RECEIVING KORYO UNIVERSITY HONOURARY DOCTORATE, SECRETARY-GENERAL DISCUSSES INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, HUMAN RIGHTS, UN REFORM
Press Release
SG/SM/5945
RECEIVING KORYO UNIVERSITY HONOURARY DOCTORATE, SECRETARY-GENERAL DISCUSSES INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, HUMAN RIGHTS, UN REFORM
19960401 Following is the text of a statement made by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali upon receiving an honourary doctorate from Koryo University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, on 1 April:The honour you bestow on me -- and through me, the office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations -- fills me with great pride. And, as a university man myself, I am all the more honoured and all the more delighted to be here, in this celebrated seat of learning, and among distinguished colleagues and dear friends.
Koryo University is, after all, the alma mater of your Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Park Soo Gil. I am glad to see him here today. Another distinguished alumnus, Mr. Samuel Koo -- a senior member of my Secretariat staff -- is also with us today.
Your former Foreign Minister, Dr. Han, returned here to teach and to reflect after a distinguished career on the international scene. The research and teaching carried out by the Ilmin Institute of International Affairs, under his direction, will contribute greatly to international understanding.
Such intellectual endeavour is absolutely essential today, for international relations are undergoing a profound transformation. An old order has given way. A new order has yet to be built. The question is not only how we build for the future, but also whether we have the wisdom to work together to do so.
Today, I wish to discuss with you, as both a scholar and a diplomat, four major issues on the international agenda: international security; prosperity and development; human dignity and human rights; and the reform of the United Nations.
The topics all reflect aspects of the work of the United Nations. But there is another link, a guiding line to this reflection on the challenges before the international community. This is the realization that the world has changed so rapidly, so drastically, that we cannot continue with the old formulas that have guided international relations. There will be hard
decisions to take. We need the wisdom of scholars to understand the required changes. We need the skill of diplomats to ensure that these changes reflect, to the extent possible, the interests and priorities of the peoples and countries of the world.
In the past few years, the concept of international security has changed. From a bipolar view mainly concerned with strategic nuclear weapons, international security has become much more complex. Strategic nuclear arms remain an issue, but far from the only issue with which we must contend. The end of the cold war and the spread of technology have led to the multiplicity of nuclear arsenals, and to the increase in the number of nuclear-weapon States.
At another level, the world will have to contend with as many as two hundred million land-mines. This is a growing issue of global proportions. Land-mines have become weapons of terror. They are used by rebel groups, not to hamper the movement of armies, but to harm the civilian population, to disrupt normal life and to obstruct development. I have called for a halt to the international trade in land-mines and their component parts. Stopping the trade in and, eventually, the production of land-mines will be a crucial challenge for international security in the period ahead. And in parallel, the world must devise more efficient ways of mine clearance to rid humanity of this hideous, hidden enemy. You are familiar with this problem. And when peace is achieved in the Korean Peninsula, the anti-personnel mines that have divided your homeland can be eradicated forever.
Yet another critical test for international security is the proliferation of light arms and ammunition. With the recent spread of civil conflicts, vast quantities of small arms have become readily available in many countries of the world. I have called for a register of small arms to try to limit their traffic. But frontiers are porous and incentives to this type of traffic are high. They have become the spark for many deadly civilian confrontations. As in the case of land-mines, the task for the future must be to work towards a severe restriction on international trade and, eventually, on the production of key categories of small arms.
And more States need to ratify the Convention on Chemical Weapons and to help create a verification regime for the Convention on Bacteriological Weapons. We must work together, through the instruments of international law, to ensure that States do not have the capacity to produce these terrible weapons of mass destruction.
These are some of the specific decisions that must be made for international peace and security. There is also a larger, more philosophical decision to be made. For most of the past century, international cooperation has increased. Collective security, international law, international institutions and international agreements have been supported and advanced.
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Today, we stand at a turning point. Progress is not inevitable. Nations must decide. The world can return to balance-of-power politics and repeated confrontation -- or it can choose to carry on with the great modern project of international cooperative interaction.
The correct choice should be clear. Without international cooperation, the world will become a more dangerous place. A world of arms races, of unilateral interventions. Of security barriers between peoples, raising suspicions and tensions. A world marked by terror and threat.
So yes, the choice is -- or should be -- clear. The United Nations can be the focus of international cooperation for peace and security. But the United Nations is the instrument of its Member States. To the extent that Member States cooperate in making the United Nations an instrument of international conciliation and international security, the world will be a far more stable and secure place. In the efforts towards reunification of the Korean Peninsula, the United Nations can play, and will play, the role of the conciliator, mediator, or good officer, but this requires the agreement of the two sides.
