Ireland

I would like to offer Foreign Minister Udovenko of Ukraine my warmest congratulations on his election as President of the General Assembly at its fifty-second session. His skill and experience will serve us well in directing the vital work to be undertaken at this session. Ireland, and you, Ambassador Campbell as Vice-President of the General Assembly, will spare no effort in assisting the President in the important tasks of his office. I also wish to thank Ambassador Razali Ismail for the energy and commitment he devoted to guiding the Assembly at its last session. My colleague Foreign Minister Poos of Luxembourg, speaking on behalf of the European Union, set out clearly in his speech to the Assembly the agenda for action by the United Nations and its Member States in facing the challenges of the world today. Ireland associates itself fully with his remarks. This session is a crucial one for the United Nations. Decisions must be taken to make the United Nations more effective in meeting its real objectives and priorities in future years. The Secretary-General has presented us with a considered, balanced and substantial package of proposals for United Nations reform. This package marks a turning point in the reform and revitalization process. The Secretary-General has recognized that the future of the United Nations can be secured only by a clearer focus and better coordination of effort, expertise and resources on the key priorities — real peace and security, sustainable development, equitable economic and social progress, humanitarian action and, underlying all of these, the safeguarding of universal human rights. Ireland welcomes in particular the proposals for a more concerted effort in the economic and social development sector. Together with our European Union partners, we have been developing our own contribution in this area. Our aim is a more effective and coherent United Nations effort which would finally make real inroads, particularly in the least developed countries, in the fight against poverty and underdevelopment. We welcome the intention of the Secretary-General to channel the resources saved in this exercise to development programmes of the Organization. I know that some will feel that the proposals do not go far enough in one direction, and others in another. It is not possible to accommodate fully all concerns. But there is enough in these proposals to make the start on reform that we have all been looking for. I therefore earnestly appeal to all Member States to join this broad consensus of support. We should also, at this session, work to achieve a solution to the difficult questions of the financing of the United Nations and of the enlargement and working methods of the Security Council. Ireland, my country, has declared its candidacy for the Security Council in the year 2000. We shall do everything possible to earn support for our candidacy. 24 Living through times of dramatic change is rarely easy. Globalization and liberalization of the international economy have brought significant benefits to many countries and are changing the shape of our world. Some developing countries have benefited from these processes and made significant economic and social strides. Others, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, have become even more marginalized from the world economy, and this is unacceptable. Ireland has been increasing its official-development- assistance budget over a number of years. My Government is committed to making steady progress towards achieving the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent in our development-cooperation assistance. Specifically, we are committed to having Irish aid reach 0.45 per cent of gross national product by 2002. Some critics contend that development cooperation has not succeeded. The best response to this is to point to what it has already achieved. In regard to the most fundamental of all human rights, life expectancy around the world has increased by a third in the past three decades; infant mortality has been cut in half. These are not small achievements. In our present globalized and increasingly interdependent world economy, we need to seek a new partnership between developed and developing countries to address those issues which affect the entire international community. In this the United Nations has an indispensable role to play, and we pledge our full support to assist the Secretary-General in his task. In June 1998 the General Assembly will meet in special session to address the drugs issue, both at the national and international levels. I had the honour, as Minister of Justice and in the role of President of the Council of Ministers of the European Union, to address the General Assembly on this question in 1990. The Assembly has regularly considered further action to deal with this menace. But the action that has been taken so far has clearly been inadequate. We must redouble our efforts. Drugs are an international cancer which threaten the lives of the present and future generations, particularly our young. For all our people, they pose a real threat to the very fabric of society. Last week saw the conclusion of negotiations in Oslo on a global Convention banning landmines, without reservation, without exception and for all time. This major step forward will be particularly welcomed by those countries which have suffered so much as a result of the use of these barbaric devices. Those countries not present there and not yet ready to sign in December must take account of the widespread international support for this agreement. We appeal to them to help ensure the maximum degree of adherence