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U.S. Department of State
95/09/25 Address at 50th Session of the UN General Assembly
Office of the Spokesman
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
(New York)
For Immediate Release September 25, 1995
ADDRESS BY
SECRETARY OF STATE WARREN CHRISTOPHER
TO THE 50th SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
September 25, 1995
Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, Excellencies, Distinguished
Guests: It is a privilege to speak to you today on behalf of the United
States. A half-century ago, the General Assembly first met in New York
-- across the river in a converted skating rink at Flushing Meadows. In
those modest surroundings, our predecessors began to put into place an
ambitious framework they hoped would keep the peace as successfully as
they had prosecuted the war.
In the years since, the United Nations has helped to bring peace,
prosperity and hope to countless people around the world. Technological
change has brought nations closer together than the UN's founders could
possibly have foreseen. The United Nations itself has been challenged
in unforeseen ways. It has had to manage complex humanitarian
emergencies, from civil wars to the mass movement of refugees to health
epidemics. This evolution has placed great strains on the organization,
and revealed the necessity for far-reaching change in how it is run.
The Clinton Administration has vigorously made the case to our
Congress and our people for continued American leadership at the UN.
The United States made a commitment to the UN Charter 50 years ago. We
are determined to keep our commitment, including our financial
obligations.
We will always remember that for millions of people around
the world, the UN is far from a faceless institution: It is, as Harry
Truman once said, "a case of food or a box of school books; it is a
doctor who vaccinates their children; it is an expert who shows them how
to raise more rice, or more wheat." To millions more, it is the
difference between peace and war.
Economic and social development, as well as protection of human
rights, remain central to the UN's mission. But the UN must change to
meet these needs more effectively. When money is wasted in New York,
Geneva, or Vienna, and when time is lost to bureaucratic inertia, the
people who pay the price are those most vulnerable to famine, disease
and violence.
It is time to recognize that the UN must direct its limited
resources to the world's highest priorities, focusing on the tasks that
it performs best. The UN's bureaucracy should be smaller, with a clear
organizational structure and sharp lines of responsibility. Each
program must be held to a simple standard -- that is, it must make a
tangible contribution to the freedom, security, and well-being of real
people in the real world.
In the last two years, under the leadership of Secretary-General
Boutros-Ghali, the groundwork for substantial change has been laid.
The UN has an office with the functions of an inspector general, and a
mandate to crack down on waste and fraud. Under-Secretary-General Joe
Connor has embarked on an aggressive campaign to improve the UN's
management culture, and we fully support his work. The UN Secretariat
has moved in the right direction by submitting a budget that begins to
restrain spending.
Now the momentum for reform must accelerate. Let me propose a
concrete agenda:
First, we must end UN programs that have achieved their purpose,
and consolidate programs that overlap, especially in the economic and
social agencies. The UN has more than a dozen organizations responsible
for development, emergency response, and statistical reporting. We
should consider establishing a single agency for each of these
functions. We should downsize the UN's regional economic commissions.
We should ensure that the functions of the UN Conference on Trade and
Development do not duplicate the new WTO. And we should adopt a
moratorium on big UN conferences once the present series is completed,
concentrating instead on meeting the commitments of those we have held.
Second, we need to streamline the UN Secretariat to make it more
efficient, accountable and transparent. Each part of the UN system
should be subject to the scrutiny of an inspector general. The UN must
not tolerate ethical or financial abuses and its managers should be
appointed and promoted on the basis of merit.
Third, we should rigorously scrutinize proposals for new and
extended peacekeeping missions, and we should improve the UN's ability
to respond rapidly when new missions are approved. We must agree on an
equitable scale of peacekeeping assessments that reflects today's
economic realities. And we should have a unified budget for
peacekeeping operations.
Finally, we must maintain the effectiveness of the Security
Council. Germany and Japan should become permanent members. We should
ensure that all the world's regions are fairly represented, without
making the Council unwieldy.
We welcome the formation of the high-level group on reform,
initiated under the leadership of outgoing General Assembly President
Essy. Our goal must be that a practical blueprint for UN reform will be
adopted before the General Assembly's 50th Session finishes work next
fall. The way forward is clear: We have already seen countless studies
and reports. The time has come to act on the best proposals.
As you know, in my country there have been serious efforts to
curtail our support for the United Nations. The Clinton Administration
believes it would be reckless to turn away from an organization that
helps mobilize the support of other nations for goals that are
consistent with American and global interests. But to sustain support
for the UN among the American people and the people of other nations, it
is not enough that we defend the institution. The best argument against
retreat is further reform. Tangible progress will help us win the
battle for UN support that we are waging in the United States.
The United Nations must emerge from the reform process better able
to meet its fundamental goals, including the preservation of peace and
security. From Korea, to the Persian Gulf, to Haiti, the UN has
provided a mandate to its members as they carried out this
responsibility. The UN's own blue helmets have helped nations create
the basic conditions of peace in some of the most difficult situations
imaginable, even though they have not always fully achieved their
intended purpose.
