I congratulate you,
Mr. President, on your election to the presidency of the
General Assembly. I also wish also to thank you for your
continued strong support for small island developing
States (SIDS) issues, which you have championed for
many years and have once again demonstrated, this
week, in the process and lead-up to the United Nations
Third International Conference on Small Island
Developing States, to be held in the Pacific next year.
From economic woes to outright poverty, from
social instability to acts of violence and ethnic or
religious conflict, and from the devastation of natural
disasters to deadly acts of terrorism, no country is
spared or completely shielded. The events in Kenya,
Iraq, Pakistan and here in the United States over the past
week demonstrate the multiple risks we face in today’s
world. Our sympathies go to the Governments and
people of those countries, and our deepest condolences
to the people who lost family and friends in those tragic
events.
While the Organization continues to grapple with
various serious problems that require collective, United
Nations-led action for their resolution, perhaps the
greatest threat we face today is climate change. Climate
change is a security risk of far greater proportions than
many people are prepared to admit. For some low-lying
Pacific island countries, climate change may well lead
to their eventual extinction as sovereign States.
The singular importance and urgency of climate
change to our region was given added prominence today
when Pacific Forum leaders met with Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon. Our Chair, the President of the Republic
of the Marshall Islands, presented to the Secretary-
General the Majuro Declaration for Climate Leadership,
which is an effort by our region — the most likely to be
first and worst affected by climate change — to launch
a new wave of more determined leadership across the
globe, aimed at accelerating the reduction and phasing
down of the world’s greenhouse-gas pollution before it
is too late.
The root causes of climate change and the means for
addressing them are widely known. We in the Pacific
know already from bitter and harsh experience, as will
many other parts of the world, what the consequences
of climate change are, and they will only become more
severe if not enough is done.
Sadly, what is evident to us in the climate change
negotiations is the continued triumph of vested interests
in preventing and delaying the action that should be
taken. In a diverse world of different capacities and
capabilities, those least able to mitigate and adapt to
the impacts of climate change look to Member States
in leadership roles to rise to the challenge and lead by
example, to ensure that the post-2020 climate change
convention currently being negotiated will effectively
address the mounting fears of countries like mine of
the catastrophic effects of climate change if it is not
tackled collectively and with determination. As world
leaders, we have the responsibility for fashioning a new
agreement that will reassure low-lying islands that we
have their interests and priorities at heart. Let us rise to
the occasion and be part of the solution.
In June, during the historic event of the signing of
the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), Samoa announced that
it would sign the Treaty at the highest political level
during the Treaty event at the General Assembly’s
current session. We kept that promise, and I signed
for Samoa in a special ceremony two days ago. We
welcome the fact that more than 100 nations, including
the United States, have now signed the Treaty.
For small island countries like Samoa, it takes
only a few small arms and light weapons in the wrong
hands to cause instability. Indeed, within our own
Pacific region, such so-called small arms have fuelled
conflicts, disrupted the lives of communities and
impeded countries’ development. The Arms Trade
Treaty, when fully implemented, will greatly help small
island States like mine in their efforts to sustain our
communities’ security and stability. Our signing of the
ATT is also further testimony to our firm commitment
to general and complete disarmament, since it will
contribute significantly to saving lives, stopping human
rights abuses and avoiding crises, and is an important
step in reducing and eventually eliminating altogether
the human cost of conventional arms.
Samoa remains fully committed to the peacekeeping
work of the United Nations, one of the Organization’s
most effective and successful mandates. For more than
10 years, Samoa has been contributing civilian police
officers to peacekeeping operations in countries such
as South Sudan, Timor-Leste, Liberia, the Sudan and,
in the Pacific, the Regional Assistance Mission to
the Solomon Islands. We will be in a better position
to increase our contribution to peacekeeping missions
after a United Nations selection, assistance and
assessment team has completed its evaluation, which is
planned to take place before the end of 2013, of eligible
officers from our police force.
Samoa looks forward to next week’s High-level
Dialogue on International Migration and Development.
International migration poses both challenges and
opportunities for countries of origin, transit and
destination. Its contribution to sustainable development
will therefore ultimately depend upon the willingness
of source and destination countries to work out
imaginative and humane arrangements that benefit
both those countries and migrants. Samoa is working
closely with New Zealand and Australia, through
their seasonal-worker schemes, to ensure that those
important initiatives result in mutual benefit for both
the sending and receiving parties in the arrangements.
