Liechtenstein

Allow me to congratulate you, Sir, on your election to the presidency of the forty-eighth session of the General Assembly and to express our conviction that your experience and diplomatic skills will make a valuable contribution to the work of this august body. My delegation will spare no effort to support you in the fulfilment of your tasks. I should also like to avail myself of this opportunity to thank your predecessor, Mr. Stoyan Ganev, for the way he conducted the work of the General Assembly during a difficult period. Over the last eight months, this Organization has been able to welcome six new Member States: Slovakia, the Czech Republic, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Monaco, Eritrea and Andorra, thus enhancing the universality of the United Nations. Since the last session of the General Assembly we have been witness to historic gains in regional disputes. The signing of the peace agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization is a unique breakthrough and will, it is hoped, lead to a just and lasting peace for the region. When the President of the African National Congress, Mr. Nelson Mandela, spoke in this Hall on 24 September, he outlined the historic advances made towards democracy in South Africa. We are very hopeful that a new South Africa will play a vital role in the development of the African continent. My country was admitted to the United Nations on 18 September 1990 and has tried over the last three years to maintain as active a presence and participation as possible. While Liechtenstein was the 160th Member in 1990, the Organization today has 184 members. This considerable increase in the Organization’s membership makes it clear that the ongoing discussion of equitable representation on and expansion of the Security Council’s membership is timely and necessary. In our view, the priorities in reforming the Security Council are cohesion and effectiveness. It is of great importance, however, that the discussion of reforms also include the question of the Security Council’s work, since broad support for its actions is an indispensable condition of its legitimacy, which can only be guaranteed by enhanced transparency and cooperation with other Member States. Article 23 of the Charter establishes that the contribution to the maintenance of international peace and security is the first criterion for membership in the Council; it is obvious that the second criterion - equitable geographical distribution - has so far not been given due attention. In view of the obvious importance of the Security Council’s composition, we favour taking the necessary time to make adjustments beneficial to the credibility of the Organization as a whole. The new effectiveness of the Security Council is manifested, among other ways, by the recent considerable increase of peace-keeping and peacemaking missions. These operations are closely observed by the public and are often taken as a yardstick for the activities of the United Nations as a whole. While we think it important to give more attention to other fields, such as that of social development, we are aware of the impact that the failure or success of peace-keeping activities can have on the credibility of the Organization. In our view, the United Nations should not engage in an ever-increasing number of peace-keeping Forty-eighth session - 5 October l993 9 missions all over the world. A more important role should be given to preventive diplomacy, which can be carried out by regional organizations or arrangements such as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). The participating States consider the CSCE a regional arrangement in the sense of Chapter VIII of the United Nations Charter, and as such it provides an important link between European and global security. Liechtenstein, as a participating State, believes that enhancement of the cooperation with the CSCE is crucial; my country favours the idea of granting observer status to that organization and has supported the request for the inclusion of an additional item to this effect in the agenda of the forty-eighth session. Preventive diplomacy cannot, however, replace peace- keeping, and the United Nations must remain as active in that field as is necessary. It must be pointed out that the existing infrastructure in New York is not sufficient to cope with the wide range of tasks, and urgently needs to be improved. Deplorable events in the recent past have made it clear that there is not sufficient protection of civil and military personnel involved in peace-keeping missions. We therefore wholeheartedly welcome the inclusion of a new agenda item proposed by the delegation of New Zealand regarding the question of responsibility for attacks on United Nations and associated personnel and measures to ensure that those responsible for such attacks are brought to justice. With the growing involvement of the United Nations in complex conflicts, the Organization’s role has been transformed into a more active and comprehensive one. As a result, relief workers expose their lives to great risk in their efforts to alleviate human suffering. My delegation believes that it simply cannot be tolerated that relief workers, who themselves want to save lives, should become targets. The United Nations should make it very clear that these acts of violence will not go unpunished. The emblems of the United Nations, the Red Cross and the Red Crescent must be respected. Humanitarian assistance today faces the challenge of many complex emergency situations. These challenges must be met on the basis of the principles of neutrality, impartiality and humanity; humanitarian aid must not be politicized. When we are called upon to give proof of our solidarity, we must provide the necessary financial means. We are, however, also called upon to address the root causes of many disasters, such as poverty, population increase and civil and ethnic strife. Imbalances feed misery; they not only are unfair but are dangerous. Forty-five years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a great deal remains to be done in this field, to which we attach particular importance. The World Conference on Human Rights in June 1993 was a very important event, and we all know how difficult it was to adopt the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. This text can constitute a milestone in the history of the United Nations only if it is followed by determined action by the General Assembly in the spirit of the Vienna Declaration. In our view, it is of the utmost importance that the the Centre for Human Rights be given the resources