The world faces a similar challenge if it is to achieve prosperity and development. Prosperity must be sustainable. Prosperity can no longer be seen as an objective to be reached once and for all, but rather as a continuing process. True prosperity has to be sustainable in the long term. This has been recognized with regard to the environmental dimension of development since the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro. Efforts to put the decisions reached at Rio into practice will require new levels of international cooperation.
Environmental sustainability must be a global effort. A set of policies commonly held by all nations will be required in order to achieve a global strategy. Countries cannot be expected to act alone to husband their forests or maintain the delicate balance in water use at the expense of their growth. More research is needed on concepts of sustainability. These include the "polluter pays" principle, and solidarity funds to ensure sustainable environmental policies at the international level.
Prosperity must be common. In the 50 years since the creation of the United Nations, some societies have reached the highest levels of prosperity, in terms of per capita income, in the history of humanity. Production and consumption patterns have reflected this growing prosperity. On the other hand, many nations, most visibly the majority of the African continent, remain below the humanly acceptable threshold of hunger, of malnutrition, absolute poverty, rampant disease, and pervasive illiteracy. We cannot tolerate two worlds: rich societies, and societies living on the brink of survival.
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This stark contrast in living standards has two dimensions: one, it negates our values and ethical standards about human solidarity; and two, it has practical implications that are detrimental to continued global growth. Increasing prosperity in what are now the poorest societies would increase the amount and quality of production. It would also increase the market potential for all economies. This could provide an enormous impetus to global development in general.
The consequences of imbalanced development can also be political. This is evident, for example, from the negative reaction to recent trends on labour migration. Much is at stake, therefore, in achieving common and balanced prosperity across our planet. By its very nature, this must be an international endeavour.
And prosperity must be global. Increasingly, financial and information transactions take place without regard for national frontiers. While these global events largely escape the control of individual States, they affect them and their citizens directly. Global transactions affecting the lives of millions are undertaken by people with no accountability to an electorate. The ease with which finances are transferred in real time, for example, has reduced the scope of governmental monetary policy. And by escaping national controls, financial transactions have become ideal spots for a host of illegal activities, from arms transfers to the laundering of illicit narcotics trade profits.
The topic of prosperity, thus, assumes, in all its dimensions, an international cooperative perspective. In the coming 50 years, the global management of prosperity will become essential, not only to achieve common goals, but also to preserve the sovereignty of States.
The United Nations is the instrument of States. It is the forum where States meet, debate policies and develop strategies. The reinforcement of this universal mechanism will be key to the achievement of a common global prosperity, respectful of the environment and of future generations.
The Charter of the United Nations, in its Preamble, reaffirms "faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and rights of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small". As we reaffirm this principle, there is a need to adapt our working methods for the promotion of human dignity to the challenges of the next 50 years.
In the coming half-century, the defence and promotion of human dignity will be undertaken at three levels: the civil society level, the national level and the international level.
At the civil society level, we must take note of the proliferation of non-governmental organizations and grass-roots movements working for the
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preservation of human dignity in all its manifestations. The emergence of these groups as actors on the international scene, sometimes narrowly focused, sometimes with a broad mandate, is a new global phenomenon. They have become an increasingly important factor in the series of major global conferences held under the auspices of the United Nations.
These non-governmental organizations defend the dignity of marginalized social groups, of particular ethnic groups, of indigenous peoples, of women, of children, of the disabled, of the followers of specific religions, and indeed of groups dealing with virtually every area of human concern. Their diversity is a source of vitality for international dialogue. Yet, it can also be an impediment to the formation of common policies.
The modern State, by definition, represents the interests of all members of society. In theory, it does not distinguish among its citizens. All are entitled to respect for their fundamental dignity. There is a growing need, therefore, to reconcile the drive to uphold general principles of human dignity with the defence of the dignity and rights of particular groups. Sometimes, non-governmental organizations defend a universal conception of human dignity, only to be confronted by appeals to national particularism. There is scope, and indeed a necessity, for arbitration.
The United Nations is well-placed to play such a mediating role. The United Nations is, at one and the same time, the Organization of States, and the Organization of peoples. It must accept the particular specificities of different societies, while promoting universal concepts of human dignity and human rights. This balance was achieved at the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights in 1993.
Indeed, the issue of the universal and the particular, of relations between States and non-governmental organizations, must be confronted and reconciled during the preparatory stages of every international conference. This has proved to be a key benefit of international conferences. Non- governmental organizations and State representatives have been able to meet, to discuss issues of human dignity, and to reach basic understanding on common concerns and approaches.
