Netherlands

First of all, allow me to subscribe to the statement delivered this morning by the Foreign Minister of Luxembourg, Mr. Jacques Poos, on behalf of the European Union. In particular, Sir, I wish to join him in his congratulations to you on your election to the presidency of the General Assembly. As the year 2000 draws closer, our feelings somehow make us ponder more keenly the achievements and misfortunes of the present century, and make us look ahead to the next one. As I do this, central to my thoughts is the United Nations, an institution created when I was an adolescent, at the end of a war whose horrors were just then coming to light. I remember having been elated at the time about the purposes and principles of the new Organization, and I remember how intrigued I was to see that, in a way, devastation and despair had given rise to the belief that a better world could yet be built, a world marked by peace, development and respect for human rights, notions I was just beginning to learn about. Soon enough, I came to realize that such a world would be rather longer in the making than the Charter had led me to hope; that old questions were giving way to new ones; that the United Nations was not a panacea for all the troubles of mankind; and, more to the point, that the United Nations could never be stronger than its Member States collectively willed it to be. Yet somehow my expectations remained, expectations which I shared with a growing audience around the globe, and which one generation was passing on to the next. Rightly or wrongly, nations and individuals, Governments, civil society and the public at large: they all have expectations about what the United Nations can do for them, and about how it might change their lives and their destiny for the better. The question then is not so much whether the United Nations can meet all of those expectations. For it cannot, and it probably should not even try. The United Nations has neither the mandate, nor the resources, nor the power to be the world’s keeper. The question is rather how we can exploit the strong points of the Charter, how we can make the United Nations play a role that only the United Nations can play, and how we can better equip the Organization to do more by doing what it does better. With that in mind, I wish to highlight three matters this afternoon: the fitness of the Organization; the potential of the United Nations to manage crises in the wider context of development; and the Organization’s action in the field of human rights. Part of the reason why the United Nations has problems in meeting expectations is what it has turned into over the past 30 years: an amazing structure of boards and committees populated by a growing membership and assisted by an army of civil servants. For that reason alone, the Organization has lost credibility. Efforts to streamline and revitalize the Organization are therefore long overdue. United Nations reform is a must. The proposals put forward by the Secretary-General are an important first step in that process, as the Foreign Minister of Luxembourg, Mr. Poos, said this morning, a process that will have to incorporate more ambitious ideas as it unfolds. The Kingdom of the Netherlands supports the Secretary-General in his reform drive, we applaud the fact that he has made reform his number-one agenda item, and we welcome the reform package Mr. Kofi Annan has put in our care. But we should get on with it. The world cannot afford to wait. We are looking at an Organization that is far behind on its maintenance schedule. Yet over the past three years, the reform debate has inched forward as if oblivious to the need to produce results. Fortunately, the Secretary-General has injected new momentum into the debate, and we should all welcome this. As we are about to engage in this “Reform Assembly”, as the Secretary-General has called it, we should be conscious of the underlying concerns that have surfaced in the reform debate from time to time. These concerns are real, and dismissing them would jeopardize a promising outcome for the present session. Indeed, various groups of nations have doubts about what other groups of nations are ultimately aiming for in this exercise. Developing countries have even expressed misgivings about the reform process as a whole. Some of them are clearly afraid that major Western Governments 15 are out to recast the United Nations as an institution that would run on the lowest possible budget and concentrate on peacekeeping, humanitarian aid and human rights. Another concern is that the development programme of this Organization — perhaps its single most important achievement over the past 30 years — might actually suffer as a result of reform. Understandably, many nations see the decline in recent years of official aid levels as the writing on the wall. They are disheartened by the empty promises of Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Moreover, they are worried about the current financial crisis of the United Nations. And finally, a handful of nations describe the Secretary-General’s proposals as a “northern” package — one that caters mainly to the needs of the industrialized world. Instead, developing nations would wish to see the United Nations strengthened in what to them is perhaps its most critical field of action, a field of action that corresponds to one of the main purposes mentioned in the Charter: social and economic development. They rightly argue that if the United Nations membership wants to be serious about that objective, it needs to equip the Organization accordingly. And so, in their view, more