and their

arrears, and promptly; and the European Union’s proposals

are a good basis for negotiation. It will also be important to

achieve over the coming year a resolution to the long-

standing discussions of Security Council enlargement. In

short, the United Nations must be made fit for the new

millennium.

I turn now to my main theme. Three months ago, at

Lyons, the Group of Seven countries committed themselves

to a partnership for the economic development of the world.

This is not just a catchy slogan; it is a fresh approach to the

challenge of development, and what it means is that the

developing countries and the developed together would

share responsibility for creating the conditions that will

allow economies to grow, a shared agenda of measures that

we need to take to promote development.

For the countries of the developing world, this means

pursuing policies to enable economies to grow: taxes need

to be kept low, subsidies cannot be allowed to distort

markets, exports should not be impeded by heavy tariffs.

Domestic markets must be allowed to operate with as little

interference as possible. The goal must be to establish an

environment where the private sector can flourish, for the

private sector is the engine of growth.

In 1755, Adam Smith famously remarked that for

prosperity

“Little else is requisite ... but peace, easy taxes, and

tolerable administration of justice”.

This is still a valid recipe today — not easy to achieve,

but with the sound foundations of good government and

sensible macroeconomic policies, enterprise can flourish

anywhere. This is the challenge to the Governments of

the developing world.

What of the developed world’s side of the

bargain? — countries such as my own. Our responsibility

is to remove the shackles which hinder developing

economies as they try to enter the global market. Many of

the poorest countries are still caught in a mire of debt

they are unlikely ever to be able to pay off. This benefits

no one. The United Kingdom has long argued that, when

combined with macroeconomic reform of the kind I have

described, deep debt relief can kick-start the development

of the poorest economies. Some time ago, Britain helped

to identify steps that could be taken to lift the debt burden

from the poorest, most indebted countries: more debt

relief from bilateral creditors and getting the multilateral

agencies themselves to share more of the burden. Since

then the Paris Club of creditors has made an important

contribution by increasing debt forgiveness as agreed

following British proposals at the Naples Summit in 1994.

The multilateral agencies too have come up with some

useful proposals, such as the World Bank’s Trust Fund to

provide debt relief. I also welcome the International

Monetary Fund’s (IMF) commitment to continue

providing concessional finance through the enhanced

structural adjustment facility.

These measures to relieve debt need to be

implemented both flexibly and soon. The countries in

greatest need should be granted maximum relief as swiftly

as possible. I look forward to final agreement at the

annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank next

week.

The private sector is the motor of development.

Private investment flows to the developing world are now

at record levels. The United Kingdom is the third largest

source of private investment. But these flows are still not

reaching the poorest countries. There is therefore a

continuing need for concessional aid to prime the pump

of homegrown development. We need to focus our efforts

on those countries where help is needed most and which

can make the best use of it. Help must primarily be

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targeted at creating growth with equity, at developing

human resources to their full potential, at giving priority to

the needs of the poor: to health and education, to clean

water and small enterprises.

Increasingly this partnership in development amongst

us all has to deal with the growing problems of planet

survival: climate change, the environment, the future of the

world’s oceans and forests, and pandemic diseases.

Development which ignores these will not be sustainable.

The United Nations is a central forum for focusing the

attention and action of Governments and civil society on

these challenges as we enter the next century. Next year’s

General Assembly special session to review the Rio summit

on environment and development is one example.

But the best help that we in the developed world can

give to the developing is to buy what they produce, and to

do that we in the developed world must demolish the

barriers that we still maintain against imports from the

poorer countries of the developing world. When I look

around the world, I see many developing countries bursting

with exports that they have to sell: textiles, food,

manufactured goods. But tragically, the markets of the

richer countries of the developed world are often closed to

these exports. Last week’s report from the United Nations

Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

predicted that poor countries could triple their exports to the

North over the next 10 years if import quotas were phased

out — an extra $175 billion a year in income.

Protectionism is starving the developing economies of their

oxygen, the oxygen of growth.

The European Union’s record is better than most. We

already have a wide-ranging scheme to allow duty-free

imports from developing countries. But even so, the

European Union obstructs, for example, imports of

Palestinian cut flowers; it obstructs fruit juices from South

Africa, strawberry jam from Bulgaria. Other developed

countries are even less generous. The United States targets

imports of Mexican tomatoes; Japan restricts imports of rice

from South-East Asia. The list could go on.

We all know the difficulty of resisting powerful

domestic lobbies. They exist in Britain as elsewhere. But

this sort of protectionism is not simply selfish; it is also

short-sighted. Growth and prosperity in the developing

world will over time increase, not diminish, the wealth of

the industrialized world. Trade is not a zero-sum game. It

is a process which is mutually beneficial, mutually

enriching; and with prosperity comes stability and greater

security for us all.

This is not some fashionable nostrum dreamt up in

an ivory tower. It is a prescription which has already been

seen to work. Since 1945, under the auspices of the

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the

world economy has moved steadily towards more open

markets. And the result is clear: five decades of

unprecedented economic growth and prosperity. It is

incumbent upon us to spread this benefit more widely.

That is why I so warmly welcome the proposal put

forward by the Director-General of the World Trade

Organization. Mr. Ruggiero has proposed that the least-

developed countries be granted tariff-free access to the

markets of the developed world. I wholeheartedly

welcome this initiative. I hope that others will see its

compelling logic: the best hope the poor have for

sustained economic development is to be given the

freedom to export, the freedom to sell.

That freedom enables countries to grow. But free

trade is not just helpful to developing countries, it is a

global good, its benefits are spread wide, to the producers

and consumers in the developed and the developing world

alike, who can profit from the greater efficiency that free

trade engenders, and who can buy the best and cheapest

products available on the world markets. In short, free

trade benefits us all. That is why Britain is so firmly

committed to bringing the vision of global free trade to

reality by the year 2020.

Free trade begins at home. Cutting tariffs and other

import restrictions helps developing countries by cutting

the costs of production, boosting efficiency and thus

helping exports and growth. Combine these benefits with

the freedom to export granted by open markets in the

developed world, and developing countries and their

economies can enjoy a virtuous circle of development.

Free trade is therefore the catalyst for growth. This is not

just good economic theory. Greater efficiency and higher

growth mean more resources available for new hospitals

and new schools, better housing and cleaner water. Free

trade means real benefits for poor people.

I have described today a challenge for every one of

us here. Poverty is something we can all do something

about. In May, the Organisation for Economic

Cooperation and Development proposed that the

developed and developing worlds together should try to

cut the number of people living in absolute poverty by

half by 2015. Britain commits itself to that goal. It is

achievable.

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At home, we must liberalize our economies, minimize

the burden of government and lift all restrictions on the free

operation of the market. In the global economy, we must

remove barriers to trade to allow the developing countries

to sell. We must help lift the millstone of debt from those

who can least bear it. We cannot allow the poorest

members of the world community to become marginalized.

We must do our utmost to enable all Members of the

United Nations to enjoy the fruits of integration into the

global economy. A revitalized United Nations has an

essential part to play.

I do not underestimate the difficulty of the tasks that

I have described. We can only confront them in partnership,

rich and poor together. If we all play our part, prosperity

can be placed within the grasp of even the poorest

countries.