GLOBAL ISSUES -- ENVIRONMENT, AIDS, HUMAN RIGHTS -- NEED GLOBAL INSTITUTIONS, SAYS DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL IN TALK TO COSMOPOLITAN CLUB
Press Release
DSG/SM/37
GLOBAL ISSUES -- ENVIRONMENT, AIDS, HUMAN RIGHTS -- NEED GLOBAL INSTITUTIONS, SAYS DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL IN TALK TO COSMOPOLITAN CLUB
19981202 Following is the text of the statement delivered by Deputy Secretary- General Louise Fréchette to the Cosmopolitan Club in New York, on 2 December:Let me say how pleased I am to be here tonight among so many fellow cosmopolitans. In asking me to give you the United Nations perspective on global concerns, your club has certainly lived up to its name. In this day and age, when there is so much alarm at the lack of public interest in international issues, the commitment of people like you is a source of inspiration and encouragement indeed.
To most people, the mention of the United Nations brings to mind issues of peace and security in the conventional sense. In this and other countries of the Western world, people may think first and foremost of the Security Council and the issues before it. Certainly, the Council grapples at all times with a full and vital agenda. The problems it deals with -- whether they be Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, to name but a few current ones -- are never out of the headlines for very long.
But, the fact is that in the majority of United Nations Member States, it is probably the issues before the Economic and Social Council that have the greatest day-to-day impact on the greatest number of people. These, too -- no less than the traditional questions of war and peace -- are issues of security. They are about what we call human security.
The United Nations was founded more than 50 years ago to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in the first half of this century brought untold sorrow to humankind. But, even in 1945, our founders recognized the need to fight on two fronts to win the battle for enduring peace: on the security front, where victory spells freedom from fear; and on the economic and social front, where victory spells freedom from want.
In today's world, that responsibility carries with it ever wider implications. Most of what characterizes our world on the eve of the twenty- first century can be summed up under one rubric: globalization. Open borders, rapid transportation and above all instant communications mean that there are few things that happen at one end of the earth that are not felt at the other.
At the very least, they call on our human conscience. Often, whether directly or indirectly, they also affect our lives. By the very nature of their global reach, many of these issues need to be addressed at the global, as well as regional, national and local levels. And for global action, you need global institutions.
Consider an issue perhaps more easily understood as global than any other: the environment. When we speak about environmental issues today, we are talking about most of the key issues on the international agenda -- about the way we live, sustainably or unsustainably. About poverty and inequality. And about peace and security, since the roots of conflict can often be found in competition for land, oil and water.
We are also talking about democracy -- the involvement of men and women in decisions affecting their lives. And we are talking, not least, about shared values and goals, in particular the goal of seeing that the benefits of economic growth and development are shared not only among countries, but among generations as well. Safeguarding the environment is, in short, a quintessentially global challenge, meaning that the United Nations, as the global organization, must continue to play a strong and well-defined role.
For more than 25 years, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been in the forefront of that effort, reporting on the state of the world's forests, oceans and atmosphere, cataloguing the fragility of the ozone layer and freshwater resources, forging a response to these and other crises. We face a major challenge in the areas of climate change and biodiversity. The loss of species persists and greenhouse gases are still being emitted at higher levels than internationally agreed targets.
We will only make true headway on this pressing issue when nations work together. A few weeks ago, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change met in Buenos Aires and adopted a two-year plan of action to combat the serious problem of global warming. The delegates agreed to a political timetable to help finalize the outstanding details of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol for the reduction of greenhouse gases. They agreed to provide technological transfers and financial credits to assist developing countries meet emission reduction targets.
As you know, this past year was the warmest ever on record. Nations need to act in order to reverse this alarming trend. It is gratifying that the United States, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has become the sixtieth country to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol. But, we must not rest on our laurels. What is important is that the Protocol should be ratified and, above all, implemented.
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As the international community continues to address a full and complex agenda of global environmental concerns, I have no doubt that UNEP -- the environmental conscience of the United Nations system -- will remain an invaluable player and a dynamic force for change.
Only last week, a report issued by another part of the United Nations system painted a more horrific picture. So horrific, you may have seen it cited on the television news. It was the new report from UNAIDS. Some people may fondly imagine that because better medicines have been found, the AIDS emergency is over. The facts tell us otherwise. There is still no cure. The advance of HIV, the report tells us, has not been stopped in any country. Even in the industrialized world, around 75,000 people were infected last year.
By the end of this month, the number of adults and children living with HIV will exceed 33 million -- 10 per cent more than a year ago. AIDS has already taken 14 million lives. At least 95 per cent of all infections and deaths occur in the developing world, where the costly new medicines that can help prolong lives are scarcely available or affordable.
So the truth is that AIDS is still an emerging epidemic -- one that is killing more people every year than malaria. Because the victims are mostly young adults, who would otherwise be raising families and supporting the economy, the repercussions are reaching crisis level. Nowhere is this truer than in sub-Saharan Africa, where 34 million people have been infected and 11.5 million have died since the epidemic began.
