As
President of Mexico, it is a high honour for me to
participate for the first time in the General Assembly,
the greatest symbol of unity among nations. Mexico
reiterates its historic commitment to this universal
forum of dialogue, understanding and cooperation.
Today’s world could not be imagined without
the United Nations. Its positive influence is present
in all realms of our lives. The United Nations leads
international efforts to combat hunger, pandemics and
climate change. It protects our children, preserves the
heritage of humanity and furthers the empowerment
and advancement of women around the world. The
Organization promotes trade and global communications
as well as human rights and peace. Thanks to the United
Nations, our world today enjoys greater freedom and is
more democratic and more developed.
While United Nations contributions to the well-
being of millions of people are indeed evident, one
cannot deny the multiple challenges that every country
of this planet is currently facing. From the global
economy that has yet to recover its dynamism, to
regional conflicts that have caused deaths and forced
migration flows, to climate change triggering natural
disasters, it is clear that the world requires multilateral
responses that are more effective.
In a world with so many phenomena that transcend
borders, international cooperation is more necessary
than ever, and the sum of global efforts can emerge only
here, at the United Nations. Today, our planet needs
to be able to depend on a more effective, efficient,
transparent and representative United Nations, where
all societies of the world have greater participation. The
United Nations must dare to change in order to improve.
In Mexico, we firmly believe that the United
Nations has all the attributes to be more daring and self-
renewing. With respect to institutional change, we need
a Security Council that evolves and that truly represents
the new world equilibrium. It is important to reform
the Council in order to strengthen its transparency,
accountability and capacity to respond. We believe that
the Security Council should be enlarged by increasing
the number of non-permanent members, creating long-
term seats with the possibility of immediate re-election
as part of a more equitable geographic representation.
The world needs a United Nations where the permanent
members of the Council refrain from using the veto in
cases of grave violations of international humanitarian
law.
With respect to international peace and security,
the United Nations must prevent arms trafficking
and the serious damage that phenomenon inflicts on
our societies. The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) provides
the tools to tackle that growing challenge. However,
it is vital that all nations sign the Treaty, but, more
importantly, that they all ratify it. The First Conference
of States Parties to the ATT will be held in Mexico next
year. It will be a great opportunity for all nations to
work together to prevent arms from hurting children or
vulnerable populations around the world.
Similarly, we must also strengthen the United
Nations so that it can effectively combat terrorism,
which is lacerating societies around the world.
In addition, we need the United Nations to renew
its efforts for nuclear disarmament. We must prevent
more countries or non-State actors from having that
destructive capacity within reach, and we must also
demand that those already possessing it reduce and
eliminate those weapons. If we want a safer world,
no one should use or threaten to use nuclear power to
endanger the very survival of humankind itself.
I turn next to the development agenda. Now that
the date is approaching to define the sustainable
development goals, we need a United Nations with a
broader vision of the well-being of individuals. The
post-2015 development agenda must recognize that
poverty is not determined solely by insufficient income,
but also by other scarcities that impede personal and
collective development. Furthermore, we believe that
economic and social inclusion should be one of the
principal points of the agenda.
The United Nations also needs to update its
commitment to the rights of girls, boys and adolescents,
addressing new challenges that threaten their integrity.
We should initiate at the global level a joint initiative
to combat harassment at school, or psychological
harassment like bullying, and at the same time reinforce
basic values among our children and youths. If we want
for tomorrow a world in which adults have a spirit of
empathy, understanding, friendship among peoples,
peace and universal brotherhood, we need to act now
with more determination so that our children and our
youth can live free from any type of abuse.
In short, to address the challenges of the twenty-
first century, we need a United Nations with a new
institutional design, with a renewed commitment to
peace and security and, above all, with a comprehensive
and inclusive development agenda. Change is never
easy, especially when it demands a fundamental
transformation and when it depends on the cooperation
of multiple actors, each with its own priorities and
interests. In the specific case of the United Nations,
multiple voices acknowledge the need for a change, but
at the same time, they believe it is an impossible task
because no one is willing to yield.
In Mexico, we experienced a similar situation.
There were those who agreed on the urgency of
promoting structural changes domestically, but they
also warned that it would not be possible to carry
them out. Those voices affirmed that political groups
and the Government of the republic would not be able
to reach agreement in order to transform our nation.
Nonetheless, Mexico demonstrated that it is possible to
build with a plurality, that diversity is a strength when
there is a readiness for a constructive dialogue. The
foundation for achieving that was the Pact for Mexico,
an agreement under which all essential commitments
were formed in order to advance a broad agenda for
reforms in a various spheres of the national life.
Building upon that innovative political instrument,
Mexicans dared to improve the quality of education,
to make the job market more flexible and to combat
monopolies and anti-competitive practices. We dared
to modernize the telecommunications sector, to
increase the opportunities for credit and reduce its
cost, to strengthen public finances and to initiate a
new model for energy development for the country. We
Mexicans held dialogues and agreed on the renewal
of our political and electoral institutions and of our
justice system and accountability system. We decided
to transform ourselves. Those profound changes were
decades overdue, because no political party has held
a majority in Congress in past years. Nevertheless,
through dialogue and consensus it was possible to
achieve those changes in just 20 months.
What was the principal difference from the
past? It was the will of an entire nation that dared to
change. Mexico acted decisively and wisely. It dared
to transform itself and to set itself in motion. On the
basis of that experience, I am convinced that the United
Nations can also change.
Almost 70 years after its creation, the United
Nations must evolve, as the world has evolved. I know
it will not be easy to build consensus to succeed,
because inertia must be broken and paradigms must
be changed. But I also know that the talent, the vision
and the audicity needed to achieve that do exist. It is
time to build a new United Nations for a new century.
That will require that all States have the will to listen,
discuss and tolerate and the capacity to yield. At the
end of that process, the world will have more a efficient
Organization, a United Nations that is able to work
successfully in favour of the peace and development of
the planet. My country is ready to play an active role in
the transformation. It is determined to evolve with the
United Nations.
Mexico supports and values peacekeeping
operations, a United Nations instrument that assists
countries to overcome conflicts and create conditions
for sustainable peace by providing the means for
reconstruction, humanitarian aid and security. That is
why Mexico has decided to participate in United Nations
peacekeeping operations, providing humanitarian work
to benefit civilian populations. Our participation will
be in keeping with a clear mandate from the Security
Council and with the foreign-policy norms established
in our Constitution. With such determination, Mexico,
as a responsible stakeholder, will take a historic step in
its commitment to the United Nations.
Next year, the Organization will reach its seventieth
anniversary. That will offer us a great opportunity to
make our plurality both an asset and a strength for
change. With the participation of all, with the drive and
the boldness of the Member States, the United Nations
can transform itself to benefit the whole of humanity.