A/47/PV.31 General Assembly

This morning the General Assembly will consider

In his first annual report to the General Assembly on the work of the Organization, the Secretary-General identified clearly the opportunities and challenges facing the United Nations in the post-cold-war era. We have in this new era new opportunities for enhanced global cooperation to tackle transnational problems, problems: of the environment; arms control; drugs; AIDS; and of course the continuing tragedy of poverty. We also face challenges arising from the unleashing of ethnic rivalries and the splintering of nation States. Simply, the demands on the United Nations have never been greater, nor the expectations so high. In his report to the Assembly, the Secretary-General has set himself the ambitious but essential goal of creating "a new United Nations for a new international era" (A/47/1, para. 5) a process which he acknowledges will be "neither easy nor risk-free" (A/47/1, para.6). The "new United Nations" is being put to the test, dramatically, by the outbreak of conflict, often within and between newly emerging States. In his landmark report "An Agenda for Peace" (A/47/277), the Secretary-General focused on the need to enhance the capacity of the United Nations to fulfil its fundamental Charter objective of "maintaining international peace and security" by summarizing a range of actions to prevent, contain and resolve situations of conflict. The front line of United Nations involvement in peace and security should be the prevention of conflict. We should be working through the United Nations to create conditions which minimize insecurity and threats to peace, and which enable specific high-risk situations to be addressed before they get to the point of requiring either peace-keeping or, worse still, coercive peace-enforcement measures. A major challenge in the years ahead will be to establish effective mechanisms and means for converting the potential promise of preventive diplomacy from rhetoric into reality. In his statement to the General Assembly last week, the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Senator Gareth Evans, outlined a series of initiatives designed to address the non-military, as well as military threats to security. Natural disasters, acute poverty, famine and environmental degradation are all fundamental causes of instability and thus the United Nations must assume a major role in addressing such non-military threats to international peace and security. Australia particularly welcomes the creation of the new Department of Humanitarian Affairs, which has a crucial role to play in seeking to avert preventable tragedies. One such area where we would like to see an enhanced United Nations role is in the prevention of famine. To this end, we have proposed the establishment of a group of senior officials from developed and developing countries and relevant United Nations agencies, supported by a comprehensive database, to conduct high-level reviews of the global famine situation and to identify emerging crisis situations. Surely this is a case where prevention is vastly preferable to cure. We also endorse the Secretary-General's observation in his report on the work of the Organization that democratic structures, popular participation and observance of human rights are all fundamental sources of creativity in the process of development. Economic development and political progress go hand in hand and can mutually reinforce resolution of many of the underlying tensions which lead to conflict. Today's discussion of "An Agenda for Peace" is a beginning, not an end. We expect the debate to continue and amplify, involving the whole United Nations membership. The contribution that we will make today will highlight one aspect of an "agenda for peace" which we believe to be of particular importance to the current international situation, namely strengthening the role of the United Nations in preventive diplomacy. We plan to take up other aspects of what is a large, but very necessary, agenda in subsequent i discussions on "An Agenda for Peace" in this and other relevant forums. Turning to the issue that I would like to highlight today, I will centre my remarks on means of strengthening the United Nations preventive diplomacy and peacemaking arrangements to deal at an early stage with specific high-risk situations. Others may have their own ideas, and we believe that it is crucial that those ideas be put forward, so that all ideas can be discussed and suggestions further refined in order that we may establish a truly viable system for preventing disputes at the international and regional levels. Indeed, we believe that preventive diplomacy is so important that it should become a major foundation-stone on which the United Nations new agenda for peace is built. One of the major stumbling-blocks to preventive diplomacy has been the problem of timing. The Charter explicitly states, in Article 36, that the United Nations may become involved "at any stage of a dispute ... or of a situation" and the 1988 Declaration on the Prevention and Removal of Disputes, which was adopted unanimously by the General Assembly, encourages the United Nations to become involved "at an early stage" (resolution 43/51. annex, para. 1 (12)). In practice, however, the threshold for defining a situation as a threat to international peace and security has tended to be the outbreak of armed hostilities. Typically, the Security Council has waited for this threshold to be crossed before it has acted. In cases where the Secretary-General waits to be mandated by the Council before acting, the United Nations often finds itself