to the Convention. The international community must now work together with ever greater determination to provide for the clearing of mines already placed and for the care and rehabilitation, as well as the social and economic reintegration, of mine victims. In 1961, when the then-Foreign Minister of Ireland, Mr. Frank Aiken, introduced a resolution at the sixteenth session of the General Assembly calling for the conclusion of an international agreement that would prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, he launched a process which the Irish Government firmly believed would eventually lead to total nuclear disarmament. Then as now, our conviction was that genuine international peace and security can never be achieved as long as nuclear weapons remain part of the armouries of States. We welcome the achievements of recent years, whether bilateral or multilateral: the START Treaties, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, the global ban outlawing chemical weapons and present efforts to strengthen the ban on biological and toxin weapons. These show that with the necessary will progress is possible. Now is the time for serious consideration of an integrated approach, encompassing both bilateral and multilateral negotiations, culminating in an international agreement on a total ban on nuclear weapons. We must inject a real sense of urgency into translating the goal of the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons into a more concrete reality. My plea is for reflection on the part of all; for compromise and for cooperation, and for a flexible rather than a dogmatic approach. I believe that we can offer no better vision, courage and leadership in the service of peace than to take up this challenge. While we can look forward one day to a world free of nuclear weapons, no time should be lost in agreeing how the peaceful uses of nuclear energy can best be managed. We in Ireland live in close proximity to a nuclear-fuel reprocessing plant which poses a considerable threat to us because of the ever-present risk of a major accident at the plant. In many countries 25 today, nuclear energy is viewed with alarm and apprehension. Public resistance has persuaded some Governments to renounce the nuclear option because the benefits of nuclear energy have failed to convince a sceptical and questioning public. The impact of accidents involving nuclear-power reactors can cross international frontiers. The legitimate interests of States affected by such accidents demand that high priority be given to strengthening nuclear safety worldwide. Reactor safety and the closure of sub-standard reactors represent for my Government fundamental necessities that nuclear-energy States must meet. It is simply unacceptable that poor management of radioactive waste and spent fuel should threaten the health and safety of populations or cause serious long- term damage to the environment of States which have no nuclear programmes. The recent Joint Convention dealing with these matters will hopefully bring about improvements. However, much more needs to be done through international cooperation to allay the deep misgivings of a concerned public. Transport of nuclear materials and radioactive waste raises the most serious and justifiable fears. We must insist that this, along with all other nuclear activities, be carried out in strict accordance with the highest international standards of safety and security. Furthermore, the entirely legitimate sensitivities of transit countries affected by such movements must be recognized. As we approach next year's celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we must recognize that we have fallen short in implementing the goals and aspirations of the Declaration. While recognizing that none of us has grounds for complacency in this regard, it is a reality that the human rights situation in certain countries remains of particular concern to the international community. The European Union, in its memorandum to the General Assembly, has listed the areas of particular concern to us, including the human rights situation in Myanmar, East Timor, Nigeria and Afghanistan, to name but a few. We must all work together — Governments and non-governmental organizations and civil society generally — in dialogue and partnership to ensure that the human rights principles enshrined in the Charter and the Universal Declaration are respected to the full. The current reforms proposed by the Secretary- General, in particular his decision to consolidate the two existing human rights offices into a single office of High Commissioner for Human Rights, are to be welcomed. They provide a clear opportunity to strengthen significantly the human rights programme of the United Nations by fully integrating human rights issues across the full range of United Nations activities. It is a cause of great pride to the Government and the people of Ireland that the Secretary-General has chosen Mrs. Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland, as the new High Commissioner. I wish to turn now to an area of United Nations activity which is of particular concern and interest to my country — that of peacekeeping. Ireland has a proud record of service in almost every major United Nations peacekeeping operation. We will continue this role, including our contribution of personnel from the Irish police force — the Garda Siochána — to the new and important role for civilian police in United Nations peacekeeping operations. Our peacekeepers have at times paid a heavy price: some 75 Irish peacekeepers have died in the service of United Nations peacekeeping. Our support for the role of the United Nations in its peacekeeping role has not wavered. But it is tempered by the sober recognition that, despite many significant successes in past decades, United Nations peacekeeping, particularly in recent times, has not always been effective. We must become better at averting conflicts, through more vigorous preventive diplomacy and action in dealing with the roots of conflict. When we are forced to intervene, our response must be prompt and better informed through effective early warning systems. Our tasks and objectives must be better defined, both as regards keeping the peace and making the peace. The full support, political and material, of the Member States is essential if they are to be achieved effectively. Too often the United Nations has been asked, to its cost, to keep the peace indefinitely in conflict areas, without any corresponding efforts by the parties to the conflict to make peace. All Member States of this Organization have a responsibility to ensure continuous and honest efforts to make the peace permanent. The changing international situation of the last decade has seen the emergence of new sources of 26 conflict and tension. Old ethnic rivalries and hatreds have resurfaced, leading to new local and regional conflicts. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the killing has stopped, but progress in building the peace has been painfully slow. In the Middle East, too, moving the peace process forward is proving enormously more difficult than could have been imagined. We call on all parties to live up to their responsibilities and put the process back on track. In Cyprus, in the Great Lakes region of Africa and in many other places, the serious efforts of the international community to secure lasting peace are making very slow headway. In the island of Ireland, we face the task of forging reconciliation and, leaving behind us the bitterness of history, ensuring that the root causes of the threat to peace are addressed effectively. Successive Irish Foreign Ministers have addressed this Assembly over the years and informed representatives of the efforts being made to resolve the conflict in Northern Ireland and bring about a lasting peaceful settlement. They have brought news of significant advances, from the launching of the intergovernmental approach by Ireland and Britain in 1980 and the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985, to the formulation of the Joint Declaration in 1993 and the publication of the Joint Framework document in 1995. I now bring to the Assembly the joyous news that yesterday in Belfast we succeeded in launching substantial and historic all-party talks in which the future of a peaceful and agreed Ireland is to be mapped out. What is notable about all of these developments — each an important foundation stone in the current peace process — is that they were undertaken in partnership between the Irish and British Governments. Progress has been driven by our two Governments, united in the quest for peace and a lasting and just settlement. That progress has been defined and directed by the concept of the “totality of relationships”, with which our two islands are intertwined and which bears directly on the question of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland represents the interface between the respective traditions and future aspirations of both Ireland and Britain. Only in the totality of our relations can we come to terms with our differing visions of the past and reconcile our hopes for the future. The notion of the “totality of relationships” has been reinforced recently by profound shifts in political and social attitudes in both Ireland and Britain. The character of these shifts has much in common in that they serve to illustrate the commonality that the peoples of Ireland and Britain share. Ireland has been undergoing a dramatic and invigorating process of renewal. This has been most evident in our economic performance, but it is evident too in our social and cultural life. I have a deep sense that it has been encouraged and shaped by our involvement in the evolution of Europe and the development of our multilateral relations through the United Nations itself. This renewal has been marked by inspiration about what can be done and by what is needed pragmatically to achieve what we set out to do. In Britain, there has been a dramatic development which redefines and reshapes the nature of its political union. And we too detect that same impulse to reinvigorate the institutions of the state, to undertake a reappraisal and a renewal as the new millennium approaches. I believe that this sense of change in both islands, this quickening pace, will be a very important factor as both Governments and all the parties to the negotiations in Northern Ireland take the peace process forward. It will, I believe, impart an urgency and focus to the deliberations. More importantly, it means that those who form part of the talks process have the opportunity to shape their future rather than surrender through indifference or apathy to the inexorability of change. For we live in a time which offers an invitation to shape our common future. That invitation is open to all those with the courage and vision to participate in the talks process, which seeks to reshape the relations which are central to the solution we seek — relations between the two communities in Northern Ireland, relations between the North and the South of our island, and relations between Ireland and Britain. The efforts of both Governments to construct the complex structures on which to base a peace process were undertaken with the very clear