resources should flow into the Organization. Before consenting to change anything, they are inclined to play it safe and to hold on to what is there. This line of thought, assuming I am reading it correctly, calls for comments. My first remark is that, clearly, the Secretary-General was well-advised in having most of his package focus on the economic and social sectors. This is indeed the area that commands the widest interest among the membership. If we look at the merits of the package, it seems fair to say that many industrialized nations might have wanted to see more ambitious and comprehensive proposals. Still, speaking for the Netherlands Government, I would argue that the present package of reform measures is well-directed, substantial and worthwhile. Evidently, the Secretary-General, on the basis of consultations which only he could undertake, has concluded that the contents of the package represent the maximum of what is achievable in the present state of play. And we should all accept that as a given. Furthermore, it is important to remember that reform might strengthen the development sector of the United Nations to the point where it can actually deliver better service with the resources that are presently available. This exercise is not about cutting costs. Yet a leaner and meaner Organization might give better value for the money. At the same time, we welcome the idea of a development dividend, as put forward by the Secretary-General. A stronger development sector may help make the United Nations a more attractive Organization not only to recipients, but to donor countries as well. Voluntary contributions should not come only from the same small group of traditional donors year after year. For a long time now, the Netherlands has been among the top contributors to the United Nations system, and we intend to remain so. We appreciate the spectacular gesture by Mr. Ted Turner. But donor contributions should also come from those nations that fall far below the 0.7 per cent mark, as well as from newly industrialized countries in Asia and elsewhere. Finally, all Member States should become current and stay current on their financial obligations under the regular and peacekeeping budgets; and payments should be prompt, in full and certainly without conditions. All in all, the heart of the matter is not about core concepts and not about mindset; it is about trust. It is about feeling comfortable with the idea that among 185 Member States, a difference of views is inevitable, particularly when they are asked to discuss such a wide- ranging matter as the future of this Organization. We have arrived at a crossroads where we face a critical choice. This is a moment when we have to rise above the level of squabbling over details in working groups. No doubt, we all have a point to raise, a question to ask and a change to make. But that avenue would lead us nowhere, for soon enough the package would fall apart. Now is the time to start trusting each other. This is a time for vision and political courage. We, as statesmen, should be ready to accept our responsibility in this regard, to join forces and to forge a breakthrough. We should all rise to the occasion and accept the package of the Secretary-General as it is before us now and work out the details and implementation later. Endorsement in general terms needs to be expressed before we all adjourn next December. Without such endorsement, the momentum in the reform process will be lost. We, the Member States of the United Nations, pledged ourselves, in the words of the Charter: “to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace”. 16 Next to the United Nations development effort, peacekeeping and peace-building are perhaps the most visible part of what the United Nations does — an impression refreshed by Cable News Network (CNN) almost daily. More importantly, those who are on the run, who are afraid for their lives, who watch their homesteads invaded, who are occupied and repressed, who look starvation and genocide in the face — they have expectations of the United Nations. They expect the Organization to bail them out. We need to improve the capacity of the United Nations to deal with crises, be they military, political or humanitarian ones, whether man-made or not. There is considerable room for improvement here, as illustrated by the situations in Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and Zaire. As we speak, innocent blood is flowing in many places around the world. Yet all too often the United Nations remains impotent. We cannot allow this to continue. Here again lies a major area where reform is indispensable, and the Secretary-General has duly underlined this. A number of Member States, including the Kingdom of the Netherlands, have been trying to develop the concept of a standby high-readiness brigade within the framework of the United Nations standby agreements. They have been making modest progress over the last three years. A rapidly deployable headquarters is now being established. Tomorrow a small group of nations will informally deliberate on how to promote further steps. Several other initiatives are under way, including regional ones. Given the complexities, this is going to be an incremental process, but one where we cannot afford to let up. The real test is where to position peacekeeping in the wider context of the overall concerns of the United Nations. Our agenda should be wider and should include conflict prevention and peace-building. The difficulty we need to address here is how to integrate different policy instruments — political, military, relief, rehabilitation