intervening at the very point where the disputing parties are least likely to accept peaceful methods of dispute resolution in other words, when it is too late. Effective preventive diplomacy, however, requires action before a dispute has reached that threshold, that is, as early as possible before the issues have generalized; before antagonisms have become malignant; before the major motivation of the parties has become a desire for retribution, and before parties have become committed and entrapped by their own aggressive posturing, rhetoric and actions. The overriding reason for parties' reluctance to bring disputes to the United Nations appears to be concern about losing control over decision-making. Discussions about the rights of "sovereignty" and concerns about "internationalizing" a dispute translate to mean that many, and probably most. States prefer to maintain control over how their disputes will be resolved, at least until such time as the situation becomes desperate. Because of these sensitivities, third parties have also been reluctant to bring a situation to the Council at an early stage. Thus, Members seldom use Article 35, which allows any Member of the United Nations to bring a dispute to the attention of the Council, and similarly, past Secretaries-General have rarely used Article 99. In our view, the United Nations needs to develop a mechanism which will be acceptable to Members and which will allow those who cannot reach a peaceful settlement on their own to avail themselves of mediation and good offices at an early stage in their dispute. What is needed is a mechanism which can offer a dispute resolution service to its Members to assist them in complying with Chapter VI of the Charter. Through such a mechanism, Members could maintain a say over how their dispute is settled, while at the same time receiving assistance in communicating with one another in minimizing inflammatory rhetoric; in defining the issues, concerns and grievances which are causing the dispute, and in creating innovative and imaginative solutions which can address and reconcile these conflicting interests. There is an increasing recognition among Member States that it is the Secretary-General and his staff who can most effectively offer this kind of assistance. Some of these ideas are already being implemented within the Secretariat. Australia applauds the efforts made by the Secretary-General to establish geographically-based Divisions within the Department of Political Affairs, whose task it will be to monitor various regions. We believe that, if properly supported and resourced, the six Divisions that have been set up hold considerable promise for providing continuity in conflict-prevention. To be effective, however, this newly developed preventive diplomacy and peacemaking mechanism will need the support of Member States. For preventive diplomacy to succeed, it will require adequate resources and staff who have a sophisticated level of expertise and skill. Currently the six Divisions are headed by Directors who have had considerable experience in good offices and peacemaking. They will, however, need to be supported by staff who are skilled in political analysis and who have an in-depth knowledge of the cultural, political and historical background of the countries of the region. Staff will also be needed who are knowledgeable in conflict-analysis, negotiation and mediation. Recruitment of new staff, training of current staff through programmes such as the proposed new fellowship programme on preventive diplomacy and peacemaking of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and the use of expert consultants could all provide the necessary skills for carrying out preventive diplomacy. In addition, staff will be needed who can devote their full attention to preventive diplomacy without being consumed by the demands of ongoing, larger crises. They will need to be backed up with an adequate infrastructure. Access to wire services, on-line computer facilities, data banks, advanced telecommunications and travel for routine visits to the field and to relevant meetings will be required. Resources for these vital tasks could be redeployed from other parts of the United Nations where they are no longer needed. Indeed, perhaps the most important way in which Member States could contribute to the development of this new mechanism is through their support of such a. reallocation of resources. The amounts involved would not be large, but the benefits accruing to all of us could be considerable. Of course, Members could also assist the Secretary-General in developing an adequate infrastructure by providing voluntary contributions earmarked for much needed expenses. Another way in which Member States could assist the Secretariat would be to offer expertise through the secondment of experts to help in tasks such as the creation of a rapid response information network; the development of creative proposals for particular disputes; and the training of middle-level staff in political analysis and dispute-resolution. This kind of contribution from Member States has become commonplace in the area of peace-keeping, and could also be very useful in the development of preventive diplomacy. Preventive-diplomacy units will need to establish a rapid-response information network which can provide continuous and reliable information and which will be responsive to changing situations. Members could assist the Secretary-General by providing regular information on disputes, tensions and developments in their region. A wide range of sources would allow preventive-diplomacy staff to examine the reliability of information and