The elections held in South Africa in April and the inauguration of Mr. Nelson Mandela as State President on 10 May 1994 represented a historic turning point, not only for South Africans but for the world. A system of government based on racial tyranny and oppression surrendered power to a Governmen…
The Assembly has before it today a brief report by the Preparatory Committee for
In introducing the report, however, I would like, as Chairman, to express my gratitude to the many delegations that have worked hard on producing the draft resolution that appears in the addendum to the report. That dr…
I have the honour to address the Assembly today in my capacity as Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations.
I can be brief in introducing the draft resolution, the text of which is found in document A/48/L.51. The draft resolution has been the subject…
The Australian Government remains deeply concerned at the appalling situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We condemn the continued attacks on Sarajevo and the fighting in other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which are still causing death and injury and
The Australian Government continues to call o…
The report of the Secretary- General before us today is a reminder that, in the five years since the Assembly gathered to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we have not been idle in further elaborating and codifying the principles enshr…
This is a very important debate. It is a product of the fact that the United Nations is in transit. We have a "new world" on our hands, but it is not yet an "order". Since the cold war ended, four years ago, the United Nations has embarked on more new peace- keeping, peacemaking, peace-enforcing and…
It is a sad reality that the global need for humanitarian emergency assistance is more urgent today than it has ever been.
During 1993 the number of people affected by new and ongoing emergencies was more than 58.6 million. That figure includes 18 million people who faced the threat of starvation i…
Australia supports what we see as the major objective of the Papua New Guinea economic initiative, which is to mobilize untapped domestic resources and create economic opportunities for local people. The need to improve economic opportunities for, and the participation of, people in developing count…
It is a sorry fact that in the last decade of the twentieth century virtually all nations are threatened by the use of and trade in illicit narcotic drugs. This threatens the lives of human beings, the fabric of societies and, in some cases, the very security of the State itself. We are all affected…
We are witnessing profound changes in the
international arena. The ending of the cold war and the transition from
super-Power rivalry to new degrees of cooperation have fundamentally altered
the world in which we live.
In the Middle East, the new environment of international rapprochement
has e…
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 t…
Atomic energy pre- sents possibly the greatest challenge humankind has ever faced. The peaceful use of atomic energy has within it the capacity to solve many ofthe fundamen- tal problems faced ~y humankind. I am speaki~g. of its capacity to provIde the decent standard of IIvmg so dearly sou~t by all…
