Nauru

Mr. President, allow me to join previous speakers in congratulating you on your assumption of the presidency of the fifty-fifth session of the General Assembly. Nauru, like your Government, has full confidence in your ability to conduct the affairs the Assembly effectively and efficiently. Through you, Sir, Nauru congratulates the outgoing President, His Excellency Mr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, Foreign Minister of Namibia, for a job well done which climaxed with the successful and unprecedented Millennium Summit. The Republic of Nauru has just passed its first anniversary as a Member of this esteemed Organization with a Permanent Mission in New York that is just nine months old. The admission of our brother island from the Pacific, Tuvalu, as the 189th Member of the Organization, is a most welcome development. On behalf of my Government, I extend to Tuvalu our warm welcome into the brotherhood of nations. My delegation commends the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, and his team at the Secretariat for their well-crafted report entitled “We the peoples: the role of the United Nations in the twenty-first century”. The report has captured, in one document, the agony and ecstasy of the United Nations as it journeyed through its triumphs and failures over the past 55 years of its existence. The purpose of our presence in this parliament of the peoples of the United Nations is not to bask in the ecstasy of past achievements but to pledge anew our commitment and determination to face the problems that continue to confront humanity, and to support the launching of the United Nations on a new crusade to engage the tempestuous challenges encapsulated in chapter VII of the Secretary-General's report. In conjunction with this, the heads of State or Government of Member States have mandated the Assembly, by their solemn act of adopting the outcome document, to implement the call for action. It is further encouraging to hear Foreign Ministers expound upon and reinforce the commitments that their respective heads of State or 22 Government made at the Millennium Summit. It is now for the doers to deliver the goods, so to speak. It is here that the greatest challenges lie. It is indisputable that the issues before us are not new but are unfinished business, and the most difficult on which to make progress. The problem is in the interaction between Member States for the purpose of delivering agreed instruments that will act as platforms by which Member States will be obligated to adopt and implement at the national level. It is therefore my delegation's strong view that our first priority is to revitalize and further strengthen the foundation for collaboration and cooperation among Member States on the one hand, and between the United Nations and the appropriate intergovernmental organizations and non-governmental organizations on the other. That is, not only must we resolve to provide the United Nations with the allocated resources and processes to perform its tasks effectively, but we must also repair the negative undercurrents and detrimental practices that inhibit the achievement of desired outcomes. In this regard, Nauru considers the following actions to be necessary steps towards this goal. First, we must revitalize the work and restore the authority of the General Assembly as the only universally representative body of the United Nations. Second, there is a need to address the ongoing marginalization of the smaller and less affluent Member States. Third, we must expedite the reform of the Security Council. Nauru believes that an expansion in Security Council membership is the politically correct action to take, and we urge participants and facilitators alike to expedite the work of the Working Group. Fourth, the preference for unanimity as the means of deciding on issues under consideration is, in our view, a major factor behind the delay in reaching agreed solutions and has on more than one occasion resulted in the dilution of outcomes. Setting such a high standard, when the principal organs of the United Nations come to decisions on a two-thirds majority basis, is self-defeating. Nauru takes the view that a unanimous outcome should be a target only, and not a rule. Fifth, financial resources need to be shored up. The timely and unconditional payment of assessed contributions will enable the United Nations to discharge its responsibilities in a timely manner. Voluntary contributions are also a very essential source of funds to support the work of the subsidiary bodies and agencies through trust funds established under the United Nations. Nauru commends those Member States that contribute to such trust funds over and above their assessed contributions, and we also recognize and praise the important contribution that private trust funds such as the Ted Turner Foundation make to the work of the United Nations and its main agencies. Sixth, a number of covenants remain dormant due either to the lack of signatories to bring them into force or to the lack of ratification by States that have signed. We thus call for all States to make a commitment to bringing outstanding international agreements into force. Seventh, the Secretary-General's reform initiatives of 1997 must be brought to bear in the shortest time possible so that the limited resources of the United Nations are put to work more on the programmes of action and less on running the administrative machineries. We urge that the Secretariat continue to review its operations on a timely basis as it strives to do more with less. The President of the Republic of Nauru, in his intervention in the round-table discussion, expressed his disappointment that the core responsibilities of the United Nations regarding the rights of peoples to self- determination and freedom from alien domination did not rank as importantly as the other issues currently before us. The fact that there are still 17 countries listed in the Special Political and Decolonization Committee, coupled with the non-settlement of long- standing disputes between States over their borders, and the continuing existence of stateless people, may be indicative of the priority that these issues receive within the United Nations. For Nauru, the continued refusal of the United Nations to deal with the plight of the millions of Chinese on the island of