On behalf of the Aus¬tralian Government, Sir, I
congratulate you on your election to the
presidency of the thirty seventh sessions of the
General Assembly. It gives me particular pleasure
to pay a tribute to the Secretary-General, who
has shown great imagination and integrity in his
first year in office.
98. No one can ignore the somber mood of the
Assembly as it faces the critical issues of the
day, particularly the terrible events of three
weeks ago in Lebanon. Even in a world used to
acts of violence, the Beirut massacres have
numbed and shocked us all Outrage, however
strongly worded and deeply felt, must appear
inadequate to innocent non-com¬batants whose
unhappy history has been written in blood and
tears. Australians share the view of civilized
men and women everywhere on the need for, and
welcome, a full and independent inquiry into
these appalling events.
99. Beyond Beirut, however, there is a wider
tragedy of 30 years and more of the Middle East
conflict that inexcusably still defies resolution
and clouds the future of the region. One can only
hope that the events in Beirut will shock more
countries into a realization of the need for a
comprehensive settlement.
100. Australia has always been deeply
conscious of the age-long suffering of the Jewish
people and their right to a homeland. We
understand Israel's concern that it be able to
live in peace, free of terrorist attacks.
Recognition of Israel's right to exist in peace
can, however, settle only one side of the Middle
East problem. Israel must also recognize the
legitimate rights of the Palestinians, rights
which should include a homeland for the
Palestinians alongside Israel. Israel,
pre-eminently among nations, should understand
the significance of a national homeland for a
dispersed people.
101. Equally important is the need for
movement from the Arab side. We recognize that
the proposals from the Twelfth Arab Summit
Conference at Fez provided an implicit
recognition of Israel by calling for the Security
Council to guarantee peace among all States of
the region. Why, however, cannot the implicit be
made explicit? All Arab nations should clearly
accept what so far Egypt alone has accepted,
namely, that Israel has a right to exist in peace
and security behind stable borders.
102. So the problem has two aspects. It will
need courage and imagination on both sides to
deal with it. Otherwise there will be no peace in
the Middle East— and the Middle East without
peace will remain a threat to the peace of the
world.
103. The Middle East is only one area of
conflict. Other crises in other areas seem to
arise with fright¬ening frequency. It is only too
apparent that the international machinery
developed here in New York to contain and settle
conflicts has not been working as it should. The
fact is that some Member States, including
Australia, have had to go outside the United
Nations framework for alternative peace-keeping
arrangements. Examples are the Sinai
Multinational Force and Observers, in which
Australia is a par¬ticipant, and the current
international force in Lebanon.
104. In an unusually candid report on the
state bf the United Nations, the
Secretary-General has this year set out the
concerns so many of us feel about the present
weaknesses in the Organization. We commend him
for doing so. The recent record is dismal. As the
Secretary-General has observed, we are perilously
near to a new international anarchy.
103. The Security Council, the primary organ for
the maintenance of international peace and
security, finds its resolutions routinely
ignored. Those provi¬sions of the Charter dealing
with collective action for peace and security
have been rendered ineffective. Too often Member
States have contrived to avoid bringing
particular problems to the Security Council, or
to do so too late for the Council to have any
effective impact. Distressingly, for many Member
States, the Council's writ hardly runs at all.
And what applies to the Security Council applies
even more in the General Assembly and other
organs of the United Nations.
106. All that, as the Secretary-General has aptly
observed, amounts to a crisis in the multilateral
approach to resolving world problems, and to a
crisis of confidence in the United Nations
itself. But we must not be overawed by the
problems. Their effects can be moderated if not
overcome. The Secretary- General himself has
proposed a number of measures which could improve
the situation. Some of his propo¬sals, moreover,
could be realized immediately. That is the case,
for example, with his concern that there should
be more systematic use of the Security Council.
There is clearly a role for the Secretary-General
himself, acting within the terms of Article 99 of
the Charter, to bring potentially dangerous
situations to the attention of the Security
Council. The Council itself should be able to
move more promptly into a dispute without, as the
Secretary-General says, waiting for those
directly involved to bring the dispute to its
atten¬tion. The Council and the Secretary-General
acting together could do much to defuse
smouldering conflicts through, for example, the
early dispatch of fact-finding and good offices
missions. Such measures could con¬stitute a
diplomatic early warning system designed to
identify and isolate disputes before they
degenerate into armed conflict.