would provide them with the full range of perspectives on the issues involved. Of course, an independent capacity, on the part of the Secretariat, to assess relevant information will be a crucial element in determining its credibility and usefulness. Regular and routine visits to the capitals and "hot spots" of the region would allow Secretariat staff to identify emerging disputes, to track developments in existing disputes, to develop a sense of trust and a reputation for fairness, to urge the parties to come to the negotiating table and to offer good offices and mediation when it is deemed appropriate. Such visits would also allow United Nations staff to coordinate on a regular and consistent basis with United Nations agencies in the field, as well as with regional and subregional organisations. Members could assist United Nations staff in developing contacts within their countries and their region and facilitate and encourage regular visits of preventive diplomacy staff. This would allow quiet diplomacy to develop in a manner which did not call attention to itself, and which did not "internationalise" the dispute. Routine visits would, we believe, be more acceptable to parties than formally constituted "fact-finding" missions, especially if carried out as standard United Nations practice throughout all reqions. Thus we believe that quiet diplomacy and early prevention should be the essence of preventive diplomacy. Such a mechanism will, we believe, be more acceptable to Members and, therefore, more effective. Finally, Members may be able to assist the Secretary-General and his staff in providing or supporting good offices and mediation. The assistance of the five Central American Presidents in the resolution of the El Salvador dispute and the Paris Conference on Cambodia are but two examples of how third parties can assist the United Nations in dispute-resolution through persuasion or the development of new ideas or proposals. Australia therefore urges Members to do everything they can to support the efforts of the Secretary-General to establish an effective mechanism for carrying out preventive diplomacy. In terms of United Nations operations, preventive diplomacy is certainly cost-effective when compared to peace-keeping operations or peace-enforcement. But, even more importantly, it is cost-effective in human terms. When disputes are resolved through preventive diplomacy, we can avoid the tragic and wanton loss of life of countless men, women and children, such as we are now witnessing in Somalia and the former Yugoslavia. The needless destruction of homes, cities and social infrastructure could be averted. Resources that would have been spent on weapons and war could be available instead to be applied to the social and economic problems of these societies. When disputes are settled through preventive diplomacy, grievances are lessened or ameliorated, and hostilities between peoples do not fester and grow into reverberating echoes of violence. Of course, some parties will not want to avail themselves of preventive diplomacy, and, even when they do, in some cases it will not work. But even if preventive diplomacy is effective only now and then, it is worth the effort. If, by having an effective preventive diplomacy-mechanism in place, we could have prevented one situation from deteriorating into a Somalia or a Yugoslavia or an Iran-Iraq war or an Afghanistan or a Cambodia, would it not have been worth while? Should we not proceed with all haste to prevent the possibility of future bloodshed in disputes such as those brewing in Nogorno-Karabakh, Georgia and elsewhere? A new time'requires new approaches, bold steps. Preventive diplomacy is one such step. It would provide a clear response to the particular challenges we face in this new international era. (Mr. Butler. Australia)

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the countries members of the Permanent Mechanism for Consultation and Political Concertation, known as the Rio Group that is, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Honduras, on behalf of four Central American countries; Jamaica, on behalf of 11 countries members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM); and Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela and Argentina. Our countries have felt impelled to take part in the debate on agenda item 10, the report of the Secretary-General entitled "An Agenda for Peace". That report, which was requested by the Security Council Summit Meeting held on 31 January 1992, is a valuable instrument that enables us to initiate an immediate debate on the strengthening and the future of the Organization. We also consider it necessary for the debate to take place in the General Assembly, the only principal organ of the United Nations with universal membership. It is appropriate to recall that the Rio Group took the initiative of issuing statements, circulated as documents A/47/232 and S/24025, prior to the submission of the Secretary-General's report. We have noted with satisfaction the existence of a broad area of agreement between our proposals and the contents of "An Agenda for Peace". The international community has entered a new stage, one in which the United Nations is undoubtedly reserved an important role. In order to live up to the challenges of the new era, we must deal with issues relating to collective security within the framework of a renewed commitment to the letter and the spirit of the United Nations Charter. In so doing, we shall be able to begin without delay the task of strengthening the United Nations in the spheres of preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping.