Taiwan is tantamount to avoiding its core responsibilities. By no stretch of the imagination could we be convinced that the Republic of China on Taiwan is a province of China. Nauru has no doubt that the condition that unification should take place through “peaceful” means, adopted by the United States and its allies as part of their “one China” policy, has helped maintain relative calm in the region. It is 23 incumbent upon the United Nations, under the appropriate Articles of the Charter, and the international community to find a lasting solution to the problem. The United Nations cannot claim to be a truly universally representative world body as long as the people of Taiwan continue to be excluded from this Organization. East Timor is a classic case of the United Nations not paying attention to the concerns of the Pacific region. Undoubtedly, had the United Nations, through the Security Council, acted at the time it was prompted to do so by the Governments of the region, the human carnage and immeasurable damage to property would have been far less, and perhaps even avoided altogether. It is in this vein that Nauru is raising the matter of West Papua. Our head of State stated Nauru's position on the issue in his intervention at the Millennium Summit, and I will therefore not repeat it here. However, the Nauru Mission to the United Nations has been instructed to take the necessary steps towards putting together a resolution on West Papua's call for a new and democratically run referendum on the question of independence from Indonesia, in the spirit of the 1962 New York Agreement between the Netherlands and Indonesia. We ask for the Assembly's support of this just cause. Flowing from these issues of security and peace is the issue of the safety and survival of humankind from weapons of mass destruction, illicit trade in small arms and light weapons and the pandemic of the HIV/AIDS virus. Despite the establishment of several initiatives by the United Nations in its effort to make progress on and expedite the question of disarmament, it is sad to note that progress is at a snail's pace, due mainly to resistance by most nuclear-weapon States to disarm. In the Pacific region, which has been declared a nuclear-weapon-free zone by the Rarotonga Treaty, the transboundary shipment of nuclear fuel and other radioactive material in the waters of States parties to the Waigani Convention are banned. Our efforts through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) process, as well as bilateral and multilateral initiatives to protect our ecosystem and seas against accidents from these shipments in the high seas of our region, have been met with strong opposition by shipping States that, unlike us, are not dependent on the sea and its ecosystem for their livelihoods. In this regard, Nauru supports the call by the Secretary-General to convene a special session of the General Assembly to address the nuclear disarmament issue, as we are not satisfied with the pace of progress in the other forums. At the other end of the scale, small arms and light weapons obtained through illicit trade account for much of the political, ethnic and criminal killings and human suffering that occur in the less affluent countries of the world. The tranquil South Pacific has not been spared from this deadly trade. The United Nations will be convening the first Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects next year, and it is our hope that Member States will not put national political interests ahead of the desires of the international community to eradicate this illegal and offensive activity. International efforts to contain the HIV/AIDS epidemic from spreading have not been successful in the least developed and developing countries, particularly in Africa. The prohibitive cost of treatment and social attitudes are the major constraints that these countries face in combating the pandemic. We are satisfied with the efforts of the United Nations to combat the epidemic, efforts that are largely being carried out through the World Health Organization and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. However, it is obvious that the United Nations needs the help of affluent countries to provide medicine and medical experts in support of its efforts. In this regard, Nauru has joined in the sponsorship of a draft resolution calling on the General Assembly to take up the issue and deal with it under its authority. Poverty continues to be the major concern for the developing world. The fact that the number of least developed countries is stagnant at 48, with the possibility of another 3 countries being added to the list, is testimony to the fact that current programmes are not working. The Secretary General's report entitled “We the peoples” lists some ambitious initiatives to accomplish freedom from want for humanity. We strongly endorse the call for setting time- bound goals in making resolute commitments to the world's poorest and most vulnerable. Next year's conference on least developed countries and financing for development will be our first test since the Millennium Summit of our sincerity to move from rhetoric to action on the important issue of poverty alleviation. 24 The Pacific is a region that demands special attention. Projections by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific estimate growth in the Pacific region to be only about 2 per cent during the next three years, as compared to around 6 per cent for the rest of Asia. My own country is expected to experience several more years of negative growth, as our single resource and industry — phosphate — comes to the end of its natural life. Small island developing States, and the Pacific islands in particular, face special difficulties is making the transition to globalization. They will need time to adjust to changes in the external trade regime and to the consequent changes in their economies. Our particular vulnerabilities should be recognized as justifying special consideration to deal with such issues as the global process of trade liberalization. The removal of special protective regimes continues to occur. The South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission has been developing an environmental vulnerability index with input from both the United Nations and the Commonwealth Secretariat. Nauru, along with the other small