85. Mr. President, speaking on behalf of my Government and also for myself I should like to congratulate you most warmly upon your election as President of the nineteenth session. Not only do you represent a country which has greatly distinguished itself in the community of new African States by its important participation in all fields of international activity — and particularly in the struggle against colonialism, in which it has always been in the vanguard—but, having had the opportunity to follow your brilliant career in this Organization closely, I consider that the significant honour which has been conferred upon you is no more than the just recognition of your outstanding qualities.
86. In beginning this statement I should like also to pay a tribute to our former President, Mr. Sosa Rodriguez of Venezuela, who with great skill and dignity presided over the Assembly until the beginning of the present session. Finally, I should like to take this opportunity to welcome the three new States which have become Members of our Organization: Zambia, Malawi and Malta. Uruguay warmly welcomes them and is glad that their struggles and tribulations have at last received their just reward.
87. The present session has opened in circumstances in which international tension or at least the tension which prevailed at the antepenultimate session, has decreased considerably for more than a year. It is true that many problems are far from solved and that to what might be called the chronic sources of danger — the German problem, the problem of South-East Asia, the vestiges of colonialism in Africa and other areas — there has recently been added the danger created by the possession of atomic weapons by a country which has never disguised its aggressive policy and by the possible dissemination of these weapons among a greater number of countries, with the eventual risk that this would entail. But if there are dangers which we can describe as "chronic", this is because, as is usually the case with invalids of this type, we have come to a sort of compromise with danger and have learned to live with it as our second nature.
88. Accustomed to living in a state of permanent crisis, we cling desperately, like a shipwrecked man to his ship, to any sign of hope, even though the light it sheds may be weak and its substance fragile. We express our most humble and heartfelt gratitude to those men who made this rebirth of hope possible: to those who have died, like Pope John XXIII and President Kennedy, and to those who are no longer at the helm.
89. The paradox of this new international situation is that, while tension is decreasing, the United Nations, the instrument destined "par excellence" to serve that very end, is for the moment undergoing a crisis which only a few days ago seemed insurmountable. For this reason the Assembly is today an "Assembly of silence", despite the fact that many voices may be heard in this Hall.
90. I shall not refer to the specific problems at the root of this crisis. I do not feel that it would be wise to do so, when it is common knowledge that important conversations are now being held, which we all hope will be successful. My delegation, like all those present here, has studied these problems very carefully and will, of course, make its views known at the appropriate time.
91. There are nevertheless one or two reflections which I should like to submit for the Assembly's consideration. The first of these is that, as many saw from the beginning and as everyone sees now, the scope of this crisis far exceeds what might be called its strictly financial aspect. This crisis, despite the monetary terms in which it is expressed, is the manifestation of a much deeper conflict, of a conflict or difference of opinion which concerns delicate problems of a political and juridical character, relating to the competence and powers of the principal organs of the United Nations, relating basically to the interpretation of the Charter and to certain aspects of it which, I would say without hesitation, constitute the very foundation of the Organization. For that reason, the solutions attempted so far — all of which were emergency solutions which deliberately avoided the root of the problem — were doomed to fail, or at least to leave the future in shadow, doubt and uncertainty.
92. The peace-keeping operations in the Middle East and in the Congo were in fact the first experiments in what was then a new experience. But history does not stand still, much less turn back, and whatever the balance of these operations may have been — and my delegation considers it, in the last analysis, a very favourable balance — it is now difficult to imagine the United Nations abandoning an activity which, as we have perhaps realized recently, may constitute its very raison d'être.
93. If one thinks about it a little, what is happening now is more than a financial crisis, it is a development crisis, the crisis which precedes maturity, what might be called the crisis of adolescence. Nineteen years do not pass in vain and nineteen years is sufficient time for the essential traits of a character to crystallize. Institutions too are living entities, destined to live and to endure, and just as our life consists of moving towards maturity, which is the goal, even so institutions—like plants, like animals, like man himself—need to develop all their capacities and potentialities harmoniously, in order to attain the full consummation of their destiny. The maintenance of peace, even over and above the possibilities provided for in Chapter VII of the Charter, is—as we can clearly see, now that the Organization has become more mature—one of the essential traits of the character of our Organization, of its spirit and of its essence.
94. We shall be told that the founders at San Francisco worked with a more limited perspective and for more specific objectives. This may be true, but San Francisco belongs to the past and the United Nations belongs to the future. It is not necessary to point out how different are the circumstances prevailing today from those prevailing in 1945.