107. The Secretary-General has gone further; he
has urged the need for improving the collective
security provisions of the Charter provided under
Chapter VII. Specifically he has proposed—and
Australia supports him—that Member States should
use their collective influence to ensure respect
for decisions of the Security Council. In an
ideal situation Security Council peace¬keeping
orders would be backed up by guarantees of
collective action, including guarantees by the
per¬manent members, to ensure compliance with all
deci¬sions of the Council.
108. We recognize that these constructive ideas
of the Secretary-General will be the subject of
intensive scrutiny. They presuppose, as he says,
at least a modicum of co-operation among the
permanent members. It is the lack of that
co-operation in the past which has so often
frustrated the work of the Council. But some such
evolution along the lines the Secretary-General
has outlined is essential if the present drift is
to be arrested.
109. Not that the recent record has been all bad;
we should recall and reflect upon some of the
signifi¬cant achievements of the United Nations.
One notable example is decolonization. The
Organization has made it possible for very many
peoples to attain indepen¬dence and thereby make
their own contribution to the international
community.
110. There are today very few situations where
non-self-governing peoples have yet to exercise
their right of self-determination. Namibia,
however, remains on the agenda. The
Secretary-General in his report on the work of
the Organization reflects a sense of cautious
optimism about Namibia. Let us hope that that
optimism is well placed. A peaceful solution to
this long-standing problem would clearly be a
very great achievement, if such a solution is
worked out, it will owe much to the persistent
efforts of the contact group and the front-line
States. Australia continues to stand ready to
contribute an engineering and head¬quarters unit
of about 300 men to UNTAG to help oversee and
supervise the independence process.
111. Decolonization is not the only area of
United Nations success. There have been, and
continue to be, considerable achievements in the
economic, social and technical fields—so much so
perhaps that we sometimes take these achievements
for granted. As a clearing-house for ideas and as
an instrument for technical assistance and
co-operation, the United Nations and its agencies
have fulfilled a unique and valuable role.
112. In the North-South area, too, there has
been progress, although we have not yet achieved
our ultimate goals. Australia shares what I take
to be the general sense of disappointment at the
failure thus fhr to launch global negotiations.
We also share in the concern, so evident at the
recent meetings of IMF and World Bank in Toronto,
about what thefuture holds. Finding durable
solutions to the financial and economic problems
besetting the world has never been more urgent.
113. One major issue rightly causing growing
con¬cern is the extent of the world's
indebtedness. A par¬ticularly disturbing aspect
is the concentration in areas with limited
ability to service and repay bor¬rowings, the
cost of which has in some cases tripled since the
time of the original loan.
114. Australia wants a break in the impasse in
the North-South dialogue. There is a need to
galvanize the kind of political will evident at
the Common¬wealth Heads of Government Meeting at
Melbourne in September/October 1981, and at the
International Meeting on Co-operation and
Development, at Cancun in October 1981. In both
cases it was shown to be possible to break across
traditional North- South lines. Australia accepts
the North-South frame¬work, and the developing
country Group of 77 as a valid negotiating
partner. But we also see merit in more flexible
and open contacts across North-South lines as a
means of bridging differences.
115. The benefits of such an approach were
demon¬strated in the recent law of the sea
negotiations. It was a remarkable achievement for
a Conference of ISO countries to draft and reach
consensus on hun¬dreds of articles of new
international treaty law. While the Convention on
the Law of the Sea perhaps never could have been
entirely satisfactory to all parties, it
represents a major step forward in the
codification of maritime law and in co-operation
between nations. This experience shows that we
must not relax efforts to tackle the seemingly
insoluble as well as the apparently soluble.
116. Among present international economic
prob¬lems none concerns the Australian Government
more than protectionism and restraints on trade.
Australia is acutely aware of the obstacles to
progress and of the entrenched national interest
and rigidities which have to be overcome. The
Australian Government has promoted the concept of
collective reduction of protectionism by
Governments aimed at providing a stimulus to
world trade. The Australian proposal involves a
standstill on all trade-distorting assistance
measures and, following the standstill, a gradual
wind-back of this assistance. We intend to pursue
these proposals vigorously at the forthcoming
GATT ministerial meeting and afterwards at the
sixth session of UNCTAD.
117. What distinguishes the Australian
approach is that we are ready to commit ourselves
to action along these lines—provided that other
comparable countries do likewise. In other words,
the Australian Government, having considered the
matter, has already taken the decision that, if
the other major trading nations were to apply the
approach we have outlined, or to attempt
something like it, we would immediately join it.
