From this universal podium I convey a warm
greeting to the Assembly and the whole of humanity. I
especially commend my fellow Costa Rican citizens
for their free and sovereign decision, which has given
me the great honour to represent them before you all.
I begin my remarks with renewed support for the
United Nations, for its contributions to human rights,
peace, security, comprehensive sustainable development,
tolerance, solidarity and respect for diversity and for
international law. It is without doubt an organization of
States, but more, it is an organization of peoples, who
from their differences embrace and take shelter in the
humanistic and universal values that support the United
Nations.
At this moment, around the world those values
and their implied commitments are flourishing, but
they are also suffering.
We can congratulate ourselves on the children
who are receiving a good education and on the parents
who see them grow up without fear that they will be
consumed by war. We are inspired by young people,
workers and peasants with opportunities for a worthy
life, and by the women who benefit from full equality.
In that context, we welcome the appointment of
Ms. Michelle Bachelet as Under-Secretary-General for
Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.
However, at the same time we also are concerned
about those women who as heads of households can
barely feed their children. We are worried about the
adults who grow old in poverty and loneliness and
about children whose lives lack affection and
stimulation. The catastrophic effects of climate change
demand our immediate and determined attention. And
it offends us that even today, there are women awaiting
execution by stoning, populations stifled by brutal
genocide, and nuclear weapons that are being
stockpiled while granaries are being depleted.
When we refer to the United Nations and global
governance, we must remember that such governance
starts with good national government. But at the same
time, the success of our domestic administrations
depends upon an international system that is fair,
efficient, open and responsible and that is capable of
dealing with the great challenges of our time.
As President, I am subject to the constant
scrutiny of my people, from whom I came and to
whom I am accountable. I am aware that the best
sermon comes from example. Thus my Government
strives to represent the values, promote the
development and increase the integral welfare of all
Costa Ricans. We are promoting economic growth, the
opening of trade, solidarity, environmental
responsibility and political transparency in the
framework of civil liberties. That course of action is
rooted in our history. It is why we introduced free
compulsory primary education in 1870, abolished the
death penalty in 1877, disbanded the army in 1949,
preserved 25 per cent of our land in the 1960s and
created universal access to health in the mid-1970s.
My Government stands on that legacy in order to
act in the present and to construct the future. We strive
for attention to and early stimulation of our children
and for care of adults and the elderly. We fight
inequality, strive to improve education and health, and
foster economic development increasingly based on
clean energy, a sustainable economy and creative
intelligence. I mention all these things as humble
national experience, not as a pretentious global lesson.
History, geography and circumstances frequently
shape us — but only up to a point, because individual
and collective will, responsibility, and constructive
leadership can break down the obstacles and trace
better paths. Thus we must pull back the curtains of
prejudice that dim reality, exchange the echoes of the
past for the sounds of the future, and bury
recrimination of others as an excuse to avoid our
duties.
Beyond the national sphere, good governance
means that there are responsibilities incumbent on all
world leaders with regard to the peoples of the United
Nations. The starting point must be respect for
international law and multilateral organizations. For an
unarmed and peaceful country such as Costa Rica,
those are the main instruments for our security, the
indispensable requirement for living in peace and
fostering development.
Last Tuesday we celebrated, with profound
personal and national conviction, the International Day
of Peace, in whose creation our country played a key
role. It is significant that, through the initiative of
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Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, its theme was “Youth
for Peace and Development”. That triad — youth as
incentive, peace as a framework, and development as a
goal — is critical to building a better world. But that
triad would be truncated without freedom as
opportunity, human dignity as an inescapable
commitment and tolerance as a habit of coexistence.
For the countries and leaders committed to those
fundamental values, the main question is how to
advance them in today’s world. I propose to empower
even further the concepts, organisms and instruments
for the promotion and protection of human rights. It is
in our interest to participate constructively as members
in the activities of the Human Rights Council. Here
also lies our adherence to the main covenants and
protocols on the subject, our insistence on the
responsibility to protect civilians and our commitment
to human security.
Costa Rica, besides hosting the conference that
approved the American Convention on Human Rights
in 1969, was the first country to ratify it. Today it is
home to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. I
am convinced that respect for human rights depends to
a great extent upon international justice. Its most recent
and innovative manifestation, thanks to the Treaty of
Rome, is the International Criminal Court, for which
we reaffirm our support after a decade of contributions.
To use the weapons of the law actively is another
unavoidable responsibility of global governance.
