Australia

On behalf of the Foreign Minister of Australia, Mr. Alexander Downer, who is unable to be here because of our national election next 23 week, I would like to extend warm congratulations to you, Sir, on your election as President of the General Assembly at its fifty-third session. Your country, Uruguay, has given consistent and strong support to the United Nations, and your own expertise and contribution to the development of international law in particular is widely recognized. We know that we are in good hands, just as we were last year with your predecessor, Hennadiy Udovenko. Like him, you may count on Australiaâs support as you carry out your responsibilities and work to guide us towards constructive and worthwhile outcomes. As was very clear from the range of issues addressed on the first day and again this morning in the general debate, you take up the presidency, Sir, at a time when the agenda before the United Nations is more challenging than it has ever been. Australia is very concerned about many of those challenges and issues. But today I want to focus particularly on the subject of non-proliferation and disarmament, where recent events have brought us to a crossroads in our attempts to steer the world away from the threat of weapons of mass destruction. Although we heard some pessimistic perspectives yesterday, in Australiaâs view the progress that the international community has made in the field of arms control and disarmament over recent decades has, in fact, been remarkable — a trend to which the end of the cold war lent added impetus. Many bilateral, regional and international agreements have been concluded, all making a contribution to making our world more secure. Those achievements were driven by the realization that we must work with determination towards a situation where the right to self-defence of all nations, which is, after all, enshrined in the United Nations Charter, must be ensured at the lowest possible level of conventional armament and without recourse at all to weapons of mass destruction. Events which have moved against the tide of this progress have been relatively rare, but when they have occurred they have stood in stark contrast to the preferred direction of the international community. A survey of the progress made to date in the field of arms control and disarmament points to two key conclusions. The first is self-evident: there is more work to be done. The second is perhaps easier to overlook. In the face of periodic setbacks and challenges, it is vitally important, and in the security interests of all countries, that we stay the course on arms control and disarmament, that we not underestimate or take for granted the value of what has been achieved to date, and that we maintain the broad- based political commitment to the norms and institutions that we have put in place or have yet to build. A stock-take of progress in arms control and disarmament over recent decades leaves no doubt about the positive direction in which the community is moving in building a global security architecture. In addition to agreements on conventional arms limitation and transparency measures, the balance sheet for weapons of mass destruction is particularly impressive. A Treaty banning an entire category of weapons of mass destruction — the Chemical Weapons Convention — was successfully negotiated and has attracted widespread support, and efforts are under way to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention. A milestone Treaty now exists — the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) — which bans all nuclear-weapon test explosions and all other nuclear explosions. Long called-for by political leaders from across all regions, hard-negotiated in the Conference on Disarmament and finally adopted by the Assembly by an overwhelming majority two years ago, the CTBT has now attracted the adherence of over 150 States, and its institutional fabric is being steadily established. The cornerstone of the nuclear non-proliferation regime — the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) — has been extended indefinitely and has achieved near-universal membership, and agreement has been reached to commence negotiations to ban the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons. In another area, under the strategic arms reductions process, or START, and consistent with article VI of the NPT, deep cuts have been made in the cold-war arsenals of the two largest possessors of nuclear weapons, bringing closer the day when plurilateral and multilateral phases of nuclear disarmament can realistically be envisaged. With START I almost fully implemented, the United States and the Russian Federation, from which we have just heard, have more than halved their holdings of strategic nuclear warheads over the past decade. START III will bring those same arsenals down to some 80 per cent below cold-war peaks. It is clearly very important for START II to enter into force quickly so that planning for implementation can begin, ensuring there is no interruption to the nuclear disarmament process. The international nuclear safeguards systems have also been strengthened, enhancing international confidence in the integrity of this regime and its ability to detect and 24 deter non-compliance with non-proliferation obligations. And finally, a treaty banning landmines — what some have called weapons of mass destruction in slow motion — has been concluded. On the other side of the ledger, the non-proliferation and disarmament regimes have had to withstand serious challenges from the Democratic Peopleâs Republic of Korea and from Iraq, and the progress towards a universal no- nuclear-testing norm has been seriously jolted by sporadic outbreaks of testing, most recently by India and Pakistan. Unresolved regional tensions in South Asia and the Middle East continue to bedevil and to thwart the attainment of the goal of universal membership of the NPT. While being justifiably dismayed at the disdain of the few for the clearly expressed will of the international community, we can also draw encouragement from the strength of our national and collective responses to these challenges and the resilience of the regimes when so challenged. It is vitally important that we stay the course, that we ensure that such events amount to no more than temporary deviations from the near-universally accepted norm against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We believe that this is in Australiaâs national interest and in the interest of international and regional security to uphold the nuclear and other non-proliferation regimes and to continue to do our utmost to pursue effective measures to reduce and eliminate the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction. In a strange way, the periodic setbacks to these efforts