Ireland

I warmly congratulate you, Sir, on your election to the presidency of the forty-ninth session of the General Assembly. You take office at an historic moment for the United Nations on the eve of its fiftieth anniversary. The past year has been one of progress and great hope for many peoples and States represented in this Assembly. In South Africa, the elections have given birth to a democratic, non-racial society which offers a model of tolerance and reconciliation for others on that tortured continent. In the Middle East, the establishment of a Palestinian administration in Gaza and Jericho paves the way for a comprehensive settlement in a region that several times in living memory has threatened global confrontation. In Germany and in the Baltic States, the withdrawal of foreign troops marks the end of the division of our continent and heralds a Europe free and at peace. And on my own island - the island of Ireland - the declaration by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) of a complete cessation of military operations has opened the prospect of a peaceful resolution which has not existed for a generation. 14 For many years it has been customary for Irish Foreign Ministers to report to this Assembly on developments in relation to the conflict in Northern Ireland. Too often they have spoken of killing and destruction, the failure of political initiatives and controversies on human rights. It seemed that the Northern Ireland conflict belonged to the category of truly intractable problems destined to outlive all change of circumstance and to defy all attempts at a solution. I begin my address this year on this question, because my message is now one of hope. The past 12 months have significantly enhanced the prospects for lasting peace and stability on the island of Ireland. It is true that the edifice of a solution still remains to be constructed, but I believe very solid foundations have now been laid. At the origin of the Northern Ireland conflict lies a difference of view as to whether the partition of Ireland earlier this century was or was not a denial of the right of the Irish people to self-determination. This difference was passionately and violently acted out by two communities in Northern Ireland, who were and remain deeply polarized by their division on fundamental constitutional issues. This conflict has been costly for all the people of Northern Ireland and for the British and Irish peoples generally. To deal with it is one of the most urgent and important tasks facing both Governments. Experience has shown that the ability of the two Governments to do so will be directly proportionate to the degree of agreement between us. It is in the inherited gaps between our positions that terrorism on both sides has taken root. For that reason, cooperation and agreement between the two Governments is vital for any solution. Last December, the Irish and British Governments published a Joint Declaration which significantly consolidated the common ground between us and offered all the parties to the conflict a compelling political alternative to the endless cycle of bloodshed and retribution. In the Joint Declaration, the British Government recognizes that it is for the people of Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts respectively and without external impediment, to exercise their right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a united Ireland if that is their wish. The Irish Government accepts that the right to self-determination of the people of Ireland as a whole must be achieved and exercised with, and subject to, the agreement and consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland. The Declaration seeks to deal with the issue of self-determination in a way which banishes the spectre of coercion. Instead, political consent is now clearly set as the necessary goal and touchstone for any stable arrangement in Ireland, whatever the framework. The Declaration makes clear that the British Government is not the enemy of the Irish nationalist tradition and that the Irish Government is not the enemy of the unionist tradition. A crucial aspect of the Declaration is the acknowledgement that future arrangements in Ireland are for decision and agreement between the Irish people themselves, North and South, and its formal commitment that the role of the British Government will be to promote such agreement. The Declaration thus marks a decisive break with any notion which has had such dark resonances in Irish history that arrangements in Ireland might be decided as a function of British rights over Ireland. This opens the way, in turn, for a new and more developed acknowledgement by the nationalist tradition of the unquestionable rights of the unionist community, derived from its position as a distinct tradition in Ireland. A considerable section of the Joint Declaration is devoted to this issue. At the end of August, following a protracted internal debate, the IRA decided in favour of a complete cessation of military operations. That decision has been confirmed by other statements in the interval. Much more important, it has been sustained on the ground. This is a development of very great significance. It is first and foremost welcome because it saves lives. Secondly, it opens the prospect of comprehensive negotiations, governed by democratic principles, taking place against a background of peace and embracing the entire spectrum of all those involved in the conflict. Such negotiations have the greatest potential for success. Moreover, their outcome is likely to be more authoritative than a less general agreement, which would have had to be enforced against a background of continuing violence and repression. We still await the end of the campaign of violence carried out by loyalist paramilitaries. I remain hopeful that they, in turn, will come to realize that their violence is repugnant to their own community as well as to others, and counterproductive to their cause. We hope that 15 responsible political leaders in the unionist community will make their voices strongly heard on this issue, as many have done already, and that a complete cessation of violence will ensue on the loyalist side also. We have now an unparalleled opportunity to create the basis for lasting agreement among our different political traditions in Ireland. We can do so, no longer prisoners of the past, but rather learning form our past mistakes on all sides. Perhaps the greatest such mistake, shared at one time as an unquestioned assumption on both sides, was that this conflict, concentrated in the narrow ground of Northern Ireland, could only end