United States, 2000

I am

honoured to address the Assembly on behalf of the

United States and to reinforce the eloquent message

President C1inton conveyed during last week's

Millennium Summit. Because my father worked here

when I was young, I have always considered myself a

child of the United Nations. And because I had the

privilege to serve here as America's Permanent

Representative, I feel at home and so will speak

plainly.

The members of this body reflect virtually every

culture, ethnicity and geographical region. We are city

and country, inland and island, tropical and temperate,

developing and industrialized. We are as diverse as

humanity.

And yet, in responding to the daunting demands

of this new era, we are bound together by the interests

we share and the ideals to which we aspire.

We all have a stake in building peace and

relieving poverty, championing development and

curbing disease. We all want to see the dangers posed

by weapons of mass destruction reduced, refugees

cared for, children nourished, the environment

protected, and the status of women advanced.

We all believe the benefits of globalization must

be allocated more broadly within and among societies.

Because if the new technologies are to ease the old

problems, they must help the many who today lack

access and skills, so that every village becomes a home

to opportunity and every school a midwife to hope.

As the Millennium Summit reflected, we have no

shortage of worthy goals. We are right to aim high and

take on the mightiest tasks.

But as the Secretary-General has said, progress

depends on working together. We need all hands on

deck, pulling in the same direction. For each of us, that

responsibility begins at home because the international

community cannot help any nation that is not striving

to help itself.

Each Government has an obligation to observe

international norms on human rights, uphold the rule of

law, fight corruption and raise awareness about

HIV/AIDS. But in the twenty-first century, no nation

can protect and serve its people simply by going it

alone and that is why we all benefit from

strengthening regional bodies such as the Organization

of American States (OAS), the Organization of African

Unity (OAU), the Association of South-East Asian

Nations (ASEAN) and the Organization for Security

and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Because of their unique expertise and regional

legitimacy, they can be instruments for solving some of

the hardest challenges we face. But they will succeed

only if we raise our expectations of these

organizations, call upon them to act boldly and back

them when they do.

Regional bodies can contribute much to the

purposes outlined in the Charter, and the goals

established during the Millennium Summit. But here

again, they cannot do it all.

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The role of the United Nations is also vital,

because no other institution combines a comprehensive

mandate with near universal representation and global

reach.

We all have an interest in the success of the

United Nations. That is its greatest strength, and also

its burden, because 189 nations have to work very hard

if they are to agree.

I remember when I came to New York in 1993, I

was told by cynics that the United Nations was too

bureaucratic to change, and too big ever to achieve

consensus on measures to improve its governance.

Those cynics were wrong. With support from

many countries, we have made impressive progress.

Compared to seven years ago, the United Nations

accomplishes more and wastes less. Accountability has

increased and duplication diminished.

The Internal Oversight Office, which did not exist

in 1993, has grown steadily more rigorous and is

responsible for tens of millions of dollars of savings. A

culture of transparency and results is slowly but surely

taking hold. Moreover, both United Nations

Headquarters and the entire United Nations system are

better led than they have ever been.

United Nations leaders and Members can take

pride in the gains made, but we all know there is much

more work to be done.

That is why we must back the Secretary General's

efforts to further improve United Nations management,

recognizing that every dollar wasted is a dollar lost to

the fight against poverty and to the achievement of

other urgent goals.

We must also move ahead rapidly to strengthen

peacekeeping, because it is the most visible and vital

yardstick of United Nations success and, for people in

strife-torn regions, often means the difference between

a normal life and no life at all.

There is no magic formula for curing the ills that

have plagued United Nations peace operations in the

past. But the report, just prepared by Ambassador

Brahimi's team, is a solid place to start.

As President Clinton said last week, we need to

ensure that United Nations peacekeepers can be

deployed with the right training and equipment and the

right rules of engagement so they can achieve, not

merely attempt, their missions.

This will require a larger peacekeeping staff, on

permanent assignment, comprised of the best talent and

experience we can find.

It will require military planners the world over to

recognize that training for peace operations is a

legitimate part of every nation's security strategy. It

will require the ability to deploy rapidly not only

United Nations military forces, but also civilian police

and experts in law enforcement and judicial reform. It

will demand improved coordination between military

peacekeepers and civilian builders of peace, so that

missions begun are completed and recovery bred by

reconciliation can take hold.

And it will require additional resources from my

Government and from each of yours. And by

“additional”, I mean resources that should not come at

the expense of other core United Nations goals.

The United States will heed the Secretary-

General's request that we work together to consider

and implement the best recommendations of the

Brahimi report.

Whether for peacekeeping or programmes, the

United Nations also needs a sustainable and equitable

system of financing. We do not have that today.

Member States, including my own, must do a better job

of making payments on time. But we must also look

afresh at the method used to allocate responsibility for

United Nations costs.

Last week, the Security Council called for

adjustments in the scale of assessments. This plea has

been echoed by dozens of other countries and should

be acted upon by the General Assembly this fall.

A more equitable system should provide a much

stronger foundation for United Nations programmes

and missions. It should preserve the special

responsibility for peacekeeping of the Security

Council's permanent members. It should retain a

heavily discounted rate for the poorest countries. And

it should reduce the United Nations overall reliance on

payments from the United States, while at the same

time enabling my Government to write a check to the

United Nations for nearly $600 million in prior

obligations.

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Clearly, adjustments are long overdue. The

United Nations needs a firm and reliable financial base.

In the weeks ahead, the United States will be pleased to

work with members to accomplish this landmark goal.

Further improvements in management and

peacekeeping and a sounder financial base are a vital

step towards a stronger and more effective United

Nations. But we must also stand up to the campaign

launched by Baghdad against the United Nations

authority and international law.

