This great body has been
in existence for two thirds of a century — three times
longer than its predecessor body, the League of
Nations, and longer than previous attempts to fashion a
continuing collective approach to the common
problems of nation States. The question we must ask
ourselves today is whether the United Nations remains
effective in confronting the challenges of our time.
The United Nations was established in the grim
aftermath of the two deadliest conflicts in human
history, in which close to 80 million people were killed
and entire families and almost entire generations lost
for all time. The world came together out of necessity.
There had to be a better way, and in the decades since
we first met at San Francisco, we have managed to
avoid another world war, although at times that seemed
less than certain.
Today, we are faced with a different set of
challenges and in different strategic, political and
economic circumstances. We now live in a world that is
more multipolar and more interconnected than ever
before. We are confronted with the double-edged sword
of globalization. The transformation of the global
economy has increased living standards and lifted
many hundreds of millions out of poverty.
At the same time, the increased interdependence
of global financial markets ensured that no country
connected to the world economy was spared the impact
of the global financial crisis. Furthermore, the rapid
transformation of global communications and the
radical increase in global people movements have
improved the well-being of all humankind. But equally,
they have created or at least amplified a new set of
security threats to all humankind: pandemic diseases,
transnational organized crime and the continuing threat
of global terrorism. There is also the global challenge
of climate change. The unconstrained carbon emissions
of one State impact on the long-term survival of all
States. Climate change respects no national or
geographic boundaries and thus simultaneously
demands both national and integrated global responses.
So two thirds of a century after our formation, we
the United Nations now face increasingly complex
global challenges in an increasingly fragmented world
and a much more contested international space. These
new global realities create an imperative for
responsive, representative and, most critically,
effective systems of global governance.
If we fail to make the United Nations work and to
make its institutions relevant to the great challenges we
all now face, the uncomfortable fact is that the United
Nations will become a hollow shell. Nation States may
retain its form, but will increasingly seek to go around
it and deploy other mechanisms to achieve real results.
And that is the question we all face today. It is a
question of our collective political will to make the
existing institutions work and combine the existing and
unique legitimacy of the United Nations system with a
new-found effectiveness on security, development and
climate change.
The United Nations has most of the essential
structures in place, but if the structures are to work we
must harness the political will necessary to make them
work. In other words, we must enable the institutions
we have created to do the job for which they were
created. Put even more starkly, we must do that which
we say. If we have a Conference on Disarmament, it
should do disarmament — not pretend. If we have a
convention on climate change, it must do the job to
tackle climate change — not just talk about it, and
similarly with development. Otherwise, the credibility
of the United Nations in the eyes of the world and our
own citizens will eventually collapse. The international
community can no longer tolerate the actions of a few
dissenting States to roadblock the common resolve of
the many.
The international community faces the continuing
challenge of international terrorism. Terrorism knows
no geographic or political boundaries. We are now in
the tenth year since terrorists launched their murderous
attack on this great city of New York. The threat of
international terrorism remains alive. It continues to
challenge civilized norms, to generate fear and
insecurity, and to take innocent civilian lives in many
parts of the world.
41 10-55103
The outlawing of terrorist organizations under the
provisions of the relevant Security Council resolutions,
together with the individual and cooperative measures
taken by Member States, reflect the unprecedented
levels of international collaboration in responding to
the worldwide threat of terrorism.
As part of the effort to combat terrorism, many
Member States have their armed forces and other
personnel committed to Afghanistan, again sanctioned
by Security Council resolutions. These brave soldiers,
police officers and aid workers, representing so many
of the countries represented here in the General
Assembly, including Australia, remain in Afghanistan
following many years of conflict.
The result is that Afghanistan no longer
represents an unimpeded base for the global operations
of terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaida. The result
is also that we are all contributing to the security and
stability of Afghanistan as a nation. This has been a
difficult war, but our collective resolve is strong
enough to prevent Afghanistan from once again
becoming a base for the export of terrorism.
Beyond Afghanistan, terrorism continues to
remain a threat to people of all faiths and civilizations.
We must remain nationally and internationally vigilant
against the possibility of further terrorist attacks. The
threat remains real.
We must equally be concerned about the
continued challenge of nuclear proliferation. Violations
of the non-proliferation regime by States such as the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Iran
represent a potent and potential threat to us all. It is for
this reason that Australia provides robust support to the
United Nations sanctions regime against both the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Iran.
The United Nations has played a critical role in
promoting the goal of a world without nuclear
weapons. Non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament
are mutually reinforcing processes and cannot be
separated.
Australia’s activism on arms control and
disarmament remains undiminished. And there remains
much urgent work to be done. In 1996, Australia
sponsored the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
in this Assembly to ensure its adoption. Since then,
182 States have signed the Treaty and 153 have ratified
it. Nine more States are needed to ratify in order for the
Treaty to enter into force. Australia welcomes recent
statements by Indonesia and the United States
concerning their intention to ratify the Treaty, and we
would urge all States that to date have failed to indicate
their intention to ratify the Treaty to do so in order to
enable it to enter into force.