in victory and defeat for one tradition or the other. Compromise was seen as the first step on the road to defeat. We have all learned, through a costly process of trial and error, that in the Northern Ireland situation notions of victory and defeat are an illusion. Each community had the critical mass to thwart the other, but neither can prevail alone. General political consent is therefore a simple practical necessity, as well as an ideal. The challenge now for the British and Irish Governments is to seize on the momentum for peace. Together with all the political parties in Northern Ireland, we need to build new structures, reflecting the lessons of our experience and building on the principles of the Joint Declaration. Experience has taught us that a majority "winner- takes-all" system is profoundly unsuited to a society such as Northern Ireland, where divisions are predominantly communal and unchanging - rather than social or economic, and therefore changeable. Let us apply that lesson, making agreement and consensus the kernel of all new arrangements. Northern Ireland is characterized by a profound lack of consensus on the constitutional issue of whether the legitimate frame of reference is Northern Ireland or the island as a whole. Let us anchor new arrangements in an Agreement acknowledging and reconciling the validity of both. The political division of Ireland has inhibited many of the constructive political, economic and social interactions which can contribute to the welfare of both parts of the island. Let us set that to rights in effective new structures between North and South. The choice of sovereignty has hitherto been a kind of symbolic shorthand for the victory or defeat of one community or the other. Let us divorce this notion as far as possible from all partisan or tribal connotations, and agree that the exercise of sovereignty, by whichever Government, will at all times, now and in the future, be qualified by scrupulously equal treatment of the two Northern communities and of their rights, identities and allegiances. New arrangements on these lines would, I believe, divest the conflict over sovereignty of much of its current confrontation and passion. Under new arrangements on these lines, buttressed and guaranteed by formal agreement between the two Governments, conflict over the choice of sovereignty might cease to become the destabilizing issue it now is. Instead, it might be handled under agreed political ground-rules, scrupulously even and fair to both aspirations, as a question of mutual persuasion and comparative benefit. Northern Ireland could become a place specially dedicated to the protection of the rights of both communities. Then, for the first time, both communities there could be truly themselves, and perhaps find common purpose in many areas where at present there is only division. The Irish Government will pursue progress towards a lasting accommodation on a number of different levels. We are establishing a Forum for Peace and Reconciliation, to enable all democratic parties in Ireland that are so minded to make recommendations on ways in which agreement and trust between the two traditions in Ireland can be promoted and established. This will not be a negotiating forum, although we are hopeful that its work will contribute positively to the climate in which negotiations take place, and that many of its recommendations can be translated into practice. Simultaneously, the Irish and British Governments are working on a joint framework document setting out their own views on where a balanced accommodation of the problem may be found. It is our hope that this document, which we will commend to the other parties, but cannot of course impose on them, will give fresh impetus to the process of comprehensive negotiation. The developments I have outlined have forged a unique opportunity to achieve a comprehensive, just and peaceful resolution of the Northern Ireland problem. It is vital that their potential should be realized through early negotiations and agreement on new political structures. A new beginning for all our relationships in Ireland is 16 within our reach if we have the collective courage and imagination to avail ourselves of the opportunity. The desire for a lasting peace and a political accommodation has never been stronger across the entire population of the island. If in many parts of the world the message is one of hope, we know that in other places old enmities and ethnic animosities have surfaced, with vicious and indeed deadly consequences. The conflicts in Somalia, in the former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda; the gross abuses of human rights in Haiti and East Timor; the suffering of millions who are denied their basic rights to food, water or shelter; these remind us that we cannot let up in the struggle to create a peaceful world and to uphold human dignity. A characteristic feature of many contemporary crises is that they are essentially conflicts within States, rather than between them. And this, I believe, is the central question facing the United Nations as it approaches its fiftieth anniversary: can the United Nations, which was born out of the greatest inter-State conflict the world has ever seen, and which is designed specifically to prevent and resolve such conflicts - can this Organization deal adequately with internal crises and civil strife? I know that there are some who argue that the United Nations has no place in such matters, that many internal conflicts are not amenable to outside intervention. I can understand such arguments and the cautious desire not to get involved in other people’s internal quarrels. But can we let a crisis such as that in the former Yugoslavia escalate to the point where it threatens a wider Balkan conflict? Can we stand aside while millions are slaughtered by their compatriots in Rwanda? By what calculus do we divine that death in civil strife counts less than death in inter-State warfare, that those threatened by their own countrymen are less deserving of our efforts than those who are threatened by their neighbours? I can find no moral justification for such distinctions. The appalling escalation of terror and violence in Rwanda demonstrates the truth of this. To the names that have come to be associated in recent years with human suffering - Sarajevo, Gorazde, Mogadishu, Baidoa - we can now add Goma, Bukavu and Ngara. The tragedy of Rwanda has gripped the hearts and minds of the Irish people. Today there are over 100 Irish aid workers in the area. More than 70 Irish public servants and military personnel are working with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the