Ours is a harsh and difficult world — a complex, sometimes
disgraceful world where 6 million children die each
year before their fifth birthday, many from problems
related to malnutrition; where violence has taken on a
new dimension of terror and horror, with hundreds of
thousands of deaths in Libya, Syria and Iraq; and where
human rights violations and crimes against humanity
occur more frequently and with greater ferocity and are
the daily reality in those countries.
It is a world where more than 8 million people
die every year from tobacco consumption — an
incredible genocidal activity that cannot be stopped
and is promoted by markets that are increasingly more
open, free, less regulated, and licensed to operate in
contravention of people’s rights to life and health. It is
a world where military bombs strike and kill those in
schools, ethnic or religious minorities, or those who
may adhere to different political beliefs. It is a world
where natural disasters devastate countries one year
and again the following year and the next, as they have
in the brotherly countries of the Caribbean. In this
world, those who act as global police have bequeathed
social and political disasters wherever they have gone.
Global governance has been inspired not by rights, but
by interests. Those narrow interests were paid for with
people’s lives, human rights violations and migration,
in which people have had to leave their homes, cities
and countries, vulnerable and facing anguish, violence
and death again and again.
The United Nations has been unable to build a
system to find solutions, and it has failed fundamentally
in its ethical dimension. There has been no dearth of
work, documents or meetings, but there has been a lack
of solutions for people. Our shared ethics should be
based on the people. Our shared ethical structure in this
case must be capable of incorporating our diversity, to
free us with democracy and participation. We need to
grow and develop multilateralism, which is the only
path and basic instrument to promote that shared
ethical structure, ensuring ever more rights for ever
more people. We need to grow and develop in freedom.
The political and financial crises of this world are
linked to common values and ethical standards. Today’s
world is one of sheer confusion in which humanitarian
crises follow upon political crises, which in turn follow
upon financial, economic and social crises. Here in
this building we have our own microclimate; we wear
elegant suits, eat in expensive restaurants and drive
large, modern cars. What happens to people who are
not insiders but who suffer in refugee camps where
their families are killed, their villages are destroyed
and they are tortured, or where their environments are
destroyed by the effects of climate change? No one who
has gained a right should lose it the next day; we need to
protect that right. We need to offer better opportunities.
The Millennium Development Goals have served
as a useful tool to foster and channel efforts for specific
purposes, but we should not leave countries alone in
those efforts. Within that framework, we should step up
our efforts every year and seek to define more clearly
the sustainable development goals that will make up
the post-2015 sustainable development agenda in a
balanced, transparent and consensual way that envisions
integration of the three dimensions of sustainable
development: social, economic and environmental.
We should eliminate poverty from the perspective
of human rights and the recognition of those rights. The
wealth that comes into the world causes an increase in
the gross domestic product and exports and creates
more dynamic investment, all of which must be
accompanied by a logical recognition of rights. We are
more developed and richer when we have more rights to
exercise, when those rights are protected, and when we
have more guarantees against the growing inequalities
in the world. Poverty is experienced at many levels,
and each country is responsible for granting ever more
rights to help its people overcome poverty, improve
conditions and eliminate discrimination.
All efforts are valuable in every one of our countries,
and as is every non-governmental organization that
charts the way or denounces an abuse of human rights
or seeks to improve opportunities for women, children,
youths, retired people and migrants in different areas,
such as health care, education, social protection, decent
work, social and economic opportunities, whether they
are employed as rural or domestic workers. In every
individual there is an enormous potential that needs to
be protected and fostered.
The gender perspective that we need to promote
should also be aligned with key rights for every
individual who may suffer from even a little bit of
discrimination in this world. The women’s agenda is one
of the most powerful vectors for development that we
can design. Any type of discrimination involves some
form of underdevelopment, because discrimination
based on gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual
orientation or migratory status is contrary to what our
societies need.
Our societies must be more inclusive. Our
societies should incorporate every single one of those
rights into our political system and legal protections,
whether they relate to the right of same-sex marriage,
the right of those who cohabit, or the rights of those
with HIV. It is essential to fight for equality and to
eliminate discrimination based on sexual orientation or
gender identity. All rights are part of the best social
structure — love. Love is the essential factor that
eliminates inequality and discrimination, that makes us
all equal and that allows us to identify with our fellow
human beings.
The comprehensive human rights agenda must
be based on an increasing number of rights for an
increasing number of people so that everyone is able
to grow in freedom and equality. We need to continue
to make definitive progress on social topics such as
communicable and non-communicable diseases. That
includes those related to tobacco consumption, from
which, as I mentioned, over 8 million people die every
year. It is expected that that figure will continue to rise.
It is therefore crucial that we have national policies that
focus on healthy lifestyles.
In 2013, Uruguay legalized the sale of cannabis,
choosing an alternative regulatory model to combat drug
trafficking and its disastrous consequences in society.
We do not claim to be an example or a trailblazer, but
we do, obviously, want to redesign the kinds of policies
that have categorically failed to date and that have not
produced the expected results.
The critical situation in the world today with
respect to food security is a structural problem. It is
the result of bad global policies. One of every eight
people, many of them children, suffer from chronic
malnutrition. Humankind wastes more than a third of
all the food we produce, which would be enough to
resolve the problem of hunger. It is estimated that 30
to 50 per cent of the food produced every year is never
consumed by people, and the situation is worsening due
to soil erosion, growing water scarcity, climate change
and the improper use of toxic substances in the food
production chain.
Combating climate change is a top priority. The
need to implement policies today and not put them
off until tomorrow is the moral imperative of every
single individual in this Hall, so that we can give
concrete content to the sustainable development goals
and continue to grow. It is also important to continue
to develop civil and political society, which we must
support. The principle of the legal equality of States is
essential. That is why my country rejects, for example,
any coercive, unilateral or extraterritorial measures
that contravene the norms of international law and the
principles of the Charter of the United Nations. The
clearest example of that is the unjust blockade imposed
against Cuba. We would like to once again express
our strongest rejection of it. Uruguay would like to
unequivocally demand that Cuba be stricken from the
list of countries who harbour terrorists.
In the same vein, Uruguay would like to call for an
end to be put to financial speculation by vulture funds.
It is important that countries be able to restructure
their sovereign debt in predictable, unchanging and just
conditions without impacting development and, thus,
the well-being of their people.
Global peace and security are essential. The
eradication of any form of violence in this world is a
crucial issue. It is essential to have negotiated solutions
that parties agree on, and contributions by peacekeeping
missions are essential to providing maximal guarantees
in the world.
Human rights should be fully respected. They
should be fully monitored, and guarantees should
be provided in that regard to every individual. The
authorities should ensure that human rights are fully
monitored to ensure that their people enjoy the broadest
possible freedoms.
Uruguay deplores violence in all its forms. The
substance of violence is bad at its core. There is no
justification for violence to continue to spread in the
world today. Every time one right is undermined, it
is our responsibility, as those who govern, to lead
the fight for its restoration. Every time justice is not
rendered, it must be our mission, as leaders, to demand
accountability. Every time we recognize a new right,
it is our obligation to remember those who still cannot
exercise that right and to work tirelessly for their
benefit.