Recently, a young Haitian father was asked what peacekeeping forces
had achieved in his country. "We walk freely," he answered. "We sleep
quietly. There are no men who come for us in the night." In Haiti, as
for example in Cambodia, Mozambique and El Salvador, the UN has shown
that peacekeeping, for all of its limitations, has been an enormously
useful instrument.
One region where UN forces and the international community have
played a critical role is the Middle East. Another historic milestone
will be marked this Thursday in Washington when Israel and the
Palestinians sign their agreement to implement phase two of the
Declaration of Principles. That agreement will bring to life a goal
first set in the Camp David accords -- that is, to protect Israel's
security and to give Palestinians throughout the West Bank control over
their daily lives. The international community and the UN must continue
to support this process politically and economically.
Without a doubt, the UN has never undertaken a mission more
difficult than the one in the former Yugoslavia. The limitations of
that mission are well known. But we must also recognize that it has
provided relief for hundreds of thousands of people and saved thousands
of lives. Today, with diplomacy backed by force, the United States and
the international community are moving forward on a track that is
producing genuinely hopeful results. The United Nations and NATO are
working together effectively to bring peace to the region. On September
8 in Geneva, the parties to the conflict accepted the fundamental goal
the Security Council has often expressed -- namely, the continuation of
Bosnia-Herzegovina as a single state within its current internationally
recognized borders. When I meet with the foreign ministers of Bosnia,
Croatia, and Serbia later today, I will urge them to maintain momentum
toward peace and to establish constitutional structures for Bosnia.
The framers of the UN Charter created this institution to meet
threats to peace and security posed by aggression and armed conflict.
These threats are still very much with us. But the world also faces a
set of new security challenges, including proliferation, terrorism,
international crime and narcotics, as well as the far-reaching
consequences of damage to the environment. These have assumed a new and
dangerous scope in a more interdependent world. As President Clinton
said in San Francisco in June, the "new forces of integration carry
within them the seeds of disintegration and destruction."
While new technologies have brought us closer together, they have
also made it easier for terrorists, drug dealers, and other
international criminals to acquire weapons of mass destruction, to set
up cocaine cartels, and to hide their ill-gotten gains. The collapse of
communism has shattered dictatorships. But it has also left the
political and legal institutions of newly liberated nations even more
vulnerable to those who seek to subvert them.
Although these threats are sometimes sponsored by states, they
increasingly follow no flag. Each of us must vigorously fight these
enemies on our own. But we will never be truly secure until we
effectively fight them together. That is the new security challenge for
the global community. It must be the new security mission of the UN.
There is no area where the UN can make a more significant
contribution than in nonproliferation. Fifty years ago, the United
States was the only country capable of making a nuclear bomb. Today,
many countries have the technology that would enable them to turn a
fist-sized chunk of plutonium into a bomb as small as a suitcase. That
is one reason why more than 170 countries agreed to extend for all time
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty last May, at the conference chaired
here by Ambassador Dhanapala. We must build on that achievement.
First, we should have a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty ready for
signature by the time we meet here next year. As President Clinton
announced last month, the United States is committed to a true zero-
yield test ban. We urge other nations to join us in that commitment.
Second, we should immediately start negotiations on a Fissile
Material Cutoff Treaty. Those who have been most vocal in calling for
nuclear disarmament should recognize that it is essential to ban future
production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Third, we should push forward with the historic reductions of the
nuclear arsenals of the United States and the countries of the former
Soviet Union. I call on the U.S. Senate, as well as the Russian Duma,
to approve the START II Treaty so that we can lock in deep cuts in our
strategic nuclear arsenals. In addition, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin
are working together to ensure the safety, transparency and
irreversibility of nuclear arms reductions.
As part of this process, President Yeltsin will host a Nuclear
Safety and Security Summit in Moscow next spring. The Summit should
have an ambitious agenda, including a declaration of principles on
nuclear reactor safety. We look to the summit to address the worldwide
problem of nuclear waste management, including ocean dumping. The
Summit should also promote a plan of action to safeguard nuclear
materials. That plan should include new measures to prevent criminals
and terrorists from acquiring nuclear material for use in weapons.
Finally, we should push for the earliest possible entry-into- force
of the Chemical Weapons Convention. President Clinton has urged the
U.S. Senate to act promptly on its ratification, and to stop holding it
and the START II treaty hostage to unrelated issues. The world has
witnessed the effect of poison gas too many times in this century -- on
European battlefields during World War I, in Ethiopia and Manchuria
during the 1930s, and against Iranian soldiers and innocent Kurdish
civilians in the 1980s. The Chemical Weapons Convention will make every
nation safer, and we need it now.
The UN is also playing an invaluable role in focusing attention on
pressing regional proliferation problems. In Iraq, UNSCOM and its
chairman Rolf Ekeus continue to uncover horrific details about Saddam
Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq developed a deadly biological weapons
capacity hidden from view. It was conducting research to turn some of
the most toxic substances known to man into weapons of war. We know
Saddam succeeded in putting anthrax and botulism in bombs and missile
warheads. In December 1990, he deployed these with every intent of
using them against the international coalition and innocent civilians.