aid agencies. And our President, Mary Robinson, hopes shortly to visit Rwanda to show solidarity with the people of that troubled land and to emphasize the need for international action. In its response to the crises in Rwanda and Somalia, the international community has shown a generous willingness to help. Much human suffering has been alleviated. But we have not come near to achieving durable solutions. Nor are we any nearer to constructing a system to prevent similar horrors in the future. We must ask how the United Nations could have played a more active mediating role in Rwanda. Could it have prevented the outbreak of genocidal warfare when political unrest rapidly deteriorated into civil strife? Could it have responded more coherently when genocide was followed by a mass exodus? How can it now assist in the resolution of the conflict? I believe that unless we equip the United Nations to deal with these kinds of problems - the most characteristic and pressing of our time - the credibility and relevance of our Organization will increasingly be called into question. The roots of civil disorder and internal strife are often complex and deep - deeper and more complex, indeed, than the causes of inter-State war. Recent experience has shown that recourse to Chapter VII action alone is inadequate and that outside involvement, unless carefully prepared and sensitively executed, can add to, rather than diminish, the crisis. We must learn the lessons of this and realize that building a United Nations 17 capable of meeting the challenges of the new era will require coordinated action in many areas. I will mention seven points on which I believe there should be priority action: We must reform the Security Council to make it more representative of the United Nations greatly expanded membership and to reflect the great changes in international relations of the past 50 years. We must develop the Organization’s capacity for early warning and mediation and for timely intervention in disputes before they escalate out of control. We must enhance the United Nations peace-keeping capabilities to make them more flexible and responsive when crises erupt. We must develop the United Nations operational capacity in the area of human rights. In particular, we need a more developed system of human rights monitors. We must act to establish a permanent international criminal court. We must intensify our efforts to eliminate the root causes of many conflicts - inequality, social injustice, and poverty - by acting on the Secretary-General’s agenda for development. We must restrict the international flow of the instruments of war and oppression by adopting a code of conduct for conventional arms transfers. There is now widespread agreement on the need for the Security Council to be more representative and more responsive to the needs of the general membership of the United Nations. I believe that early decisions to increase the overall membership of the Council are needed, and that an increase in the permanent membership should reflect the changes in international life over the past 50 years. Our discussions have shown that concrete decisions will not be easy, but we must avoid getting bogged down in narrow considerations of optimal numbers and the competing claims of regional Powers. One way of handling this would be to build into our decision a commitment to review again the membership of the Security Council at a specific date in the future. In this way we could work for a result that reflects current geopolitical realities, that acknowledges that these realities can change over time and that recognizes that all Member States have the potential to contribute to international peace and security. Measures already taken to improve transparency are welcome, but more must be done to facilitate interaction between the Security Council and the general membership. And surely the time has also come when we can delete from the Charter references to enemies that no longer exist. The terrible crises in Rwanda and Somalia have shown that we need to look urgently and more closely at the role and capacity of the United Nations in preventing and defusing conflicts. And we need to consider ways of strengthening the capability of regional organizations to engage in conflict resolution. We must be prepared to avail ourselves in full of the functions bestowed by the Charter on the General Assembly, the Secretary-General and the Economic and Social Council, as well as on the Security Council. We must ensure that information on economic and social conditions likely to result in a threat to security or stability is brought quickly to the attention of the Organization, and in particular to the Security Council. We have the instrument for this in the Economic and Social Council. We should now act on the Secretary-General’s proposal that a reformed Economic and Social Council provide reports to the Security Council on those economic and social developments that may threaten peace and security. Beyond this, we must strengthen the United Nations capacity for mediation. The Security Council and the General Assembly, despite their undoubted authority under the Charter, are not always the most suitable instruments for the direct mediation of conflict. In practice, the Secretary-General has on many occasions appointed a representative to mediate in particular crises, often with considerable success. I believe that the time has come to put these arrangements on a more organized basis. This could be done by constituting a mediation body to which the Security Council or the Assembly could refer difficult issues. Acting in consultation with the Secretary-General, this body would be distinct from the International Court of Justice, in that it would have the role of political mediation rather than that of pronouncing a verdict in terms of international law. I believe that such a body, drawing on the pool of personnel skilled in mediation, backed by effective staff and properly resourced, could rapidly acquire an expertise 18 and authority that would significantly enhance the peacemaking capabilities of the United Nations. The United Nations is now conducting more peace- keeping operations and has more personnel in the field than at any time in its history. Ireland is participating in many of these operations and devotes a significant proportion of its defence forces, and of its defence expenditure, to United Nations peace-keeping. That is one reason why my Government is particularly concerned at the under-funding of peace-keeping operations and at the failure of certain Member States to pay their assessed