I should like to inform representatives that, with a view to assisting delegations in their deliberations under agenda item 10, the Secretariat has prepared a paper compiling all of the specific recommendations contained in the report of the Secretary-General entitled "An Agenda for Peace". The document was issued yesterday under the symbol A/INF/47/5 and is available at the documents distribution counter.

Austria welcomes this opportunity to comment on this year's report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization (A/47/1), which builds on his earlier, seminal report "An Agenda for Peace" (A/47/277). Both are timely and inspiring documents. Timely, because never before have countries and peoples of the world relied more on the United Nations; timely, because as Austrian Federal Chancellor Vranitzky put it during the Summit Meeting of the Security Council on 31 January: "... the end of the cold war has freed minds and resources which were for so long bound by a wasteful and useless confrontation". (S/PVt3046, Pt61) Inspiring, because the world is now <> better but less stable place, which creates almost daily new tasks and new challenges for the Organization. In the Security Council Austria has advocated substantive and urgent consideration of the recommendations in the Secretary-General's report "An Agenda for Peace" concerning the Council since the report was issued in June. We hope that such a consideration will now take place there, with Council members having the benefit of the views heard during the general debate and again today. Foreign Minister Mock has already expressed Austria's support for further efforts to improve the capacity of the United Nations in conflict-prevention, peace-keeping, peacemaking and peace-building. Today, I shall therefore limit myself to commenting on aspects which concern primarily the General Assembly. While I shall attempt to be as succinct as possible, one more general remark is in order: instability and insecurity have many sources military, political, economic, ethnic, religious, social, humanitarian and ecological. We must therefore take an integrated, comprehensive approach even though it will be implemented only step by step.

The Mexican delegation fully supports the statement made by the Permanent Representative of Argentina, on behalf of the Rio Group, in relation to the present agenda item. We should nevertheless like to note a number of points which are of particular interest to the Government of Mexico. The invitation to the Secretary-General by the summit meeting of the Security Council to submit to the membership of the United Nations an analysis and recommendations on ways of strengthening and making more efficient the capacity of the United Nations for preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping, was undoubtedly a response to the universal concern to find adequate formulas for meeting the challenges the community of nations faces as a result of the end of the cold war. The content of "An Agenda for Peace" calls for joint reflection and invites us to seek, in constant dialogue with the Secretary-General, the means and mechanisms for giving the United Nations the necessary capacity to discharge its delicate mandate in the maintenance of international peace and security. The holding of this debate, which we have always urged and encouraged, is convincing proof of our interest in the report, the importance we attach to it, and the need for careful consideration of its recommendations. "An Agenda for Peace" is rich in ideas, imaginative in conception and ambitious in the proposals it makes, on a par with the great challenges facing the Organization. It makes contributions which already undoubtedly lay the foundations for the new and more enduring structures the United Nations needs in this new phase of international life, which are referred to clearly in the "Report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization", which was submitted recently for consideration by the General Assembly. Progress in building these structures calls for a concerted effort by all Members of the Organization, and accordingly the Secretary-General's statement in "An Agenda for Peace" that the foundation stone of the work of the United Nations "is and must remain the State" (para. 17) seems to us fundamental. Respect for the fundamental sovereignty of States is critical in any international process. This is a matter of practical realism, not simply a position of principle. The ideas contained in the report aimed at achieving a better balance between the principal organs of the United Nations appear to us timely and appropriate. The strengthening of the Organization must be carried out within the framework of the functions and responsibilities assigned to each of the principal organs. The primacy which the Charter assigns to the General Assembly, as the Organization's universal and pluralist governing body par excellence needs to be recalled and reaffirmed. One of the tasks the Secretary-General's report puts before us is that of achieving greater coordination between the Assembly and the Security Council in questions relating to international peace and security. Strengthening the Secretary-General's capacity for action is an important step towards creating an Organization capable of responding in a timely and effective manner to the growing demands placed upon it by Member States. Hence, the continued importance of smooth coordination between the functions of the Secretariat and those of the principal organs.

