The 192 Member States gathered here have not yet taken
the qualitative leap called for by Woodrow Wilson in
1918 for our international order not to be based on
organized rivalries, but rather on an organized common
peace.
We must learn to tone down our national
interests. We must foster a shared sense for what is just
and what is necessary. We must understand that the
basic premise of collective security is that we must
agree upon the threats that we face and the manner in
which we must tackle them.
We must accept that collective security, in order
to be legitimate, must defend international law in the
abstract, without preference for some over others.
Nevertheless, we continue to have an unequal
commitment to international law. Some of us have
accepted a multilateralism that is based on open
agreements openly arrived at, whereas others refuse to
yield imaginary shares of sovereignty. As long as the
latter continue to understand sovereignty as the
absence of obligations and responsibilities to others,
multilateralism is compromised.
Cultures and viewpoints from all parts of the
world gather here. They do so because they know that
the solitude of unilateralism is a dead-end road.
Multilateralism must, however, have preconditions.
Those who want to be treated as a partner must behave
as one. If not, we will never be able to live up to our
promise of “never again”. The “never again” that we
pronounced at the end of the First World War and the
Second World War or that we asserted following the
genocides in Kampuchea and Rwanda, still fails to
mobilize us today to solve other situations that are just
as unacceptable, just as intolerable and, on occasion,
just as unimaginable.
It is not right to compromise multilateralism; it is
especially wrong to do so when, through a lack of will,
we affect one or more partners making a desperate
appeal for help. In that regard, we welcome the fact
that this General Assembly has put climate change at
the top of its agenda. But how long has it taken us? We
simply cannot be satisfied with a “better late than
never”, when in 1987, exactly 20 years ago, President
Maumoon Abdul Gayoom of the Republic of the
Maldives alerted us that he did not come to speak
about international political issues but rather about “the
death of a nation”, the death of a nation whose 1,190
islands will be virtually submerged with the rise in sea
level owing to climate change. The emergency hotline
must respond not only to 11 September but to all the
emergencies covered by the Charter of the United
Nations.
It is time to pay our debt to nature. We simply
cannot continue to distort the evidence of climate
change. Regardless of how inconvenient the truth may
be or what our respective shares of responsibility are,
the truth is here to stay. Year after year we are
reminded of it with greater frequency and intensity.
In Costa Rica where the most species per square
kilometre of anywhere in the world are found, we are
committed to going beyond our obligations. We have
adopted concrete and sustainable actions, such as
setting aside 27 per cent of our national territory as
preserves, the generation of energy using renewable
energy sources for 98 per cent of our generating
capacity, the introduction of environmental service
payments and the commitment to advance towards a
carbon-neutral economy by the year 2021. However, no
matter how sustainable our commitment at the national
level, our efforts will have less impact if they are not
met by similar commitments in other parts of the
world. Since climate change does not recognize
borders, others with large environmental debts simply
cannot continue to live in debt, as this accelerates the
coming of the day of judgement.
Although we have seen some strides in
international environmental governance at both the
global and regional levels, we continue to be indebted
to nature. The Kyoto Protocol is an incomplete
instrument, not only because it has not attained
universality, but also because it does not incentivize
the sustainability of the primary forest and its
ecosystem. In that respect, Costa Rica is working on
compensatory mechanisms to avoid deforestation with
different intergovernmental groups, such as the
Coalition for Rainforest Nations and the Group of 11,
to make sure that the post-Kyoto scheme does not
exclude primary forests.
We cannot compromise on multilateralism. It is
unrealistic to press others for compliance with the
obligations that arise from the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT),
while disregarding one’s own obligations. Both treaties
and all of their articles are part of an intricate
architecture of mutual trust that does not allow for any
partial constructs. We must avoid both horizontal and
vertical proliferation, promote compliance with all of
the obligations that arise from those treaties and
condemn every attempt to break the regime of mutual
trust. We cannot allow for the proliferation of
exceptions to non-proliferation.
Multilateralism is not built on a show of strength.
In 2006, the world reached a record $1.2 trillion in
military spending. According to the Millennium
Project, with one tenth of this amount, that is, $121
billion, we would have met the targets for 2006 for all
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in all
countries of the world. In 2006, on average, for every
dollar spent on official development assistance by the
member States of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, $7.5 were spent on
weapons.
Security does not come from multiplying
weapons; history has proven this time and time again.
Security comes from remedying injustices, easing
shortages and creating opportunities so that we can
have collective prosperity on par with collective
security. In this regard, Costa Rica has been calling for
compliance with the Charter of the United Nations,
Article 26 of which commits us to promote “the
maintenance of international peace and security with
the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human
and economic resources”. Thus says the dead letter of
the Charter of the United Nations.
It is in this spirit that we have pressed for the
adoption of an arms trade treaty, a legally binding
instrument that codifies the existing obligations of
States under international law that may apply to the
arms trade. Therefore we celebrate the adoption, by a
significant majority, of Assembly resolution 61/89,
which allows us to re-activate this noble objective of
the Charter.
It is also in this spirit that we have called for the
animation of the Costa Rica Consensus, so that
international donors can reward those developing
countries that are making sustainable and verifiable
efforts to meet the most pressing social needs,
including the MDGs, while increasing social
investment and reducing military spending.
Multilateralism requires a shared sense of
urgency. We need to face all global threats, all global
challenges in a timely fashion, not creating a world
with two different speeds: one in which we need two
decades to respond to the call made by President
Gayoom, among others, and another in which we
respond in a just a few days, with binding resolutions
like Security Council resolutions 1373 (2001) or 1540
(2004).
Our commitment to combat terrorism must aim at
prevailing not only over the terrorists, but also over the
root causes from which they draw strengthen and
renewal. In this regard, it is as important to combat the
manifestations of terrorism, its financial channels and
physical hideouts as it is to fight the poverty and
despair that provide an easy harvest for extremists. To
succeed we can no longer afford to be late in dealing
with the challenges of development.
Multilateralism also requires a shared sense of
justice. For that, we need more States to ratify the
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. As
we advance towards the universality of the Statute and
the acceptance of its complementary jurisdiction, we
will close the gaps and loopholes by which the worst
criminals in the world escape and hide.
Finally, we must have the courage to look at
ourselves in the mirror, as an Organization and as
Member States. We cannot permit this Organization’s
foundations to be weakened by a few errors. We need
to learn from our mistakes and allow space for self-
criticism. We do a disservice to the credibility and the
effectiveness of this Organization if, each time a
difficult or inconvenient situation arises, we simply
produce a report for the archives. Our scant follow-up
to the reports on Srebrenica and the Oil-for-Food
Programme provides two clear examples of our
apparent incapacity for learning.
As Harry Truman said, referring to the convening
of the San Francisco Conference, “it was important for
us to make a start, no matter how imperfect”. Since
1945, this Organization has expanded and changed,
improving through experience and reform,
incorporating more and more cultures and views,
putting into practice, with more or less success, the
principles and purposes of the Charter. This
Organization certainly does not have all the answers
and does not possess all the resources required, for in
the end, it is restrained by the lowest common
denominator, that is, by ourselves, the Member States.
We have a world of reasons to persevere and
prevail over the challenges we face. Neither the
chronic pessimism of some nor the ungrateful egoism
of others will check the slow but determined march
forward of those of us who believe in multilateralism
and in a future of greater shared welfare for all.