necessary to enable it to carry out its tasks even more efficiently. In addition, the creation of the post of high commissioner for human rights is a laudable initiative, and the General Assembly should provide him or her with a strong mandate within the already existing structures. It is a well-known fact that the financial situation of the United Nations is disastrous. In his speech of 26 August, the Secretary-General accordingly outlined initial steps to cope with this crisis. The measures taken by the Secretary- General seem to be unavoidable, and we hope they will not have a negative impact on the work of the General Assembly. In our view, urgent action by the General Assembly is needed to prevent further deterioration, which could have serious consequences. Punctual and full payment of the assessed contributions must be made by all States and arrears must be paid in full and promptly. Proposals aimed at ensuring proper utilization of resources and establishing adequate accountability within the United Nations should be discussed thoroughly and expeditiously. Finally, an overall reform of the financial sector seems to be necessary. All suggestions which might contribute to this aim, especially those contained in the so-called Volcker-Ogata report, should be studied with due attention. Much has been said about the changes that have taken place since the ending of the cold war. Unfortunately we cannot say that all these changes have been positive. To the infinite regret and dismay of the whole international community, we have continued to witness the outbreak of a great number of ethnic and national conflicts, accompanied by the untold suffering of innocent people. There must be a better way for the world to manage its affairs. While tensions within and between communities may be an inevitable part of the human condition, it is, in our view, of the utmost importance that ways be found to defuse them peacefully and without bloodshed. In this context, I should like to refer briefly again to an idea which might take us a step in the right direction and which I introduced when I had the great honour to address 10 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session the General Assembly for the first time at its forty-sixth session, very soon after Liechtenstein became a Member of the United Nations. On that occasion, I ventured to suggest that a basis for some solutions could be found within the principle of self-determination. The value of this great principle has been fully demonstrated in the traditional context of decolonization. But it need not be limited to that context. Applied also to communities within States, and allowing for them to have different levels of autonomy according to the particular circumstances of different communities, it could perhaps defuse many of the tensions which are such a potent source of conflict. Such principles, placed within a suitable framework, would give an effective and practical dimension to the principle of self-determination which it has sometimes seemed to lack. Eventually such provisions could perhaps come to be elaborated in a convention to be of general application. Since first putting those thoughts before this Assembly, we in Liechtenstein have been encouraged by the degree of interest which has been shown in them. Our ideas are flexible, although our objective - which is to find practical and effective ways of avoiding, or at least reducing, tensions between communities - remains firm. We have refined our initial thoughts on the subject in the light of comments made by others, and we developed our ideas further at the last session of the General Assembly, both during debates in the Third Committee and when the Head of Government addressed the Assembly in the course of the general debate. On that occasion, the Head of Government announced that the Government of Liechtenstein would be inviting each Government represented in the Assembly, including Observers, to nominate an independent expert to attend an informal meeting of experts in Liechtenstein to discuss these matters further. That meeting took place from 16 to 18 March this year, attended by participants nominated by 46 States and international and non-governmental organizations. I attended it myself throughout, and can say personally how valuable we found the contributions participants made to the development of our thinking. Perhaps I might be allowed to take this opportunity to thank them all for their participation in what we see as an important and valuable project. Over the past two years we have, in these various ways, carried forward our belief that, in the ideas first put forward to Assembly in 1991, the international community may find some way forward in its search for ways of avoiding the kind of internal conflicts which cause ever-increasing human suffering and which are increasingly dangerous for the peace and safety of our world. To make further progress we decided this year to seek to inscribe an item on the Assembly’s agenda which would enable our ideas to be fully discussed by the full membership of the United Nations. We are grateful that our proposal was accepted and now appears on the agenda for this session as item 108 (b), entitled "Right of peoples to self-determination: Effective realization of the right of self-determination through autonomy". We look forward to the debate which will follow, and I hope to be able to participate myself in at least part of it. We hope that in the light of what may be said in the debate, the Assembly will agree that there is, in the ideas which we have put forward, something valuable which merits further consideration and elaboration. We do not underestimate the difficulties ahead. We are aware of the sensitivities of this whole subject, especially in these times. Great though those difficulties and sensitivities may be for some States, we are convinced that the needs of the international community are even more pressing. The dangers, horrors and suffering to which tensions between communities within States can give rise, and of which we sadly have daily reminders, make it essential for the international community to make every effort to open up new thinking in this field in order to find practical and effective means for further promoting the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations. We consider it a great privilege to have an Organization such as the United Nations, founded upon a Charter which encompasses the highest ideals of humankind. I wish to take this opportunity to reaffirm my country’s commitment to the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.