The representative of Argentina has already expressed on behalf of the Rio Group, to which Brazil has the honour of belonging, the basic considerations of our delegations on the document "An Agenda for Peace" (A/47/277). While fully endorsing those views, which reflect to a large extent the content of document A/47/232 circulated by the Rio Group last May, I would like to comment further on some of the elements contained in the report presented by the Secretary-General. I wish to thank the Secretary-General for having prepared such a far-reaching document containing many new and relevant ideas and proposals. As stressed by the spokesman for the Rio Group, some of them aim at promoting the observance and implementation of the provisions of the Charter; others seek to improve the practices of the Organization. The ensemble of these ideas calls for thorough consideration by the entire membership of the United Nations. A fast-evolving international environment entails a search for conceptual frameworks capable of dealing with change. A wide-ranging dialogue is called for in the interest of all States. In the post-cold-war era, when the arms race, which has consumed hundreds of billions of dollars annually, is beginning to abate, the opportunity should not be lost to address all dimensions of concern, including social and economic inequalities at the international level. As the representative of Brazil said in the opening speech of the general debate, "An agenda for peace cannot overlook the agenda for development". (A/47/PV.4. p. 22-25) While strengthening the relevant activities of preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peace-keeping and post-conflict peace-building, we must also strengthen the capability of the United Nations for the equally urgent task of preventive peace-building. It is becoming increasingly clear that to maintain peace it is not enough to achieve a state of the absence of war. Peace should be understood as a dynamic process encompassing the concomitant promotion of fair international economic relations, strict respect for the rule of law, within and across borders, and the democratization of international relations. As the representative of Argentina indicated, the Rio Group has identified a number of important questions contained in "An Agenda for Peace" that require careful consideration by the Members of the Organization. Many of the ideas presented in the Secretary-General's report ideas such as preventive deployment, peace-enforcement units, early warning and sanctions under Chapter VII - are more of a military and intelligence-related nature. In the view of my delegation, a peace agenda should also underscore the importance of instances of a political and diplomatic nature. In the broadest sense, it could be said that all activities of the United Nations are devoted to preventive diplomacy. To be effective and successful, diplomatic activities require a considerable degree of flexibility and creativity. All peaceful means provided for in the Charter must be exhausted before military or other enforcement action is resorted to. There should be no automatic resort to action entailing the use of military means. Before expanding on, or extrapolating from, selected provisions of the Charter, we must endeavour to make full use of the resources already provided for in the Charter. One may, for instance, contemplate a more active role for the General Assembly pursuant to Article 14, under which the Assembly may recommend measures for the peaceful adjustment of any situation deemed likely to affect international peace and security. It is incumbent upon us to give more active expression to those provisions. In this context, there is an important role for fact-finding activities, as regulated by the Declaration on Fact-finding by the United Nations in the Field of the Maintenance of International Peace and Security, adopted last year in resolution 46/59. Another mechanism that could be more fully exploited this time to facilitate the work of the Security Council is the provision in Article 29 for the establishment of ad hoc subsidiary organs, composed not only of Council members, but also of relevant parties involved in a situation affecting international peace and security. In this regard, more than 20 years ago a memorandum by Brazil appeared in document A/7922, in which we suggested that the Security Council consider the desirability of establishing ad hoc committees for the peaceful settlement of disputes; we proposed that, when appropriate, and with due regard to the relevant provisions of the Charter, the Council could refer to such committees any dispute as described in Article 33 of the Charter, or a similar situation in order to promote or facilitate a solution in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter. These ideas are but a few examples of diplomatic tools for preventive diplomacy and peacemaking that are already contemplated in the Charter and could be better utilized by the Organization. The strengthening of the United Nations in the field of international peace and security requires