He was dissuaded only by the steadfast determination of the United
States and the international community.
In light of what Ambassador Ekeus has uncovered, we can only
conclude that for the last four and a half years Saddam Hussein has lied
about the full scope of Iraq's weapons programs. There should be no
easing of the sanctions regime until the Iraqi government complies with
all the demands of the Security Council and demonstrates that it has
changed its ways.
The UN should also promote responsibility and restraint in the
transfer of conventional weapons. Last year at the General Assembly,
President Clinton proposed, and the Assembly approved, the eventual
elimination of antipersonnel landmines. On my recent trip to Cambodia,
I saw the terrible damage these hidden killers can do. This year, we
will again call on other countries to join us in ending the export of
landmines.
Two years ago, President Clinton called on the international
community to devise a true international system that governs transfers
of conventional weapons and sensitive dual-use technologies. I am
pleased that the Russian Federation has joined with the United States
and 26 other countries to agree on common principles to control the
build-up of dangerous conventional arms. We hope to activate this
global regime, called the New Forum, by the end of this year.
The proliferation of weapons has added a disturbing dimension to
another threat we all face: international terrorism. Indeed, this
year's sarin gas attack in Tokyo is a grim warning of what can happen
when terrorists acquire weapons of mass destruction.
More nations are joining the fight against those individuals and
groups who attack civilians for political ends. The United Nations has
supported this effort in important ways. The UN Security Council
recognized the importance of countering state-sponsored terrorism by
imposing sanctions against Libya for the bombing of Pan Am 103 and UTA
772.
Terrorists should be treated as criminals and there must be no
place where they can hide from the consequences of their acts. States
that sponsor terrorists should feel the full weight of sanctions that
can be imposed by the international community. Let us not deceive
ourselves: Every dollar that goes into the government coffers of a
state sponsor of terrorism such as Iran helps pay for a terrorist's
bullets or bombs. Iran's role as the foremost state sponsor of
terrorism makes its secret quest for weapons of mass destruction even
more alarming. We must stand together to prevent Iran from acquiring
such threatening capabilities.
The United States has taken a leading role in meeting the
international terrorist threat. We have intensified our sanctions
against Iran. Last January, President Clinton also issued an Executive
Order prohibiting financial transactions with terrorist groups and
individuals who threaten the Middle East peace process. We are urging
our Congress to tighten our immigration and criminal laws to keep
terrorists on the run or put them behind bars.
The United States strongly supports the counter-terrorism measures
the G-7 and Russia announced at the Halifax Summit, and we expect the P-
8 Ministerial Meeting on Terrorism in Ottawa to produce a concrete
action plan to implement these measures.
Other kinds of international crime also threaten the safety of our
citizens and the fabric of our societies. And globalization brings new
and frightening dimensions to crime. The threat of crime is a
particular menace to young democracies. It weakens confidence in
institutions, preys on the most vulnerable, and undermines free market
reform.
Of course, every country must take its own measures to combat these
threats. The Clinton Administration is now completing a review of our
approach to transnational crime that will lead to a stronger, more
coordinated attack on this problem.
To help other states deal with criminal threats, the United States
and Hungary have created the International Law Enforcement Academy in
Budapest to train police officers and law enforcement officials from
Central Europe and the states of the former Soviet Union. We are
providing similar help bilaterally and through the UN Drug Control
Program to countries whose laws are challenged by drug cartels.
A particularly insidious form of crime and corruption is money
laundering. All nations should implement recommendations by the OECD to
attack money laundering. The nations of this hemisphere should also
advance the anti-money laundering initiative introduced at last
December's Summit of the Americas. Together, we must squeeze the dirty
money out of our global financial system.
Through the UN's conventions on drugs and crime, the international
community has set strong standards that we must now enforce. We call on
UN member states who have not already joined the 1988 UN Drug Convention
to do so. Those countries who have approved the convention should move
quickly to implement its key provisions.
We are increasingly aware that damage to the environment and
unsustainable population growth threaten the security of our nations and
the well-being of our peoples. Their harmful effects are evident in
famines, infant mortality rates, refugee crises, and ozone depletion.
In places like Rwanda and Somalia, they contribute to civil wars and
emergencies that can only be resolved by costly international
intervention. We must carry out the commitments we made at last year's
Cairo Conference, and the Rio Conference three years ago.
Never have our problems been more complex. It has never been more
evident that these problems affect all nations, developed and
developing, alike. Only by working together can we effectively deal
with the new threats we all face.
That is why, on this 50th anniversary year, we must shape the UN's
agenda as if we were creating the institution anew. Just as the UN's
founders devised a new framework to deter aggression and armed conflict,
the United Nations, in particular the Security Council, must now assign
the same priority to combating the threat posed by proliferation,
terrorism, international crime, narcotics, and environmental pollution.
We should dedicate our efforts in the UN and elsewhere to turning our
global consensus against these threats into concrete action. We must
renew and reform the United Nations not for its sake, but for our own.
Thank you very much.
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