island developing States in the Pacific, is gratified at the support it has received from several developed countries to finance the project to fruition. We urge that this work be incorporated into the work of the United Nations, especially into the work of the Committee for Development Policy and that of the Bretton Woods institutions. For all of us in the Pacific, the ocean is our major resource. It provides us with food, income from the sale of fish stocks caught in our respective zones and, through the natural cycle of evaporation and condensation, it is also a vital source of our fresh water. It may also prove to be the source of the demise of many low-lying Pacific islands from global warming and the resultant rise in sea levels. The Rio Conference in 1992 provided the foundations for international action. The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is an important step forward. But those responses may prove to be too few, too little and too late for many small islands. We urge the community of nations to implement the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Nations and the private sector must incorporate “green accounting” into their practices in order to integrate the environment into economic policy. Suitable regulations and incentives need to be designed into the web of governance. Agenda 21 and the Barbados Programme of Action continue to be the guiding principles for the sustainable development of our region and the protection of our environments. My delegation is pleased to note that the World Bank has adopted much of the relevant language in its programmes but it, and the rest of the developed countries, need to commit to maintain and, where possible, to expand overall levels of support for small States' development, in terms of both advocacy and the provision of technical assistance. Fishing offers the best hope for the future sustenance of the smaller island countries that have no mineral resources and/or tourism to contribute to the national treasury. Nauru therefore reaffirms the importance of the sustainable integrated management and conservation of living marine resources in the world's oceans, and the obligations of States to cooperate to that end. We again call for an end to unsustainable and damaging practices, such as drift-net fishing, offshore dumping and high-seas pollution. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is a threat to the economic development of coastal States in the Pacific, Caribbean and Latin American regions, whose national incomes are heavily dependent on the export of fish. The efforts by the United Nations to convene the first open-ended informal consultative process on the oceans and the Law of the Sea has enabled States to address those issues with a view to reporting the deliberations of the consultation to the General Assembly for its consideration and further action. Another area where small States, including our own, have been successful in generating income for the national treasury is in the provision of onshore and offshore financial services. However, pressure has been applied by the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to blacklist countries that do not meet the anti-money-laundering standards of those international bodies. We understand and accept the need to have an anti-money-laundering regime, and many small island States have gone a long way to implement those requirements. For its part, the Government of Nauru recently issued a letter of commitment to the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention to 25 undertake the United Nations minimum performance standards on anti-money-laundering initiatives. Regrettably, the compliance level has been raised unilaterally by the OECD to include harmful tax competition — which has nothing to do with money- laundering and other financial crimes. This is wrong in international law and violates both the letter and spirit of many United Nations resolutions regarding the intervention of international organizations in the domestic jurisdiction of States. Such unilateral action is not acceptable to Nauru. For the Pacific region, the question of the equitable representation of the 11 Pacific island countries in the bodies and commissions of the United Nations is of vital importance. Until 20 years ago, it may have been reasonable to have Australia and New Zealand in the Group of Western European and other States and a handful of Pacific islands in the Asian Group. However, with the increase in membership since that time, and the addition of a number of Pacific island nations in recent times, it is incumbent upon the United Nations to review the groupings. Oceania is a distinct and internationally recognized region of the world. The Asian Group presently constitutes member countries from the Middle East, Central Asia, China, Japan, the two Koreas, the member countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Pacific island countries. The 11 Pacific island countries are drowning in the Asian Group, while Australia and New Zealand, the godfathers of the Pacific island countries, are marooned in the Group of Western European and other States. The parliaments of the ASEAN member countries, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the Pacific island countries are members of a regional body called the Asian-Pacific Parliamentarians Union. It is a well- recognized body in the various regional and international parliamentary forums. This model could be used as the basis for a new regional group within the United Nations, with the inclusion of Australia and New Zealand. In our view, this new grouping would provide the best opportunity for those Member States to be equitably represented in the work of the United Nations. In conclusion, Nauru would like to reiterate the importance of Member States making concerted efforts to strengthen the fundamentals of multilateralism. At the same time, the United Nations must assert its leadership role through the coordination of all key players in keeping the peace and fighting poverty and transboundary crimes, as well as with regard to humanitarian initiatives, the protection of human rights and the rights of the child, and in the fight against inequity and inequality. Only through such collaborative efforts can we move the United Nations in the direction that our leaders have agreed it must go.