and social and economic development — into one comprehensive framework. Crises require a coherent and effective international response, a response that should integrate preventive diplomacy, political mediation and humanitarian relief, but also social action, economic alternatives and cultural communication. In sum: development. Of course, prevention is the key. The United Nations can be much more effective when we invest in prevention. Diplomacy, economic sanctions, arms embargoes and political pressure will reduce risk and costs as compared to military intervention in an escalated conflict. We could avoid the loss of life and escape generalized human misery. As a result of timely prevention, we could also avoid the immense costs for rehabilitation, resettlement and reconstruction that arise after violence is over. Military intervention, under United Nations auspices, for humanitarian purposes may be necessary in certain conflict situations. But it should always be a means of last resort. Intervention implies that prevention has failed. The link between development on the one hand and peace and security on the other is a tenuous one in the United Nations system. Yet experience has proved that making the link is imperative. We need to find the best combination of conflict management, humanitarian assistance and social and economic programmes to pave the way for sustainable development and for sustainable peace. In San Francisco we promised to promote and encourage “respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all”. It is a pledge we will have to renew again and again, perhaps indefinitely. Yet such a pledge may not degenerate into lipservice. Commitments must be turned into reality; obligations must be implemented. We cannot let our guard down as we face reports on violations of human rights. Torture is still being practised on a wide scale. People continue to disappear. Arrest and detention without cause take place routinely. And freedom of the press is non-existent in too many countries. Still, we recognize that human rights are in better shape worldwide than they were 10 years ago, and certainly 50 years ago. Totalitarian regimes have all but disappeared; democracy is on the rise. Also, there is more interest than ever before in the triangle of democracy, good governance and human rights. Today, human rights are well established as an important objective in their own right and a major field of activity for the United Nations. But, perhaps more important, human rights have become a leitmotif in a wide variety of other areas of United Nations policy, from sustainable development to population, from trade to humanitarian aid, and from peacekeeping to human settlements. That human rights is a “cross-cutting” issue is evident from the reform proposals of the Secretary- 17 General and from the way he has revised the top management structure in the Secretariat — both of which we welcome warmly. Expectations on what the United Nations can achieve in the field of human rights have run high, among victims of human-rights violations, among mothers of the disappeared, among grass-roots groups, and among non-governmental organizations. Then again, there are Governments that expect the United Nations to stay out of their precincts entirely: Governments that accept the universality of human rights, but only as a debating point; Governments that accept the United Nations actions against human rights-violations, but only at a theoretical level and not when it concerns them. All in all, the instruments the United Nations can apply have become the core of an extensive machinery that in many cases has worked strikingly well. Examples are numerous and expanding. I refer to such diverse methods as international dialogue, the integration of human rights activities into cooperation arrangements, the work of human rights field offices, human rights education and strengthening regional supervisory machinery. More recently, a new High Commissioner for Human Rights took up her position. If this is indeed the age of human rights, as the Secretary-General says, then Mrs. Mary Robinson will be one of its key personalities. We wish her courage and wisdom in her new assignment, and she can be sure of our commitment. One major platform in the realization of human rights and the international administration of justice is soon to take its definitive shape. Next summer, a diplomatic conference will convene in Rome — we should all be grateful to the Italian Government for hosting it — that will, hopefully, adopt a convention establishing an international criminal court. Once established, the court will be the natural counterpart to the International Court of Justice. My Government is looking forward with anticipation to this new offspring in the international legal order, and I take pride in announcing that my country is offering to house the seat of the court, in the city of The Hague. The fitness of the United Nations as an Organization, its capacity to manage crises in the wider context of development, and its action in the field of human rights are areas of ongoing concern to all Member States. This Assembly will continue to address them, either on their own merits or in the context of United Nations reform. The United Nations is expected to perform in these areas and to produce results. Yet there is only one way this is going to happen: if all of us join forces, join forces to make the United Nations a viable and credible institution, join forces to make it a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends. For only then will we keep the promise of San Francisco.