acknowledgment that ultimately it was there to serve all the parties most directly involved in the conflict and, through them, the wider community. As the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), John Hume, so clearly recognized, it had to be an inclusive peace process if it was to be a lasting one. 27 Creating the conditions for this inclusive process was a difficult task in the face of continued violence by paramilitaries on both sides — violence which has been ongoing for over 25 years; violence which threatened to limit the boundaries of a whole generation to suspicion, mutual mistrust and division; violence which still seeks to threaten and disrupt our efforts to build a lasting peace. The task of creating an inclusive peace process required us to call on our friends in the international community. I want to acknowledge those friends, particularly in the European Union, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and, most important, in the United States. The partnership between Ireland and Britain has been consistently encouraged and assisted by the United States under the leadership of President Clinton and with the backing of friends and supporters in the United States Congress. In particular, President Clinton offered his personal support and active engagement in the search for peace. The President undertook to share the risks for peace which were being taken by both Governments. And in doing so, he added significantly to the momentum which secured the ceasefire in 1994 and re-established it in July of this year. The United States has been a resource offered generously in the name of peace. I want to acknowledge the invaluable role played by Senator George Mitchell in chairing the multi-party talks in Belfast. And I also want to express my Government's appreciation for the cooperation and assistance provided by the Governments of Finland and Canada, particularly by making available as co-chairmen of the talks former Prime Minister Harri Holkeri and General John de Chastelain. They have shown unfailing forbearance and unremitting commitment to this delicate and complex process. With this help, and with the resolve of both Governments to ensure that an unequivocal ceasefire was a necessary condition for involvement in the talks process, another ceasefire was, as I said earlier, established in July this year. Because the ceasefire has been re-established, all parties to the problem of Northern Ireland have now been invited to join the talks process in Belfast and to begin the task of shaping our respective interwoven futures. We have, in the course of the Anglo-Irish peace process, sought to accomplish the purpose for which this Assembly was established — to replace mistrust and violent confrontation with dialogue, negotiation and agreement between all the parties to conflict. We do not underestimate the difficulties that lie ahead. As the history of the United Nations itself has shown, major conflicts have, for the most part, been avoided. However, the resolution of localized conflicts has proven elusive and problematic. The principles, purpose and practice of this Assembly and the United Nations itself were formed to replace conflict — of whatever scale — with peace through dialogue. In our approach to Northern Ireland, we have been guided by the same impulse to create principles, purposes and practices which will replace the method and means of sectarian hatred and intercommunal violence. We have made it clear that in our talks, all issues are on the table, that no outcome is ruled out of bounds for discussion or is predetermined. We have constructed a process and rules of procedure by which the parties can discuss, refine and eventually agree on the structures which will embrace the totality of relations on the two islands and which command the consent of both unionists and nationalists in Ireland. We have established as an integral part of the dialogue that we recognize the rights and wishes of the unionist community in the same way as we insist that parity of esteem for Nationalists is a necessary and just component of any eventual settlement. We have set out our view that the resolution of the issue of the decommissioning of arms is an indispensable part of the process of negotiation. We have emphatically declared, in our insistence on adherence to the Mitchell principles of democracy and non-violence, that only those committed to democratic and exclusively peaceful means of resolving political issues and those who renounce force or the threat of force to influence the outcome of the negotiations can be a party to the talks process. We have embraced as a founding principle in the current talks process and its eventual outcome that any agreement must command sufficient consensus between both sets of participants. We have accepted that the agreement reached will be put to the people of Ireland, North and South, for their approval. Both Governments have set a target to conclude these talks by next May and present proposals to the people of Ireland, North and South, in parallel 28 referendums. I believe that this target is necessarily ambitious and realistically achievable. We may well have setbacks in the interim. We certainly have difficult issues to confront and compromises to make which will require courage and vision. But both Governments — and I believe the parties currently in the talks process — are collectively determined that this process will be pursued, that there will be no going back, and that the future we seek of harmonious relations and an honourable and comprehensive agreement will be secured and that lasting peace will be brought to our island.