The next stage is to follow up such understandings with policies set at the State level, with non-governmental organizations helping to implement these policies at the national level, and with the United Nations acting to promote human dignity in all its manifestations through technical assistance and operational programmes.
The role of the High Commissioners for Human Rights and for Refugees, and of Special Rapporteurs, are highly important in bridging the gap between international perceptions and national realities, between the State and the non-governmental organizations, and between the needs of human dignity in the
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general and in the particular sense. In all these areas, there will be a need for an enhanced United Nations role during the next 50 years.
The evolution of the United Nations role over the coming half-century raises questions of structure. The United Nations cannot fulfil its potential without reform of its administrative machinery on the one hand, and of its intergovernmental organs on the other. I have dedicated a great deal of my time to the reform of the United Nations' administration. Such reform is not a fixed process. On the contrary, for reform efforts to succeed, they must become a constant feature of the Organization. The United Nations must constantly adapt to the changing requirements of its Member States, to conform with the mandates given to it, and to keep pace with the changing times. Reform is the continuing responsibility of Secretariat management.
Beyond this general principle lies the reality that the United Nations is a political institution. This means that reform efforts are affected and often hampered by the effects of domestic politics within certain Member States, and by the political give-and-take between demands for cost-cutting and demands for added services from the United Nations.
The United Nations is staffed by an international civil service of long- standing and significant value. It is, like any civil service, composed of human beings requiring a certain degree of stability and security. The necessity to close down certain programmes, for instance, anti-apartheid, for which there is no continuing need, requires either transferring staff to other departments for which they may not always have the necessary training, or reducing the size of the staff overall. Either course of action itself requires financial resources which are not available in the present cash crisis of the United Nations.
I see the United Nations of the future as composed of a two-level international civil service. First, there must be a small core group in the Secretariat representing the institutional memory of the Organization and bringing continuity to its work. At a second level would be those employed on a temporary basis, according to the skills and specializations required. Such a system would provide both continuity and adaptability to the Organization.
This new international civil service must be of the highest quality and commitment. But the rates of remuneration at the United Nations have fallen far short of those for national civil services, and are, of course, even more out of line with salaries in the private sector. With more demanded of the new international civil service, there must be a concomitant adjustment to rates of compensation.
Finally, the flexibility to deploy staff from one part of the Organization to another, in response to rapid changes in the world environment, would seem to be an obvious remedy to staffing imbalances.
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Yet, as Secretary-General, I do not have this flexibility. This is an example of the impact of political factors on the effort to achieve good management in the United Nations.
Last January, the Republic of Korea's representative to the working group on reform of the United Nations stated: "My delegation would like to stress the need to secure a professional, merit-based recruitment process in which political considerations are not allowed to impede the efficient management of the United Nations." I fully support this declaration, and make it mine.
There is as well the question of internal restructuring. Fifty years of history have played their part in defining the architecture of the United Nations, its programmes and funds. There has, thus, emerged a certain amount of overlap and duplication -- although far less than the critics claim. And in some cases, overlap has a positive effect on coordination and the capacity to react to crisis.
Since entering office, I have engaged in a process of restructuring the Secretariat by grouping similar activities in clusters, defined by function. In the coming year, I intend to carry this effort forward to eliminate unnecessary duplication, and to further strengthen coordination. This phase of restructuring will be aimed at rationalizing the multiplicity of separate programmes and funds in the economic, social and humanitarian sectors. This is a necessary step, and will involve in-depth changes in the architecture of the United Nations.
It is impossible, however, to consider reform and restructuring of the United Nations, without considering the changing role of intergovernmental organs. The General Assembly, the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council have evolved along different paths. This will be a highly important matter for Member States to consider if the restructuring of the United Nations is to be ultimately successful. In this regard, I would note that, since the accession of the last Trust Territory, Palau, to United Nations membership, I have been calling for the abolition of the Trusteeship Council. My calls have not been heeded. Again, this is a matter for Member States to decide.
The United Nations is at a turning point in its history. The decisions to be taken by Member States are no less critical than the decision, as the Second World War reached its final phase, to create the world Organization. The issue is whether the world will drift towards the dangerous anarchy of spheres of influence and unchecked confrontation or towards greater multilateral cooperation; whether the new opportunity for common and sustainable global prosperity will be grasped; whether human dignity will be protected and human rights advanced; and whether the United Nations will thrive as the only universal instrument of all States and all peoples.
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The issue is far greater than the survival of the United Nations, or its adequate funding. It concerns the world as we want it to be for the next 50 years, and for generations still beyond.
History is without pity to those who cannot recognize its trends and influence them. I pray that the nations of the world have the wisdom to choose wisely.
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