Security Council resolution 1284 (1999) provides

an effective plan for protecting world security through

resumed weapons inspections and monitoring inside

Iraq. It has expanded the oil-for-food programme that

has delivered $8 billion in humanitarian supplies to

Iraqi civilians, with $6 billion more on the way. And it

would enable Iraq, through compliance with the

resolution's terms, to achieve an early suspension of

sanctions. Thus far, Baghdad has flatly refused to

accept the resolution. The regime's strategy is to ignore

its United Nations Charter obligations and to seek to

preserve at all costs its capacity to produce the

deadliest weapons humanity has ever known.

We must continue to do all we can to ease the

hardships faced by Iraq's people. But we must also

defend the integrity of this institution, our security and

international law.

The Millennium Summit illustrated the United

Nations long-standing role as a forum for articulating

consensus goals. But achieving these objectives will

require action at all levels, from local to global. It will

also require a willingness to move well beyond the

limits and habits of the past.

Today, the United Nations is taking on a wide

array of new issues, what I call “people issues”,

because they so directly affect the lives of our citizens.

They include the challenge of protecting our planet by

limiting greenhouse gas emissions; securing safe water

supplies; halting desertification; and putting a stop to

trafficking in human beings. They especially include

the fight against HIV/AIDS, which was highlighted in

a letter to the Secretary-General signed by the women

Foreign Ministers last night. These and similar

challenges are sure to be important components of

twenty-first century diplomacy, and because they are

global in scope, require a global response.

The United Nations is also playing an increased

role in areas where cold war divisions once held it

back. Over the past decade, United Nations entities

have contributed much by prosecuting war criminals,

promoting democracy, supporting human rights and

aiding the fight against illegal drugs.

These issues require a willingness to take a stand,

as the United Nations has done in holding accountable

the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and the

Balkans; striving to end rebel outrages in Sierra Leone;

and expressing opposition to the long-standing and

ongoing violation of basic human rights in Burma.

Let me say this morning that when the Burmese

Government tries to blame the victims for the crime,

and say that Aung San Suu Kyi and her party are

responsible for their own repression, I can only reply

that much the same was once said about Gandhi and

Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Václav

Havel. The world is not fooled, and we must not be

silent.

Some argue that speaking out in defence of

human rights constitutes interference in internal affairs.

I believe it helps to fulfil the purposes of the United

Nations Charter, because when international norms are

assaulted, the United Nations must do more than

simply observe injustice, or report upon it, or

sympathize with the victims. We must do all we can,

where we can, to stop the perpetrators.

This requires the active backing and participation

of United Nations Members, so that respect for

international law becomes steadily more universal and

the incentives for observing global standards

progressively more clear.

The result, if we are united and determined

enough, will be a world of greater security, justice and

peace. Realistically, this is essential, if we are to

achieve the ambitious social goals we have set.

But there is one other essential element as well,

and that is democracy. This past summer in Poland, for

the first time, more than 100 nations came together to

reaffirm democratic principles and ensure that the

democratic tide remains a rising one around the world.

We did this not because democracy always

produces good Governments, for it does not. But we

are convinced by the evidence of the old century that

the hopes we share for the new will more readily be

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accomplished if people are able to live and work in

freedom.

Democracy is the one road we can all walk down

together and the best system yet devised for sowing

and growing the seeds of economic opportunity.

In promoting democracy, we are not attempting to

impose our values on anyone else. In fact, this is not

possible, because democracy, by definition, enables

citizens within a country to shape their own destinies in

accordance with their own convictions and ideals.

Make no mistake. In any country, at any time,

dictatorship is an imposition. Democracy is a choice.

As we have learned during the last 55 years, the

United Nations provides no guarantees of global peace

or prosperity. But it can play a vital role as catalyst and

coordinator, and as a bridge connecting the

contributions of one to another.

To those who would judge it harshly, I would

respond not by pointing first to the deliberations of

diplomats such as myself, in surroundings such as

these. Instead, I would point to the day-to-day efforts

of United Nations workers caring for refugees, feeding

children, providing shelter and preventing disease.

I would point to the men and women on the front

lines, from Port-au-Prince to Freetown, and from

Kosovo to Kisangani, doing some of the world's

hardest work, and, as we have been reminded by the

recent slayings of employees of the Office of the

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in

East Timor, also the most dangerous. It is their efforts

and sacrifice, in partnership with so many indigenous

and other non-governmental organizations, that truly

remind us of the United Nations purpose and of our

kinship with one another.

This is, I expect, my last official speech to a

United Nations audience. As I stand before you, I am

deeply conscious not only of our many

accomplishments, but also of the tasks not yet

completed.

I am grieved by the conflicts that still rage, and

the basic rights and freedoms still denied. I am

frustrated by the gaps that still exist between our ideals

and actions, and alarmed by the deepening material

divide that ultimately threatens every nation, rich and

poor alike.

There are those who say it is naïve to think that

the future can be made better than the past. I am

reminded that this institution was founded by men and

women who were as realistic as any human beings

could be, for they were the survivors of the worst

conflict our world has known and determined that

succeeding generations should be saved from holocaust

and war. They had faith. Surely we, as well, must have

faith that by working together within and outside this

Organization, we can move together, step by step

towards the lofty goals we have set, and thereby bring

about a world more peaceful, prosperous and free than

it has ever been. Since 1993, it has been my privilege

to work with so many of you, from every part of the

globe, in support of the interests we have in common

and the dreams our people share.

This morning, I want to thank you for your

friendship; pledge my cooperation in the months

immediately ahead; and ask respectfully, in turn, for

yours. I promise, as well, to serve the cause of

international progress and individual liberty not only

for as long as I am in office, but for as long as I am

alive.