The most recent Treaty on the Non-proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) Review Conference was
held earlier this year. Australia and Japan worked
closely together in the lead-up to the Conference,
including through the jointly sponsored report of the
International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation
and Disarmament (ICNND), prepared by the former
Foreign Minister of Australia, Gareth Evans, and his
Japanese counterpart, Yoriko Kawaguchi. This
significant report provided substantial momentum in
the lead-up to the Review Conference. We believe that
the Evans-Kawaguchi report of the ICNND also
represents the most comprehensive, practical and
contemporary blueprint for the international
community to both consider and adopt a
comprehensive arms control and non-proliferation
agenda.
The Review Conference agreed by consensus on
64 sets of actions. And Australia and Japan took the
initiative this week in New York to jointly host a cross-
regional meeting of Foreign Ministers, with the aim of
working towards the implementation of those 64
actions. The potential catastrophe of nuclear conflict
means that the status quo is not an option. We must
move ahead with the negotiation of a fissile material
cut-off treaty, and we must ensure that the United
Nations disarmament machinery is doing its job.
On the wider question of security, the Australian
Government, under Prime Minister Gillard, warmly
welcomes the statement to this Assembly by the
President of the United States concerning his efforts to
achieve a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace in
the Middle East (see ). Australia’s position
remains constant: such a settlement must allow both
Israel and a future Palestinian State to live side by side
in peace and security. Australia calls on all parties to
put their shoulders to the wheel, to seize the historic
opportunity that now presents itself to bring about a
lasting peace. All States members of the General
Assembly should welcome the prospect of both an
Israeli and a Palestinian State being represented at the
sixty-sixth session of the Assembly, to be held next
year.
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Over the past several years, Australia has
promoted the concept of an Asia-Pacific community
involving the active membership in the future
architecture of our region of both the United States and
the Russian Federation. Australia therefore welcomes
the imminent membership of the United States and
Russia in the East Asia Summit. The East Asia Summit
leaders will take this historic decision in Hanoi in
October. Australia, as a founding member of the East
Asia Summit, looks forward to contributing to the
evolution of this wider sense of community across this,
the most dynamic region of the world.
On questions of wider human security, Australia
remains fully engaged on international and regional
challenges, including irregular movements of people,
organized crime and people-smuggling.
The most immediate and pressing threat to the
physical security of Australia’s wider region lies in the
scourge of natural disasters. The Asia-Pacific region
has seen tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes and floods
on a massive scale. Australia proposes that the
international community consider afresh our capacity
to respond rapidly, coherently and proportionately to
large-scale natural disasters.
Within our own region, Australia argues that this
would also represent an effective benefit to the peoples
and countries of our region, which are particularly
prone to natural disasters. It would also in time
constitute a valuable confidence- and security-building
measure among the armed forces, emergency services
and security agencies of the various nation-States of
the Asia Pacific. The magnitude of what I witnessed
last week when I was in Pakistan underlines the
importance of better planning, preparation and
coordination to deal with natural disasters on a mass
scale. We cannot afford simply to wait for another such
disaster to occur before realizing that the resources of
the United Nations and its agencies are simply
incapable of meeting challenges of such an order of
magnitude.
The challenges to global economic stability
remain significant. The full impact of the global
financial crisis is not yet clear. There are still systemic
problems within the global financial system. These
must be dealt with through the appropriate national and
international institutions if we are to remove the
underlying causes of the crisis that began in the United
States in September 2008 and then proceeded to ravage
the economies and the working people of the world.
Beyond the specific reforms necessary in the
global financial system, the parallel problem of global
financial imbalances must also be addressed. These
have formed part of the Group of 20 (G-20) agenda, in
which Australia is active. The objectives of the
Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced
Growth agreed to by the G-20 States at their Pittsburgh
summit in September 2009 remain essential and must
be implemented if we are to act on the causes of the
recent crisis.
Last December, the nations of the world
assembled in Copenhagen for the Conference of the
Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Australia was an
active participant at Copenhagen. Together with a
number of other States, Australia worked tirelessly to
produce the Copenhagen Accord. The Accord did not
represent all that the international community needed
then in order to bring about a comprehensive response
to the continuing challenge of climate change. It did,
however, represented four significant advances.
For the first time, the Accord entrenched 2°C or
less as the limit beyond which global temperatures
could not be allowed to rise in order to avoid
irretrievable climate change for the planet.
For the first time, both developed and developing
countries accepted that they had responsibilities to
bring about this outcome.
For the first time, developed and developing
countries agreed to develop a framework for the
measurement, reporting and verification of mitigation
actions.