contributions. But there is a deeper and more important reason. The Secretary-General has pointed to the difficulty in finding personnel for the many new demands on United Nations peace-keeping. Recent experience has shown that a Security Council mandate no longer ensures that an operation will soon take place. I can think of nothing more serious or more damaging than the failure of the Organization quickly to mount an operation at the outbreak of a crisis. The crisis itself escalates out of control, the credibility of the United Nations is called into question and the authority of the Security Council is undermined. We must act to ensure that operations are properly resourced, that troop contributors can take decisions on participation, secure in the knowledge that they will be adequately funded, and that there is greater consultation between the Council and troop contributions. The cost of peacekeeping will always be less than the cost of war. There could be no better way to mark the fiftieth anniversary than to address once and for all this most critical constraint on peacekeeping operations. As our understanding of civil strife develops, we are coming to see the vital role that action in the area of human rights can play in helping to prevent and resolve conflict. The value of integrating peace-keeping and human rights has proved its worth in Cambodia, in El Salvador and elsewhere, but our approach has been piecemeal and tentative. Even in Rwanda we still await an adequate deployment of human rights monitors. Resources will have to be found for this activity. For its part, Ireland intends to contribute to the voluntary fund for Rwanda established by the High Commissioner for Human Rights. There is a clear need to put in place an effective system of monitoring and adjudicating human rights violations. One important step would be to develop a standing team of human rights monitors reporting to the High Commissioner for Human Rights. This would make it easier to integrate human rights action into peace- keeping operations, and the mandate for peace-keeping operations could include a human rights dimension with clearly established reporting and verification procedures. In addition, we should move now on the establishment of a permanent international criminal court. The United Nations must demonstrate that it has the will to bring to justice those responsible for crimes against humanity, summary executions, torture, rape and mutilation. If we fail to do this, we will have failed to learn the lessons of Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and we will, of course, risk their repetition. Our efforts to deal with war and civil strife cannot ignore what the "Agenda for Peace" has described as the root causes of conflict: economic despair, social injustice and political oppression. Maintaining the peace is impossible in an unequal world. Conversely, development is the most secure basis for peace. It can be no coincidence that Rwanda and Somalia are among the least developed countries of the world. Thus, when the Secretary-General himself tells us that development is in crisis, we are compelled to listen, and we are compelled to agree with him that an alternative to the United Nations in development simply does not exist. The truth is that the agenda for development and the "Agenda for Peace" are complementary. They are different sides of the same coin, and we must make progress on both if we are to reach our common goals of peace and prosperity. What has been called a "culture of development" must extend beyond the provision of financial assistance to embrace economic progress, the environment, social justice, democracy and good governance. At next year’s World Social Summit and at the Conference on Women we can build on the progress already made in the Conferences on Environment and on Population. The tragedy of war and civil strife underlines the need to address more seriously the question of disarmament. The easy availability of arms contributes, not just to the scale of the carnage and suffering in conflict, but to the outbreak of conflict itself. At the global level, the volume of trade in major conventional weapons has declined in recent years. But 19 in some regions large stockpiles have accumulated. In others the arms trade continues to grow. There is a need for States to exercise greater responsibility and restraint in their arms transfers. Already the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms has led to greater transparency. But I believe that we should now go further. That is why Ireland has proposed that the United Nations elaborate a code of conduct for conventional arms transfers which would set out common principles to be observed in this area. It is my hope that the General Assembly will now decide that work on such a code should be put in hand. The lives of millions of people have been put at risk and large areas rendered unsafe as a result of the indiscriminate use of land-mines. Since last year many Governments have introduced moratoriums on the export of anti-personnel mines. I welcome President Clinton’s call for an agreement to reduce the number and availability of these mines. I welcome also the very considerable progress made in the reduction of nuclear arsenals and towards a comprehensive test-ban treaty. The threat of nuclear conflict between the major Powers no longer overshadows our daily lives. But there is disturbing evidence that some States still want to acquire a nuclear-weapon capability. Their ability to do so is helped by the growth in the world’s stocks of fissile materials and in personnel with the requisite technological skills. Next year’s Conference to review and extend the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons provides an opportunity to address these issues. Ireland wants to see an indefinite extension of the Treaty. We want to see the principles on which the Treaty is founded maintained; the non-proliferation regime strengthened; all States becoming members; and progress made towards the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, as envisaged in the Treaty. The agenda for United Nations reform is formidable - for the Organization itself and for the States that make up this Assembly. But whatever the difficulties, reform is a vital and urgent necessity. I am convinced that unless we act in a broad and imaginative way, bringing together the political, peace-keeping, development and human-rights instruments of the United Nations, we will prove inadequate to the great contemporary challenges. We now have an opportunity such as has not existed for a generation. I urge all of us to grasp it.