95. Of course, it is not a question of forcing the texts to mean what they do not mean. Even for those of us who have been trained in Roman law — so different from other systems and particularly from the Anglo- Saxon system — it is not difficult to admit that Anglo- Saxon law and its twin, Roman law, are not ends in themselves but, like everything in the juridical order, instruments designed to serve certain ends which are inherent in them, like the spirit in the letter and like the alcohol in the wine. True interpretation consists precisely in extracting the meaning of the text in order to discover the spirit, which gives life, and not the letter, which kills.
96. For this reason we should deem unacceptable any agreement which, contrary to what is surely the majority opinion in the United Nations, would attempt to retreat into the past and fall back upon formulae such as the so-called "exclusive competence" of the Security Council in relation to the maintenance of peace, which, far from being the only possible interpretation of the Charter, is surely one of the causes of the present paralysis.
97. A few days ago Mr. Belaunde, in his admirable statement, reminded us that the responsibility for maintaining international peace and order lay with the Organization as a whole and not with the Security Council alone, although the Council had primary responsibility. I venture to add that the responsibility for maintaining peace is not restricted to the Security Council oi’ even to the Organization as a whole; the maintenance of peace is an unrenounceable attribute and power of the international community itself, of which the United Nations and its organs are simply visible and perhaps temporary manifestations. And if the maintenance of peace is the exclusive responsibility of the international community—for in the nuclear age the maintenance of peace is an indispensable condition for its existence—it would be very difficult, even for those of us who, as I have said, have been trained in a more rigid legal tradition, to admit the legitimacy of any interpretation which would be tantamount to denying the vast majority of the members of the international community—whom we must reasonably consider to be its authorized representatives, as the International Court of Justice has already pointed out on one occasion—the right to put into operation the machinery necessary for the preservation of that precious possession which belongs, with absolute equality, to each and every one of them.
98. We trust that this community spirit will finally prevail and that the negotiations which are now under way and the formulae which they produce, after consultation, of course, with all the regional groups within the United Nations, will enable us not only to overcome the present difficulties but to prepare the Organization to perform efficiently the noble duties implicit in its purposes.
99. It has quite rightly been said that ideas have an iron logic. And if it is true — if I may be allowed to revert to the idea I expressed just now — that the States represented here are united in something more than an alliance relationship, if it is true that these States form a whole, a community in the true sense of the word, then this idea of the international community implies a series of corollaries, which, applied with iron logic to the various fields of international activity, must provide us with certain true criteria which will also be just criteria, for we all know that justice is one of the facets of truth.
100. For example, it is evident that if an international community exists, its true foundation must lie in the unity of origin and nature of all the human beings comprising it. The international community must reject outright, as something which is intrinsically repellent, any theory, system or institution based on discriminatory principles, which disavow both the unity of our origin and the oneness of our nature.
101. The policy of apartheid, based, as it seems to be, on the most evil heresy to flourish in the modern world, the heresy of the absurd myth of racial superiority — and it must be said that this is true of all forms of racism — is not only outside the law of the Charter, it is outside the law of the international community, and the international community has not only the right but also the duty to force its recalcitrant members to comply with the minimum requirements of co-existence.
102. We are, of course, aware of the serious difficulties encountered so far and of the relative ineffectiveness of the measures adopted. Nor need I say that Uruguay will, as always, use every endeavour to ensure that all the means that the Charter places at our disposal are used to put an end to the sad fate of millions of unfortunate persons whose dignity as human beings must be restored without delay.
103. Similarly, as the international community is composed of human beings who, by natural law, enjoy inalienable rights older than and superior to the juridical order, which merely recognizes or describes them, my country will continue to urge that the Covenants on Human Rights, which the Assembly has been examining since its ninth session, receive preferential attention.
104. Although in Uruguay civil and religious freedoms are respected "to the full extent imaginable", to use the words of José Artigas, the founder of our nationality — and I can assure you that I am not exaggerating — we continue to recognize, of course, that the question of the protection of human rights cannot be considered strictly from the point of view of closed national societies.
105. While not denying the progress reflected in the incorporation of certain guarantees in the texts of our constitutions, we must recognize that whatever may be the significance of that progress, real protection can be found at the supranational level only. This is not only because the idea of international community embodies that other idea that, as the Apostle said, when one member suffers all the others suffer with it, but also because recognition of the rights of all members of the human family is, as the Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says, the foundation of justice and peace in the world. No one who has signed this Declaration has the right to be surprised if there is a growing tendency to resort to the "threat to peace" idea of Article 39 of the Charter, in order to apply it in certain cases which possibly were not in the orthodoxy of San Francisco but which are certainly in the spirit of the Charter, which is a dynamic instrument, and in the spirit and letter of the Declaration.