serve to underscore the value of the progress made to date. The very existence of the NPT, and its near-universal membership, highlights the unacceptability of embarking upon a nuclear-weapon programme in todayâs world. Similarly, it is the very existence of the CTBT, and the near-universal point of view it represents — namely, that nuclear testing should be a thing of the past — that rendered more powerful the widespread disapproval of the spate of nuclear tests earlier this year. The new ratifications which the CTBT attracted following the South Asian nuclear tests were eloquent testimony to the confidence of the international community in and its commitment to the no-testing norm. Australia would like to take this public opportunity to congratulate Brazil and to welcome it as the most recent member of the family of NPT nations. We call on that handful of States remaining outside the NPT to reflect on the possibility that the 187 countries which have decided that the NPT provides greater security than the nuclear- weapons option might be right, and that they — the outsiders — might be wrong. Australia also calls on them to consider how much more seriously their national security interests would be degraded in a world where the overwhelming majority of States had not embraced the nuclear non-proliferation norm. My country, as I think is well known, has long been a very firm supporter of universal adherence to treaties on international weapons of mass destruction. We have signed all 13 multilateral arms control and disarmament treaties and ratified all of these bar one; ratification of the Ottawa Convention on landmines, I am happy to say, is in progress. Only four other countries can match this record. We remain committed to making a difference where and when we can in building consensus on the way forward, and we will continue to be as diligent and as creative as possible across the full range of arms-control and disarmament issues. Our focus, for those who know us well, is always on results rather than rhetoric and on making pragmatic contributions where we can, illustrated by the sort of contributions that we have made to helping to negotiate the key Conventions to which I have referred and by our support for building and strengthening the institutions which work in various ways to support international arms- control and disarmament goals — institutions such as the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum and the nuclear safeguards system. Experience has shown that these regimes cannot be taken for granted. The existing regimes need continual care, maintenance and vigilance to ensure that they remain effective and that political and financial commitment to them remains strong. In the NPT area, for example, further work is needed to maintain the strength of the Treaty and to go on to achieve its full implementation and universality. The sixth Review Conference, in the year 2000, following on the recent serious challenges to the non-proliferation norm, to which I have referred, will be one of the most significant in the history of the Treaty. But even if we have a distance to go in terms of the Treatyâs value, surely no one would argue that the world would be a safer place without it. Nor could it be argued that the negotiation of the Treaty back in the late 1960s, and the maintenance and strengthening of the Treaty ever since, has not been worth the effort. 25 And to those few who persist with the tired refrain that the NPT is a discriminatory Treaty, we say “Yes, it is”, and for one excellent reason: the NPT allows a temporary state of discrimination between the nuclear-weapon States and the rest of us because, quite simply, the alternative was, and still is, too horrible to contemplate. We might lament that because of the cold war the state of discrimination lasted far too long, but we surely cannot argue that the alternative scenario would have made the world a safer place than it is today. For it was a commonplace of political forecasts in the 1960s, when nuclear weapons were a legitimate security option for any State, that over 20 States, including my own, Australia, would likely choose to exercise that option. And it is surely perverse, when the titanic arsenals of nuclear weapons accumulated during the cold war are at last being drastically cut, to act against the tide of disarmament by pursuing the nuclear option. Similarly, no one could argue that we would be better off without a Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Its conclusion, its signature by the five nuclear-weapon States and its ratification to date by two are major achievements — all the more reason to press ahead with the establishment of the Treatyâs implementation and verification structures. A strong start has been made in implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention. Its effectiveness is already amply demonstrated, but we need continued political will and financial commitment, as well as the additional ratifications and accessions, for the full security benefits of the Convention to be realized. Similarly, the Biological Weapons Convention is weakened by its lack of verification and compliance provisions. Work is now under way in the Ad Hoc Group negotiations to rectify this deficiency. We strongly support this Ad Hoc Group and are working together with others to produce an effective and workable protocol to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention. One of the things that we have been doing — and people may have seen the reference to a meeting about this in todayâs Journal — has been to work collaboratively with many other countries to convene an informal meeting of Foreign Ministers. This informal meeting is going to be held tomorrow, here in New York, and it represents the determination of many countries, at high political levels, to work together to bring us closer to the goal of an early conclusion of an effective protocol to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention. In conjunction with the international communityâs efforts to achieve full implementation and universality of existing regimes, we also need new, reinforcing and complementary steps to achieve our overall arms control and disarmament goals. Commencement of negotiations for a fissile material cut-off treaty is an excellent example of how we should be moving forward in this respect. We see it as the next logical step after the CTBT, and it is one to which we hope the Assembly will lend unequivocal support and encouragement. The recent agreement in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva to commence negotiations on a cut-off treaty demonstrates, we believe, the resilience of the non-proliferation regime under pressure. It gives the lie to those who recently pronounced it dead. It is a sign of the international community