the strengthening of all its relevant organs. The Charter provides the conditions for the effective and harmonious functioning of these different bodies, without conflict of competence. Their actions can and should be mutually reinforcing. To prevent what the Secretary-General, in his report on the work of the Organization (A/47/1) warns is a possible "crisis of expectations", we must provide adequate resources and conditions of work for all relevant organs, which in recent times have gone through a somewhat unbalanced process of revitalization. In fact, document A/47/1 reports, on page 6 "Expanding activities of the Security Council", an "Expanding role of peace-keeping" and "Expanding mandates of the Secretariat", but no corresponding expansion for the General Assembly can be reported at this stage. The report on the work of the Organization presents data and tables that underscore the dramatic increase in the work-load of the Security Council and the related increases in peace-keeping operations and Secretariat activities. But, as my delegation sees it, we ought to avoid the assumption that any and all matters affecting international peace and security should necessarily be dealt with at the level of the Security Council. There are instances in which the General Assembly may have an important role to play. In others it might be more appropriate to entrust the leading role to regional organizations. Practice should allow for a harmonious and coordinated complementarity of roles between the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Secretary-General and, as the case may be, regional organizations or the International Court of Justice. An effective peace agenda should seek to promote revitalization of the General Assembly's role in the maintenance of international peace and security by making full use of the possibilities foreseen in Articles 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 and 17 of the Charter. In situations of international tension or crisis, an appropriate presence and action of the General Assembly should be felt immediately and constantly. More room should be provided for the political and diplomatic efforts of the parties to the conflict themselves and of regional organizations. We believe that there should be clear recognition of the fact that the actions or arrangements of the United Nations and of regional organizations can and should be mutually reinforcing and complementary. But it should also be recognized that the United Nations and the regional organizations have their own Charters and their specific mandates and competence. Cooperation between the United Nations and the regional bodies should be carried out on the basis of coordination and consultation. Turning specifically to the many concepts and recommendations contained in "An Agenda for Peace", my delegation would like to express some views, without prejudice to further deliberations, which we believe should be undertaken in the working group whose creation was today suggested by the representative of Argentina on behalf of the countries members of the Rio Group. Preventive-diplomacy activities should be conducted strictly in accordance with Chapter VI of the Charter. Peacemaking activities should be guided by the definition contained in resolution 46/48, which was adopted last year. Peace-keeping operations, for their part, should scrupulously follow the principles and practices accumulated by the Organization in acquiring experience in these matters. In view of the limited nature of existing precedents concerning the enforcement activities undertaken under Chapter VII, suggestions and recommendations as to their future modalities should be thoroughly and carefully examined by the membership at large. Post-conflict peace-building is still an evolving idea to be carefully implemented in accordance with the needs and wishes of the parties concerned. Thorough attention should be given to the task of preventive peace-building, taking into account the overall mandate and resources of the United Nations system. My delegation believes that there is a need for greater communication and dialogue between the Security Council, the General Assembly and the Secretary-General in the field of international peace and security. In the light of Article 24, there is a need for enhanced transparency in the Council's deliberative and decision-making processes; a need for more effective consultations with United Nations Members who are not members of the Council; and a need for the Council to listen to the wider membership of the Organization. In this respect, the annual report submitted by the Security Council to the General Assembly pursuant to paragraph 3 of Article 24 is an important instrument, which should be made less formal, less opaque and more substantive. We welcome the trend to make the activities of the Secretariat more transparent and more accountable to all Member States. Early-warning information collected by the United Nations system should be made available promptly and systematically to the Member States concerned, as they are the parties