106. This year the General Assembly will discuss the measures of implementation of the Covenants. I do not need to stress the great importance of this chapter, for upon its structure will depend, in the last resort, whether the Covenants will be more than mere declarations, like those so far adopted. On this point Uruguay will strive to ensure not only effectiveness of protection through jurisdictional bodies, in keeping with a tradition common to it and the other Latin American countries, but also acceptance of the possibility that it will be the actual persons — and even non-governmental organizations — deprived of their fundamental rights who have access to the jurisdiction of the bodies responsible for supervising the implementation of the Covenants.
107. As you know, the Charter does not provide for the system of petitions by private persons — which it does accept, however, with respect to Non-Self-Governing Territories—nor does it grant individuals the right to appear before the International Court of Justice.
108. The fact that the United Nations receives thousands of letters and thousands of petitions a year from persons reporting violations of human rights in all parts of the world and that it can do nothing but file them shows that the present system which limits access to States is not capable of satisfying the profound, though possibly premature, hopes which the oppressed peoples of the world place in this Organization. Uruguay is the sponsor of a reasonable and balanced draft, which it submitted to the Inter-American Council of Jurists for consideration at its fourth session, held at Santiago de Chile in 1959, and we hope that we shall be able to make profitable use of it during our next discussions.
109. The international community is not, however, composed solely of individuals, although in the last resort it is the individual who is the beginning and end of every institution. The international community is formed, in the first place, of peoples and nations, whether or not their systems as States in the modern sense of the word are the most advanced. A sound and authentic conception of the international community absolutely excludes any tie, situation or dependence of a colonial character, even colonialism not motivated, as was the inhuman colonialism of the nineteenth century, by a perverted spirit of gain. The international community implies, per se, the radical equality of all the lesser communities, whatever their legal status, at least in that right which amounts to the same thing as the free will of men, namely, the right of self-determination. While we are still discussing whether the Declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples is consistent with this or that Article of the Charter, I should like to recall that, as long as four centuries ago Francisco de Vitoria, the founder of the "Derecho de Gentes", affirmed unequivocally, although going against the national interests of his country, the full personality in international law of non-Christian peoples, particularly those recently discovered in America, and expressed the most serious reservations with respect to the legitimacy of the system now known as trusteeship.
110. International law did not follow, nor in fact did the Western thought as a whole, the road indicated by the illustrious professor of Salamanca. In this sense, all that the historic Declaration of the Assembly, resolution 1514 (XV), has done is to reproduce, in baroque and contemporary language, the teaching of a school of which I as a Westerner am proud. But the importance of this resolution, the tremendous impact of which no one would dare at this stage to deny, must be measured in the light of the extent to which this theory was abandoned.
111. I do not propose to examine now the measures which have been taken to put into effect the principles embodied in that Declaration. As you know, my country has from the beginning taken part in the work of the Special Committee responsible for the application of the Declaration and has the honour to be one of its Vice-Chairmen. The Committee's work, which has certainly been extensive and intensive, will be examined in due course when either the Assembly in plenary session or the Fourth Committee examines the relevant report. I only wish to point out that this year, for the first time, the Special Committee began examining the so-called small territories still under colonial domination. There is no reason to hide the fact that we encountered innumerable difficulties in this task; difficulties due, in the first place, to the lack of precise information, particularly information of a political character, which is what the Committee, which is entrusted with an eminently political function, should possess in greater detail; difficulties also due in large measure to the fact that some administering Powers have apparently not yet understood the real meaning of the Declaration, particularly with respect to the exercise of self-determination by the peoples of these small territories. As I had occasion to say in the course of some discussions, whatever the meaning of the expression "independence", which is mentioned six times in the text of the Declaration, there is not the slightest shadow of doubt that those peoples must be allowed to exercise self-determination without restrictions of any kind and not within the framework of any system, constitution or previous law; that those peoples even when the act of self- determination is accomplished in their present dependent status, must be regarded, for this purpose, as an entity capable of negotiating on an equal footing with the metropolitan Power; that the latter, in all cases and whatever its interests or whatever attitudes it may previously have adopted, will have to respect, grant and even facilitate the solutions those peoples may have chosen. While this remark does not necessarily exclude anyone else, I should like to express my admiration and appreciation of the way in which the Government of New Zealand has implemented resolution 1514 (XV) with respect to the Territories of the Cook Islands, Niue and the Tokelau Islands under its administration. I think that the steps that Government has taken and those it proposes to take in the near future are exactly those contemplated in the resolution, in both the letter and the spirit, and we trust that this excellent example will be followed. Lastly, the Special Committee has also had to tackle, for the first time, the case of territories in dispute, territories in which a number, generally small, of nationals of the occupying Power have displaced the original population in most cases by force. It is obvious that in these situations the rigid and indiscriminate application of the principle of self- determination might produce a result which is exactly the contrary to what is sought, that is to say, to consolidation, in one form or another, of the colonial status.