118. It follows from what I have said that
this is an area which must be addressed
multilateral^ and in which States will inevitably
be looking to progressive, balanced global
reductions in trade barriers, export subsidies
and other trade-distorting measures as a
condition of their own participation. It is a
further rationale for getting on with global
negotiations.
119. Now is not the time for a detailed
analysis of the present difficulties in launching
global negotia¬tions, but a basis emerged from
the Versailles Eco¬nomic Summit. I interpreted
the Versailles language to mean: here is an
opportunity to launch global negotiations now. If
it is rejected, I believe it could be some time
before we get another chance. Indeed, if the
debate is allowed to drift again into the details
of what groups should be constituted here to
handle the talks, and thus what the agenda and
degree of decentralization should be, this will
amount to turning the clock back to a much
earlier and more difficult phase in the
discussions.
120. As in the North-South so in the
humanitarian area the United Nations has an
important role to play. Here it can point to a
number of significant achievements. In some cases
results have been attained only after arduous and
lengthy negotiations. This has often obscured the
significance of the ultimate result.
121. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
of 1948 and the two International Covenants on
Human Rights provide the world community with a
set of standards for the protection of
fundamental rights and freedoms. The adoption by
the General Assembly of the Declaration on the
Elimination of all Forms of Intolerance and of
Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief is a
further step along this road. Working through the
Commission on Human Rights, ILO and other
relevant bodies, the United Nations system has
been able significantly to mitigate some of the
worst breaches of human rights. Human rights in
South Africa and countries such as Poland, the
Islamic Republic of Iran and Guatemala have come
under increasing scrutiny. Australia will remain
active in these important areas.
122. Meanwhile, new areas of humanitarian
concern are being considered. We have
particularly welcomed the recent emphasis on the
protection of indigenous populations. Australia
was active in encouraging the establishment by
the Economic and Social Council this year of a
working group on indigenous populations.
123. Yet another area, regrettably, of
increasing concern is the plight of refugees
throughout the world. The facts are stark: a
world refugee population of at least 8 million to
10 miHion, an increasing number of other
displaced persons and movements of peoples within
regions in response to pressures of poverty or
deprivation. UNHCR has helped to cope with this
huge problem; success, however, has been mixed.
UNHCR has assisted and continues to assist
millions of refugees and displaced persons, but
it needs the assurance of a continuing mandate,
not a fixed-term mandate, and a vigorous pursuit
of durable solutions, especially volun¬tary
repatriation. It needs, too, a widened acceptance
by the entire international community of the
moral obligation to provide at least temporary
refuge to those compelled to leave their own
countries. Australia proposed a code of conduct
embodying this principle of temporary refuge in
Geneva two years ago. We shall be pursuing the
initiative further in the Executive Committee of
the High Commissioner and at a later stage here
in the General Assembly itself.
124. For many Governments and ordinary
citizens the second special session on
disarmament was a disappointment and its results
limited. Nevertheless Australia considers that
the session did help clear the air. It did
establish, if not a meeting of minds, a better
understanding of the essential basis of mutual
con¬fidence if progress in arms control and
disarmament is to be realized. It showed that a
better under¬standing leading to an improvement
in relations between East and West, essentially
between the superpowers, is imperative if there
is to be any significant progress in disarmament
and, indeed, in other issues of strategic and
political concern.
123. I conclude by returning to the earlier theme
of the role and promise of the United Nations.
State¬ments made in this debate already indicate
a sense of failure, frustration or disappointment
felt by many about the United Nations during the
course of the year. While it may be argued that
publicly held expectations of progress had been
too high, it is undeniable that a serious crisis
of pubic confidence now exists about the capacity
of the United Nations to carry out some of its
most central) responsibilities.
126. Yet we must not turn away from the United
Nations in frustration. Each nation must actively
look for ways in which to strengthen public faith
in the Organization and its potential capacity
for negotiation and conciliation. We need less
debate, less rhetoric and fewer resolutions; and
more constructive effort, more effective action
to resolve the major issues, including those of
disarmament and development, which face us all. I
hope that the Secretary-General's important and
courageous comments will help to change the
attitude of Member States towards adopting more
responsible, more rational and more moderate
approaches to the world community's problems.
Australia is ready to play its part.
127. We are a growing middle Power. White our
historical links are with Europe, we are situated
in the South-East Asian and South Pacific region.
We are thus a country with interests spanning
both the developing and the developed worlds. We
see our role as one of exercising a reasoned,
responsible and steady influence in the world
community. We have a strong and abiding belief in
the essential validity of the United Nations. The
Secretary-General can count on Australia's
support.