In the area of peace and security, Costa Rica
adheres to the five points on arms control advocated by
the Secretary-General. In particular, we insist on the
necessity for starting negotiations for an arms transfer
treaty, while at the same time progressing with the
model convention for the prohibition of nuclear
weapons and completing ratification of the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The
accumulation and transfer of weapons, especially
nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons, is not
only a threat to humanity’s peace and survival; it is
also an assault on development. Every soldier who
enlists, every missile that is activated, every isotope
enriched for military purposes means fewer schools
and hospitals, fewer food programmes, fewer roads,
fewer wireless networks, fewer seeds for farmers and
fewer good judges to administer justice.
But peace must go beyond action; it should
become embedded in the minds and imaginations of
human beings. To educate for peace is to vaccinate
against war. Thirty years ago, our country launched,
and the United Nations supported, a pioneer and
visionary institution for this area: the University for
Peace. Today its contribution reaches every continent
of the world, and our commitment to it increases day
by day. For this reason we proudly celebrate its
anniversary.
It is a paradox that while many countries waste
resources on weapons, the international community has
been incapable of dealing effectively with the scourges
of drug trafficking, organized crime, terrorism, arms
trafficking, and the perverted exploitation and
trafficking of human beings. My country and Central
America suffer increasingly from the aggressions of
the drug cartels. We risk being virtually taken over by
their gangs, with consequences that will go beyond our
borders and become a clear threat to international
security.
My Government has made its citizens’ security
one of its chief goals. Our people demand it, and we
will never fail them. We are fighting crime with energy
and determination, as well as with full respect for
human rights, intelligent policies and the supremacy of
law.
But the great battle against transnational crime
demands much more from us all. Today drug-related
activity is endangering the improvements in
development achieved in Central American countries.
From being merely a transit zone, due to our
geographic location between the great drug producers
to the south and the great consumers to the north, our
countries have, to different degrees, been becoming
producers, traffickers and consumers of drugs.
Today we are free of none of the manifestations
of the drug trade, which has extended its tentacles into
many areas of our social life. Young people in their
schools and neighbourhoods see their future menaced
by the easy offer of drugs, our health-care systems are
almost overwhelmed by the problem of addiction, the
integrity of our institutions is menaced by corruption
and coercion, and violence is reaching levels never
seen before.
The battle against the drug trade can be won only
with coordination, global cooperation and a major
revision of the strategies pursued so far, many of them
incomplete or failed. From this rostrum I call on the
countries with the highest rates of drug consumption to
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take more effective action against this enormous
problem, and to cooperate with the countries suffering
from a problem we did not create. I also call urgently
for global solidarity in this task, and for multilateral
organizations to increase their activity by developing
an agenda with more comprehensive strategies, with a
better balance of resources and responsibilities, and
with more focused goals. If new and good efforts are
not vigorously initiated, we will soon regret our
inaction.
If Costa Rica, a middle-income country, has
achieved human development rates comparable to
those of high-income countries, it is because, among
other things, our social investment has replaced
military spending. That is why we insist that
international aid should not ignore the ethical
dimension of development. We support preferential
allocation of such aid to countries in the most
precarious situations. But countries like mine that,
thanks to good investments and astute political
decisions, have improved our conditions of life, should
benefit from innovative technical cooperation schemes,
productive financing and public-private alliances.
Above all, we must successfully complete the Doha
Round of international trade negotiations, an essential
engine for economic growth.
We must also establish peace with the
environment and development. Organizing the
economy in a sustainable manner in order to produce
material and social well-being is a task we cannot
avoid. Today we have high hopes for the next
Conference of the Parties to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held
in Cancun. We hope that all countries, but in particular
the big polluters and generators of carbon emissions,
will shoulder their responsibility towards humanity. In
Costa Rica, we have shouldered ours by setting the
goal of becoming one of the first carbon-neutral
countries in the world. We are also advancing in the
application and development of clean energies and the
protection of our watersheds and biodiversity.
Let us not forget, however, that sustainability,
above all, must be human; hence the importance of the
Millennium Development Goals. Attaining them in five
years’ time is an unavoidable goal for this
Organization.
The challenges of global governance are many,
and they are overwhelming, but the possibilities to
confront them exist. Their promotion is part of our
responsibility as leaders. This also requires that the
United Nations improve its own governance. If it does
not respond to new realities and if its Member States
do not help with the task, the Organization runs the risk
of sinking into irrelevance. The adaptation of the
United Nations to the challenges of global governance
demands greater effectiveness, efficiency and
transparency in its administration, its decision-making
processes and its field operations.
In this universal Organization, we must also
preach through example. That is why Costa Rica has
strived to collaborate in an active and constructive way
in the reform process. And, like many other countries,
we still need the help of the world. The world needs
the help of all countries. That is the only way to
advance the causes of our peoples. Costa Rica
modestly offers its contribution, its effort and its voice.