112. My delegation is glad that the Committee had the wisdom and skill, in the case of the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, to examine the situation in the light of all the principles involved, which merit equal consideration and respect, and we trust that the parties directly concerned will conduct their negotiations in the spirit in which they were recommended and with the same intention. It also expresses its satisfaction at the fact that this solution, unanimously approved by the Committee, has been the subject of a special recommendation by the Secretary-General.
113. There is one field in which these consequences which follow, with iron logic, from the principle of the international community are patent and visible, even to the most ignorant. And sometimes we begin to wonder if those who so often consider it necessary to mention, in justification of their external policy, the paramount interests of the international community really know what they are talking about. This field, as is easily divined, is that of the economic relationship existing between States, and in particular between developed and developing States.
114. My delegation has been struck by the increasing frequency of resort to the idea that the real root of the conflict which today divides humanity lies not so much in ideological differences, in West-East dichotomy, as we who have lived a large part of our life under the sign of the cold war had thought, as in antagonism between those countries and States which have taken and continue to take the lion's share in the distribution of the world's goods and the others which are the disinherited offshoots of the international community; in other words, the real conflict seems to be not the West-East conflict but the North-South conflict.
115. I say that I was struck, because this is not the first time that my delegation has wondered if there is any meaning in a community in which — and I am giving conservative figures because actual statistics must be much harsher — 500 million members suffer real hunger and another 1,000 million suffer at least malnutrition. It is not only our sense of charity and justice that rebels against this.
116. Our intelligence, too, rejects it, for in our time there is nothing novel or revolutionary in the assertion that the good things of this earth were created for the benefit of all and not just a section of humanity; and that what this section, ignoring the historical background, claims as its right is in its hands only lay virtue of its administrative function, its social function, a fact which must be recognized within the nations themselves and, more important still, within international society. Just as in every society the inhuman concentration of wealth in the hands of a few has deprived the mass of the population of their natural right to the use and enjoyment of commodities which are there for the benefit and service of all, so has a similar process been taking place within the international society, with distinctions being made between rich and poor nations. Thus the problem of the just distribution of wealth now arises at the world level in the same way as it formerly arose at the national level. And if an international community truly exists, if this community is unified, as it is said to be, not only must the social function of owner ship be unified, in whatever hands it may be, but the international community must prescribe the means by which those property-owners — we refer to the property-owning nations — are required to make a proportionate contribution to the common welfare.
117. We note with satisfaction that provision is made for such measures in the conclusions and recommendations which emerged from the recent Conference on Trade and Development and, in particular, in the text of the "General and Special Principles" appearing in annex A to the Final Act. We hope that you, Mr. President, will take the necessary steps to ensure that the executive bodies for which the Conference made provision are enabled to begin their work immediately. This task does not allow of pause or procrastination: every day that passes may be a day of prosperity for a few but it is certainly another day of suffering for many. It must not be forgotten that today we are watching the most remarkable revolution in history and that, for the first time since the beginning of civilization some 5,000 years ago, the majority of the human race is in a position to gain access rapidly, thanks to technology and productivity, to the enjoyment of the material and spiritual advantages of civilization which during those 5,000 years had been reserved for a tiny minority. Those who do not understand this development will pay the penalty of isolation and loneliness, which, as Toynbee says, is the social and moral price which wealth must pay as long as poverty continues to be the normal state of ordinary men and women everywhere. If the international community is a living entity, it is at the same time a legal entity, which has its own structure and within which certain principles of public order, of jus cogens, must necessarily prevail. The international community has its own rules, derived, as I have said, from its own being and this is why the States, as members of the community, must assume a series of obligations which, in a certain sense, rank higher than those arising from voluntary agreements between themselves on relations of reciprocal justice. However fervent our national feelings may be and however legitimate the life of each nation may be, as it certainly is, the autonomy of a State is not absolute and is limited not only by the equal rights of other States but also toy the more general requirements of the good of humanity as a whole, without which it would be quite useless to aspire to the welfare of its members.