reaffirming its faith in the non-proliferation principle to which it has been committed for the past 30 years. I want to refer very briefly to three more subjects: United Nations reform, human rights and peacekeeping. Like most other Member States, we want this Organization to work better. Some progress has been made. We welcomed the agreement reached on key elements of the Secretary-Generalâs reform package. Indeed, we worked hard and quietly to help bring this about. But it is now very important to ensure that what has been agreed is effectively implemented — that the task force and the reviews of specific aspects of United Nations organizations all actually produce concrete outcomes and that real change does in fact occur. Critical to the achievement of real reform will be the resolution of the ongoing problem of non-payment of arrears in financial contributions. The failure of many Member States, including the major contributor, to address this situation hinders all our efforts to strengthen this Organization. Also, much of the reform process to us appears to have been focused on rationalizing and refining structures and mechanisms and on administrative measures. We think that the next phase of the reform process has to give much more structured thought — and I believe that this is what the Secretary-General has in mind in his presentations to date on the Millennium Assembly — to the kind of United Nations we expect and want in the decades to come. A thorough review of priorities is overdue. Although the lofty ideals enshrined in the United Nations Charter remain as valid as ever, we need to give serious thought to modernizing the ways in which we 26 give effect to those objectives in terms of operational activities. Australia is concerned, like so many others who have spoken in the general debate to date, that the debate on Security Council reform has stalled. We have had an exhaustive — but, regrettably, inconclusive — discussion over the last year. It is time now to move beyond general discussion to serious negotiation of a reform package, one which will usher in a remodelled Council that is more representative, transparent and suited to the new millennium. This will require serious engagement and flexibility from all involved. My Government remains committed to finding ways to move the debate forward. Those of you who were here at last yearâs session of the General Assembly may recall that Foreign Minister Downer raised the issue of electoral groups. We continue to assert that this is an important element in the reform debate. It is over 30 years since the last significant change was made to the regional groups. The drawbacks of the present configuration are becoming more and more obvious: substantial disparities in the size of the various groups and an inadequate level of representation available to many subregions, including Australiaâs own geographical area of East Asia and the Pacific. We have noted that there is gathering interest among Member States in this subject, and we think it is time that we recognized it as an element of reform which needs to be addressed. Changing the groups to reflect better contemporary realities and the interests of the current membership will, we recognize, require careful thought and patient discussion, and it is simply far too early to put forward any particular formula. But we suggest we could begin by discussing the principles on which a new system could be built and by exchanging views in a thoughtful and non-acrimonious way on how we might take the process forward. The year 1998 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and also 50 years of United Nations peacekeeping. Australiaâs commitment to upholding the fundamental human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights remains as strong now as it was in 1948, when the Declaration was proclaimed. Members may not know that Australia was one of the eight countries tasked with the drafting of the Declaration and that we also played an important role in ensuring that human rights provisions were included in the United Nations Charter. Fifty years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights represented a common statement of goals and aspirations, a vision of the world as the international community would want it to become. We still believe in that vision and we see the fiftieth anniversary as a time for the international community to reaffirm its commitment to this powerful document. Similarly, the 50 years of United Nations peacekeeping gives us an opportunity to recognize how far the institution of peacekeeping has come, to take stock of the lessons we have learnt from the past and, perhaps most importantly, to pay tribute to over 1,500 peacekeepers who have made the ultimate sacrifice for a safer and more peaceful world. Whether we are talking of old problems or new ones, whether we are analysing setbacks or successes, or marking anniversaries, the annual stocktake which this general debate represents offers the opportunity not for a series of set speeches unrelated to each other and ticking off a lot of subjects, but rather a chance to remind ourselves of what the United Nations stands for, to recognize what has been achieved to date, and to recommit ourselves for the future to protecting and advancing those achievements. I have focused today on disarmament not only as an area of the utmost priority for Australia and Australians, but also as one where we believe we can add value. But the parallels and lessons of disarmament and non- proliferation hold good for other areas of the United Nations activities. I said at the very outset that the international community was at a crossroads in our attempts to build an international dispensation in which the threat of mass destruction had no place. The achievements of the last 30 years in setting in place treaties, institutions and norms to ensure that we move in that direction are impressive. But they are not invulnerable. Inadequate verification, non- compliance, aberrant behaviour, budget fatigue, reform fatigue failure of political will — all of these things have the potential to unravel and to undermine what we have built together. Effective arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation — like all the other subjects that are being addressed from this rostrum — require large investments of political and economic capital. It might be natural at times, particularly challenging and worrying times such as we are currently experiencing, to wonder if it is worth the cost. Brief consideration of the alternatives is surely enough to convince us that the answer is undoubtedly “yes”. To do otherwise would be to betray not only the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which we are commemorating, but also the very principles of the United Nations Charter.