This tidal wave risks wiping out the hard-won gains of poorer nations. In Botswana, a child born early next decade can expect to live just past 40 -- instead of to age 70 in the absence of AIDS. Zimbabwe estimates that by the year 2005, it will have more than 900,000 children under the age of 15 who have lost their mothers to AIDS. A major company in Tanzania says its costs due to AIDS exceeded its total profits for the year.
It is clear from all this that AIDS has become far more than a health crisis. That is why UNAIDS -- the Joint United Nations programme on HIV/AIDS -- brings together six co-sponsors from different parts of the United Nations family, with mandates ranging from health to development, in a cohesive and broad-based partnership against the epidemic. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank work together and with the UNAIDS secretariat to ensure countries get the benefit of their joint expertise and support.
The small UNAIDS secretariat in Geneva works with and on behalf of its co-sponsoring agencies to raise awareness of AIDS as a major development
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threat, to monitor the global epidemic and track the response to it. It brokers new forms of partnership with governments and civil society, including the business sector and people living with AIDS. It works to identify and disseminate "best practice" -- the valuable lessons learned over the past decade and a half about how to care for those infected, how to support orphans and other survivors and how to stem the tide of new infections.
The UNAIDS also works in partnership with governments through its six co-sponsors in developing countries and economies in transition to help bolster national responses to the epidemic. Local country representatives of the co-sponsors plan and carry out prevention and care programmes drawing on lessons learned elsewhere.
Human rights is another issue of global concern. Next week, we all have a milestone to celebrate: the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As you know, we owe the very existence of this document to your countrywoman, Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the pioneers of the United Nations, who had the vision to understand that peace in the truest sense is far more than the absence of conflict.
The Declaration of Human Rights is not a legally binding document. Yet, it has been a fundamental source of inspiration for national and international efforts to protect and promote human rights and freedoms. The main principles of the Declaration have inspired the constitutions of many countries which have become independent since it was written.
The first article of the Declaration is quite simple. Let me quote it to you. "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." Conceived as a "common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations", the Declaration has become a yardstick by which to measure the respect for, and compliance with, international human rights standards.
The anniversary provides us with a focus to redouble our commitment to working towards putting those rights in practice everywhere. But, the United Nations did not wait until this year to designate human rights as the cross-cutting theme of all our activities. We did so because bitter practical experience has taught us that human rights are an issue of international concern.
Wherever human rights violations occur on a large scale, not far behind come problems -- the most immediate and the most acute being the flow of refugees -- which the international community is forced to address, often at enormous cost. So human rights work is an essential ingredient of serious conflict prevention. As we have come to understand this better, so the nature
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of our human rights work has evolved. It is no longer simply a matter of shining a spotlight on the unsavoury domestic practices of a select few regimes.
Instead, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, seeks wherever possible to work with governments, and always to work with civil society, in countries with serious human rights problems. Her recent visit to China -- controversial, but in the end constructive and promising -- was a well publicized example. But, her Office is also providing lower-profile technical assistance in no fewer than 58 countries -- including the vital work of training in the administration of justice and law enforcement, so that lawmakers and law enforcement officers develop and enhance their role as human rights defenders.
Again, the work brings in many different parts of the United Nations family. The Electoral Assistance Division, located within the Department of Political Affairs at United Nations Headquarters in New York, and the UNDP provide technical support to countries seeking to hold free and fair elections. We also help countries reform their judiciary system and train their police forces. The environment, AIDS, human rights -- these are just a few examples of global issues which no nation, no matter how powerful, can deal with alone. They can only be addressed multilaterally, by the United Nations and by other international institutions. But, they must be understood by people everywhere, because we cannot work alone either -- we need the will and support of the people to succeed.
Increasingly essential to the success of all these endeavours, and of any we undertake in the United Nations system, is our growing partnership with civil society. Non-governmental organizations, like us, have been key participants in the great post-war project of international cooperation for the common good.
In the past few years, our partnership with civil society has evolved beyond all recognition. Non-governmental organizations have to a significant extent shaped the agenda and the outcome of world conferences on such vital issues as human rights, the environment, population, women and poverty. The result is a far-reaching blueprint for action on the major challenges of our day.
The Nobel-prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines helped turn a growing awareness by ordinary people into a grass-roots movement of conviction and then into a truly global cause. And, it made governments acknowledge that the cost of landmines far outweighed the need to use them. How did they do it? One thousand non-governmental organizations in 60 countries were linked together by weapons that would ultimately prove more powerful than the landmine: e-mail.
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With those same weapons, non-governmental organizations helped make 1998 the year of the International Criminal Court. More than 200 non-governmental organizations took part in that process, an unprecedented level of participation by civil society in a law-making conference. And so, just as the forces of globalization are bringing new challenges, they are also providing us with tools -- modern communications -- that enable positive action for global change.
In the world I have been trying to describe to you, we clearly all need to think beyond national boundaries and narrow confines. Groups such as yours can play a valuable part in raising awareness about the issues that affect us all. And so, on behalf of the United Nations, I thank you again for your interest. I hope this evening will have helped you to make every mind you come across that bit more cosmopolitan.
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