118. Explicit recognition of the existence of an international public order, of a genuine jus cogens irrevocably binding all States, has just been given — although the idea itself is much older — by the United Nations itself in General Assembly resolution 1902 (XVIII), in which it virtually associates itself with the report of the International Law Commission and especially the report on the validity, duration and termination of treaties. This, at any rate, confirms our belief that the Members of the United Nations have no objection to recognizing the existence of an international public order to which they are subject and that all that remains to be done now is to lay down in detail the rules or content which that system of public order must have.
119. This, of course, will be no easy task. This year the Sixth Committee, when it meets, will discuss the report of the Special Committee which has been circulated recently and deserves the most careful consideration. My delegation does not think that there should be any difficulty in agreeing that some, if not all, of the principles stated in operative paragraph 1 of resolution 1815 (XVII) are, by their very nature, true rules of jus cogens. If this were recognized, it would represent a notable advance in the development and improvement of international relations. For the small States, in particular, an explicit acknowledgment by the international community that such principles as the equality of States, self-determination, territorial, integrity and non-intervention are essential elements of international public order and — as the International Law Commission stressed in the above-mentioned report — may not be the subject of negotiation, bargaining or compromise, since any treaty which violated those principles would become null and void, represents a valuable guarantee and probably, in a world in which the differences of power are so great, the only effective protection for small States against the pressures to which they have been subjected continually throughout their history.
120. I have not yet referred to what constitutes, in this nuclear age, the sine qua non of the existence of an international community: peace and such measures as may ensure or lead to peace.
121. Clearly, we small and unarmed countries can say little on the subject of disarmament except to reaffirm, in our speeches and by our votes, the support we have consistently given to every resolution which sought such lofty objectives. I do not need to repeat that Uruguay has always voted in favour of resolutions on disarmament, as it voted in favour of the resolutions on the suspension, cessation and dissemination of nuclear tests and weapons; that it sponsored and vigorously defended the creation of a denuclearized zone in Latin America and that it is prepared to support, with equal sincerity, any effort in this direction during the present session. It must be remembered that it is the so-called small countries that have made the greatest contribution to all United Nations peace-keeping activities, from their physical contribution to the "blue-helmet" contingents to their active participation in every committee or working group that has been set up for that purpose. It must also be remembered that, for the small nations, peace has always been a unique blessing. Prior to the nuclear age, other more powerful nations could sail the stormy waters of war, with varying fortunes. For the small nations this choice never existed. For them, peace has always been not only a prerequisite for their physical survival but also the only condition on which their Governments could fulfil their purpose and their mission: to secure the happiness of their peoples.
122. But we aspire to a real and genuine peace, to that kind of peace which President Kennedy described in his memorable speech at the American University in June 1963, which is neither pax americana nor pax sovietica, to the peace which he defined, with unsurpassable precision and honesty, as "the necessary rational end of rational men".
123. There is nothing unexpected about this attitude. Uruguay is not a great country, if we measure greatness in terms of military power — which is an illusory standard of measurement — but it is one which, because of a unique trait of national character, has made the struggle for justice and peace a national cult. We were one of the first, as early as The Hague Conference in 1907, to proclaim the rule of compulsory arbitration. Our Constitution provides that all treaties concluded shall include a clause to the effect that any disputes which may arise between the parties shall be settled by arbitration or other peaceful means. Moreover, of the 115 sovereign States represented here, the earliest recognition of the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, in accordance with Article 36 (2) of its Statute, was that of my country.
124. This zeal for peace was no sudden inspiration; like all nations, we had to serve our apprenticeship of peace and it was not an easy task. But we finally discovered that peace must be achieved through conciliation and a spirit of compromise, for history has shown that what might be called "total victory" does not exist. Peace is the result "par excellence" of political compromise. As our Secretary-General', U Thant, said when he took office: "No difficult problem can be solved to the complete satisfaction of all sides. We live in an imperfect world, and have to accept imperfect solutions, which become more acceptable as we learn to live with them and as time passes by."
125. When we feel tempted to yield to impatience, it is well to remember that peace is the fruit of perseverance, modesty and patience and that experience shows that it is only by modest, patient and persevering efforts that good and lasting results can be achieved. Someone once said — and this definition has always delighted me — that God, too, is unlimited patience.