Yesterday’s High-level Meeting on Nuclear
Disarmament (A/68/PV.11) highlighted yet again the
urgent need for a treaty banning nuclear weapons,
given the catastrophic humanitarian consequences
of any use of such weapons. Such weapons represent
the great paradox of our time. While nations desire
peace and talk of peace, far more of the national wealth
goes towards the development and acquisition of ever
more sophisticated and destructive weapons of mass
destruction. Our Pacific region was the scene of a great
deal of nuclear testing, with some islands still bearing
the scars of those tests. Our regional response was the
South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, the Rarotonga
Treaty, to ensure that nuclear testing in the Pacific
would be a thing of the past.
Samoa reaffirms its continued support for a
nuclear-test-free world. Early agreement must be
reached to ban nuclear testing and to cease the creation
and manufacture of more nuclear weapons.
We place great faith in the rule of law and the vital
protection it offers to all States, especially to weak
and small countries such as mine, with no armed force
and not affiliated with any military grouping. The
International Criminal Court (ICC) is an important
part of the architecture of world peace based on the
rule of law, and we are pleased to have been the second
State party to ratify the two Kampala amendments to
the Rome Statute last year. With the deposit yesterday
of the ninth instrument of ratification, we hope that
the Kampala amendments will come into force soon
and that the ICC will become the first court since the
international military tribunals in Nuremburg and
Tokyo to hold individuals responsible for crimes of
aggression.
The United Nations needs to adapt to the changing
contemporary international environment or risk being
bypassed in favour of institutions and groupings that
are more responsive to the needs of Member States. The
High-level Political Forum is one such welcome reform,
and Samoa is very pleased to have participated in its
inaugural meeting this week.
Still more fundamental reform is required to address
the existing imbalances in the current power structure
of the Security Council through the enlargement of
both categories of membership and improvements to
its working methods, so as to reflect the realities of
the present time and to enhance the Council’s role and
effectiveness.
The renewed efforts made and great courage
shown in the process of restarting the stalled Middle
East peace plan for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples
has our strongest endorsement. It gives rise to hope
that the two-State solution, which is the only option
with realistic prospects for lasting peace, can still be
achieved.
The number of areas of tension and trouble
spots around the globe is increasing, and they are
getting deadlier. The availability of weapons of mass
destruction and, now, their use in Syria is unnerving.
The untold suffering brought about by the Syrian
crisis has touched many hearts, and the latest episode,
where we watched in utter disbelief the use of chemical
weapons to kill indiscriminately defenceless victims
and even children, is incomprehensible.
We therefore welcome the joint proposal by the
United States and Russia and the willingness of
Syria to have its chemical weapons destroyed under
the competent United Nations authority. We expect
total compliance, which is required for this initiative
to succeed. As long as weapons of mass destruction
such as chemical weapons continue to exist, some
megalomaniac will sooner or later resort to their use,
with deadly consequences for the world. The ultimate
safeguard is, of course, the destruction of all such
weapons, whether chemical, biological or nuclear.
The United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development called for the convening in 2014 of a Third
International Conference on Small Island Developing
States, to remind the international community that small
island developing States (SIDS) face unique challenges
and vulnerabilities requiring dedicated support and to
help build their resilience.
Samoa is honoured to host that Conference in
September 2014, on behalf of the Pacific small island
developing countries. The Barbados interregional
meeting endorsed “The sustainable development of
small island developing States through genuine and
durable partnerships” as the overarching theme of the
Conference. A renewed global partnership will help
SIDS to manage a multitude of risks, so that they can
pursue inclusive economic growth, social development
and environmental sustainability.
Samoa has also proposed to utilize the Conference
as a platform to launch specific, concrete SIDS
partnerships as the most effective means to implement
some of the group’s challenges and as a legacy of the
Conference.
In advancing the SIDS development agenda,
the Samoa Conference strategically provides a
window for SIDS as a group to agree on their
priorities and to consolidate their positions ahead of
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s leaders’ summit on
climate change in 2014, the post-2015 United Nations
development agenda now under discussion, and the
negotiations for a successor climate-change treaty post-
2020, which are in progress.
Let me conclude by conveying our gratitude to
all our partners — developed and developing, big
and small, Governments and non-governmental
organizations, civil society and the private sector — for
their dedicated support, which has helped my country
to reach a new threshold in its journey as a State
Member of the United Nations. Our new status as a
non-least developed country beyond January 2014 can
be sustained only with the support of Samoa’s truly
genuine and durable partners.