And for the first time, developed countries
committed themselves to mobilizing an amount
approaching $30 billion in international public
financing for immediate action in developing countries
to 2012, and to work towards a goal of mobilizing
$100 billion annually by 2020 in funding from all
sources.
Much, however, remains to be done. Australia
believes the international community must urgently
address the particular climate-change adaptation needs
of the world’s most vulnerable States, in particular the
island countries of the Pacific, the Caribbean and the
Indian Ocean.
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One significant area of progress in the period
ahead lies in the proper protection, preservation and
reforestation of the world’s rainforests. Collectively,
rainforest degradation and deforestation in developing
countries represents about one fifth of global
greenhouse gas emissions. Australia stands ready to act
with other States, including Norway, to build on the
work already done, in order to achieve an effective
outcome in this area as rapidly as possible. The
international community needs to see an early sign of
real success in our international efforts to combat
climate change. We believe that action on rainforests,
through what is called the REDD-plus set of
initiatives — on reducing emissions from deforestation
and forest degradation in developing countries —
represents one such area of possible early advance.
Australia is now active on both the Secretary-
General’s High-level Panels, on global sustainability
and on climate change finance. This, added to our
continued participation in the UNFCCC, means that
Australia will continue to be among the most globally
active States in global forums for bringing about a
comprehensive and effective global response to climate
change. In doing so, the Governments of the world will
have to closely consider new growth models that
incorporate both the concept and the reality of lower-
carbon economies.
For the economies of the world, this
transformation — which some have called the next
industrial revolution — also represents an
unprecedented opportunity for investment and
employment as the global economy embraces new
efficiency measures and new renewable energy
strategies. The international community needs to
embrace a new way of looking at climate change,
which sees action on climate change providing new
industries, new investment and new job opportunities
for the future.
All Governments represented in the Assembly
participated in the High-level Plenary Meeting on the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Australia
fully embraces the MDG framework.
This week, in New York, we said that our aid
programme has doubled over the last five years and is
projected to double again by 2015. Over time, more of
our aid will go to the least developed countries, and we
will continue to give high priority to assisting the
world’s small island States, particularly our Pacific
neighbours, in recognition of their special needs.
We expect to invest some $5 billion in education
by 2015, including support for universal primary
education. Australia also expects to invest at least
$1.6 billion in women’s and children’s health up to
2015.
Australia applauds the initiative to create a new
institution entitled UN Women, under the capable
leadership of the new Under-Secretary-General,
Michelle Bachelet, former President of Chile. Australia
looks forward to working with UN Women on the vast
array of challenges which half of humanity faces and
for which our existing international frameworks have
been found wanting. The education of women and girls
and the security of women and girls from violence and
sexual abuse and exploitation must now become a core
part of our global campaign for a fairer world.
Human rights abuses and humanitarian crises in
failing States continue to plague us. We must enhance
the negotiations on the responsibility to protect and
support the mandate of the International Criminal
Court. We must also continue to speak out against
flagrant abuses.
Often it is the indigenous peoples of the world
who suffer most. I am proud of Australia’s apology to
our own indigenous peoples and our policy of closing
the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous
Australians. I am also proud of Australia’s support for
the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Australia is making a major effort in the treatment of
our indigenous peoples, although we still have a long
way to go.
Australia is a founding Member of the United
Nations. We have been active in this institution for the
last 65 years.
We are also a candidate for the Security Council
for the 2013-2014 term. Australia has contributed
65,000 of our number to 52 different peacekeeping
missions across the world. We remain active in several
such peace operations today, including in Cyprus,
Sudan, Timor-Leste and Afghanistan.
Over the years, Australia has a led a number of
significant United Nations initiatives, including the
Cambodia peace settlement and the conclusion of the
Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty and the Chemical
Weapons Convention, as well as leading the force that
10-55103 44
stabilized Timor-Leste after its people voted for
independence.
Australia remains intimately engaged in all the
funds, programmes and specialized agencies of the
United Nations. We are also active in other
international institutions, including the
Commonwealth.
Australia is the twelfth largest source of funding
for the United Nations budget. Australia pays in full
and on time. We always seek to do that which we say
we will do.
Australia wants to be part of the solution to the
many challenges that the international community now
faces, not just point to the problems. Australia believes
in the power of creative ideas and active diplomacy to
solve long-standing international problems. Australia
values good international citizenship. It is for these
reasons that Australia has been committed to the
United Nations since the very beginning.
The United Nations is inevitably imperfect. As
the Organization’s second Secretary-General — the
great Swede, Dag Hammarskjöld — famously said,
“The United Nations was not created in order to bring
us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell”.
Our responsibility today is to fulfil the vision that
our forebears had for this great institution 65 years
ago. Our responsibility is to make the United Nations
fulfil its mission — to make the United Nations work
through the combined political will of all Member
States.