most interested in prompt and appropriate action. On the subject of financing, the specific suggestions contained in "An Agenda for Peace" and in the report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization should be subjected to a thorough examination by the proper subsidiary organs of the General Assembly. The special scale of assessment for the financing of peace-keeping operations recognizes the special responsibilities of the permanent members of the Security Council and reflects the effective capacity of Member States to pay, which is not reflected as clearly as it should be in the regular budget. As was clearly stated in the Rio Group document of 28 May 1992: "Considerations of political and economic realism make the current financing system the only viable mechanism. It is therefore necessary to make the system predictable and stable by adopting permanently the current system of contributions for the financing of peace-keeping operations established under General Assembly resolution 3101 (XXVIII) and subsequent resolutions." (A/47/232, annex, para. 22) As crisis after crisis unfolds in this rapidly evolving world situation, new, and at times unprecedented. United Nations operations and missions are being promptly decided upon and set up and quickly dispatched to different areas of the world. Not all of these operations or missions can properly be called "peace-keeping" operations. The decisions on those operations and missions are difficult decisions that have in most cases been taken under the pressure of time and circumstances and on an ad hoc basis. The maintenance of international peace and security should be a shared endeavour of the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Secretariat, the relevant regional organizations and the States involved in specific situations. The complexities and diverse nature of crisis situations make it difficult, if not impossible, to have recourse to standardized mechanisms. Each crisis is unique. But it is clear that decisions must be based on the consistent and non-selective application of the provisions of the Charter. The General Assembly has yet to develop and adopt a clear set of guidelines for these operations, which have become a central aspect of the activity of our Organization. That is an important and urgent part of the task ahead of us in the days and weeks to come. Ultimately, the prestige and legitimacy of the United Nations role in the maintenance of international peace and security rests on the good governance of the Organization itself. That can be ensured in the functioning of the relevant organs by means of transparency, equity, representation, accountability and mutuality of benefits and obligations on a non-discriminatory basis. We must see to it that the functions and powers of each organ, as well as its composition, ensure efficiency and authority. In deepening our deliberations on the building of a new peace agenda, we should keep in mind the need to apply these parameters consistently in the institutional and functional restructuring of the relevant bodies of the United Nations.

Today we are considering two documents of fundamental importance to the United Nations and to its future: the report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization since his assumption of his office and the document entitled "An Agenda for Peace", submitted by the Secretary-General purusant to the request made to him by the Security Council at its meeting on 31 January 1992. We are particularly grateful to Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali for his initiative in making this second text available to the forty-seventh session of the General Assembly; it has already been receiving, because of its implications, the most careful attention of the whole international community, and not only of the small group of countries that requested its preparation. We also welcome the fact that a substantive debate is taking place this year on the now traditional General Assembly agenda item 10. We believe that a broad and in-depth discussion of the information furnished us by the Secretary-General from year to year with regard to the tasks undertaken by the United Nations and the Organization's prospects, as well as his own perception of the future, should become a sound practice of the General Assembly, and should not be held only when a specific text arouses our interest. While we shall try to refer so far as possible to both documents, which complement each other to a considerable degree, we will focus primarily on "Agenda for Peace", given its importance to the future role being planned for the United Nations. As we see it, a series of elements necessarily come together in any analysis of this document. If we disregard them we risk arriving at mistaken or incomplete conclusions, with all the consequences that that would entail for the development of truly democratic procedures within the Organization and for the preservation of its independence as the representative of the plurality of interests that coexist, and must continue to coexist, within it.

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The Nordic countries welcome the Secretary-General's report "An Agenda for Peace" (A/47/277). We have studied it with appreciation. The report (Mr. Hidalgo Basulto. Cuba) deals with crucial issues of principle and policy that merit a thorough discussion by the General Assembly, the Security Council and other relevant United Nations forums. In the document "Shaping the Peace: The United Nations in the 1990s" of 23 October 1991 (A/46/591), the Nordic countries have put forward proposals on possible elements for an integrated United Nations approach to peace-making, peace-keeping and, as a last resort, enforcement action. In a message to the Summit Meeting of the Security Council, "The Reykjavik Statement on the United Nations" of 22 January 1992 (S/23457, annex), we have further elaborated on how to improve the capability of the United Nations in these areas. Moreover, Nordic proposals have been presented in the Special Committee on Peace-keeping Operations and on other occasions. A strong United Nations is our best hope for coping with the conflicts emerging in the post-cold-war era. Ethnic conflicts, situations of grave implications in humanitarian terms, massive violations of human rights, threatening environmental disasters and economic and social injustices call for urgent action. Our foremost task must be to identify ways and means of dealing effectively with these challenges. "The end of the cold war has provided an unprecedented opportunity to strengthen the United Nations. In the new international climate of cooperation, the General Assembly can reaffirm its responsibility as an authoritative forum for discussion and action on international issues, and the Security Council has begun to fulfil more effectively its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. We welcome the strengthened role of the Security Council. It is important that the decisions of the Security Council enjoy wide support from Member States. This requires close cooperation between members of the Security Council and other Members of the United Nations. In the view of the Nordic countries, one of the messages in "An Agenda for Peace" can be found on the conceptual level. Building on an emerging international consensus and on the statement from the summit meeting of the Security Council, the Secretary-General introduces a broadened security concept. Security can no longer be seen only in a military perspective. Other sources of instability in the economic, social, humanitarian and ecological fields are increasingly considered threats to international peace and security. The Nordic countries endorse the Secretary-General's views in this regard. Lasting peace and security can be achieved when the necessary economic, social and environmental conditions are in place, when human rights are respected and the principles of democracy are applied. Post-conflict peace-building and long-term economic and social development can thus not be separated from security issues. As underlined in

Our discussion today is based on the report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization, document A/47/1 of 11 September 1992, and the report of the Secretary-General pursuant to the statement adopted by the summit meeting of the Security Council on 31 January 1992, document A/47/277 of 17 June 1992. I must congratulate the Secretary-General on both documents; both are constructive, forward-looking and action-oriented. I must congratulate those concerned on the innovative step of having the report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization discussed in plenary meeting. I hope this practice will continue in the future. The two reports reinforce each other and seek to promote the United Nations and its activities in a proactive light, taking on the challenges ahead. As a third-world country, a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and a member of the Group of 77, Malaysia obviously places considerable trust and expectation in the United Nations, even if we were not around in 1945 to be responsible for the manner of its inception. Having inherited a United Nations made very much in the image of a few specifically the victorious Powers we seek every opportunity now to effect change in the Organization. We believe that we have now reached such a moment, a point in time where reasonable hopes can be expected from changes in the United Nations. We realize that despite dramatic and qualitative developments affecting the Organization and the international scene, change within the United Nations and in relations among States conducted within the United Nations system cannot happen overnight; neither can it be revolutionary. Change will have to be a process conditioned by time and many other factors and, as the Secretary-General said in his report on the work of the Organization, it will be neither easy nor risk free. But one thing is certain: there must be change. We must not make any irreversible mistake that will make posterity condemn us for not taking advantage of a historic opportunity. The end of the cold war is generally accepted as having been a turning point in the affairs of the world: after 45 years, countries do not have to live under the shadow or threat of being vassals of one so-called super-Power or the other. We are now determined that there will never be a recurrence of the situation where the world is divided into two blocs and where that conflict subsumes all other important issues, such as the dire need for development in the South. Malaysia does not agree that it was communism that mired the world for 45 years; more accurately, it was the grand ambition of the super-Powers that made the entire globe the cockpit of its rivalry. There is a lot of ground to be made up after the neglect of those years. This is applicable to the United Nations itself as an organization. The report of the Secretary-General on the work of the^Organization clearly indicates the Secretary-General's readiness to undertake the necessary changes in the Organization. We wish the Secretary-General and his team well. At the same time, we urge that the widest consultations be attempted in the process.