| Date | 31 October 2002 |
|---|---|
| Started | 10:00 |
| Ended | 13:10 |
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Agenda item 52 (continued)
Strengthening of the United Nations system
Report of the Secretary-General (A/57/387 and Corr.1)
Mr. Nikolov (The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia)
I am making this statement on behalf of my Permanent Representative, who is unable to present at this morning's meeting.
In the Millennium Declaration, the United Nations provided the world with a vision for the new century. That vision was linked to measurable targets that included precise and time-bound goals. In addition, the Secretary-General produced a road map (A/56/326) of the steps needed to reach the Millennium Development Goals.
Together with the definition of new development goals, the reform of peace operations, the enhancing of coherence and the building of new partnerships, the road map is among the new features of the United Nations, an Organization willing and able to deal with the requirements and the challenges of the new millennium.
However, strengthening the United Nations cannot be completely achieved without two basic preconditions: creating an agenda focused on the essential issues of the globe and reforming the main United Nations bodies. We have succeeded in creating an appropriate agenda. The programme of work of the Organization, as envisaged in the Secretary-General's report to the General Assembly (A/57/387), including strengthening human rights and enhancing public information, deserves our full support.
The United Nations has also made remarkable achievements in strengthening its capacity to fight terrorism and in two crucial areas -- financing for development and sustainable development. On the other hand, if our agenda has an Achilles heel, then it must be identified, along with the shortcomings of and delays in reforming the main United Nations bodies.
By placing this issue as a very high priority on the agenda of the fifty-seventh session of the General Assembly, Mr. President, you have not only met our expectations, but have also provided an opportunity to regain momentum in reforming both the General Assembly and the Security Council. In order for this process to be successful, full compliance by Member States is necessary, as is the work of the Open-ended Working Group on the reform of the Security Council and the work of the facilitators for the open-ended consultations on the revitalization of the work of the General Assembly.
It is imperative to recognize during deliberations on strengthening the United Nations that this issue transcends the national interests of each individual Member State. If we want the United Nations to be a more meaningful, powerful and effective organization in the era of globalization, it must not be reduced to a mere sum of national interests. That should be taken as the point of departure of our intention to reform the United Nations system. We should be guided by the fact that a complete reform of the United Nations cannot be accomplished without the simultaneous enlargement of the Security Council, revitalization of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council and strengthening of the management and administration of the United Nations.
Regarding the overall goal, we should seek full emancipation of the United Nations as a multilateral institution, with a General Assembly that is not only revitalized, but also capable of utilizing its full capacity; with a Security Council that is truly representative of the United Nations membership; and with a streamlined Secretariat that is responsive to the needs and interests of all Member States.
In short, what Raymond Aaron has defined as the germ of a universal consciousness should become the main ingredient in deepening the reform process of the United Nations.
According to the Charter, the organizational architecture of the United Nations is based on three pillars -- the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Secretariat -- whose equal importance must be emphasized. Contrary to that, however, the General Assembly is increasingly viewed as the weakest pillar of the three. Its main problem seems to stem from what might be defined as inertia that cannot be ended, despite the fact that, since the forty-sixth session of the General Assembly, many resolutions on revitalization have been adopted.
The signal is more than clear. In order to revitalize the General Assembly, we must find ways and means of reshaping and restructuring its agenda, working methods and procedural matters. The General Assembly must not exercise its function as a seasonal body. The General Assembly, together with its working bodies, such as the presidency, the Bureau and others, has to play an active role in designing, disseminating and implementing United Nations policies on the global issues which should be at the core of its activities. The recent measures aimed at improving some of the Assembly's working methods should be considered as a first step in the right direction.
In the Millennium Declaration Member States have already made a strong commitment to reform the United Nations system, reaffirming the central position of the General Assembly as the chief deliberative, policy-making and representative organ of the United Nations. One can hardly imagine how that role can be safeguarded without far-reaching reform of the General Assembly.
Undoubtedly, the relationship between the Security Council and the General Assembly is a key issue of the ongoing reform debate. Close cooperation and coordination between the two bodies appears necessary, particularly in discussing issues of vital importance to the Organization as a whole. If we agree with the assessment made by our colleague Ambassador Mahbubani of Singapore, that an essential symbiotic relationship between the Security Council and the General Assembly exists, then we must accept the need to restructure the General Assembly, rather than revitalizing it. That is the only way to preserve the balance between a reformed Security Council and the General Assembly.
During the recent debate on the report of the Security Council, several delegations made a clear commitment to ensuring that reform is comprehensive, and that it includes expansion of Council membership in both the permanent and non-permanent categories and improvement of the Council's working methods and decision-making process, and that it imparts balance, accurate representation and legitimacy to the Council, thus reflecting contemporary reality.
At the same time, we agree with warnings against makeshift solutions, such as the one made by Ambassador Schumacher of Germany. In our opinion, the most effective way to avoid them is through a phased reform process. We should not forget that we are ultimately responsible for the pace and scope of the reform process.
It is for Member States to decide the dosage of political will required to reach a successful outcome in the work of the Open-ended Working Group on Council reform. On the other hand, we must be aware of the fact that the authority of the Organization as a whole, and the credibility and legitimacy of the Security Council are at stake. To promote global governance, as one of our colleagues, Ambassador Vento of Italy, rightly pointed out in the aforementioned debate, the Security Council needs true leadership based on a collective vision and shared interests and values.
Many people, among them the people of the Republic of Macedonia, share a vision of a world that must move from interdependence to being an integrated global community with a shared future, shared responsibilities, shared prosperity and, above all, shared values. Can we imagine such a paradigm of progress without an organization like the United Nations? I cannot. But nor can it be imagined that the United Nations can serve those purposes without profound reform of its main bodies fully corresponding to such a vision.
Quite often, during our discussions on strengthening the United Nations, reference is made to the utmost necessity for the Organization to be both effective and efficient. Within that context, allow me to quote a former colleague, Ambassador Perkins: "Being effective means doing the right thing. Being efficient means doing the thing right". Let those words of wisdom guide us while we carry forward the noble endeavour of the work of the reform of the United Nations.
Mr. Staczyk (Poland)
--> -->
| <type 'exceptions.UnicodeEncodeError'> | Python 2.6.6: /usr/bin/python Wed Jun 19 02:00:34 2013 |
A problem occurred in a Python script. Here is the sequence of function calls leading up to the error, in the order they occurred.
| /data/vhost/www.undemocracy.com/docs/trunk.py in |
| 194 if __name__ == "__main__": |
| 195 pathpart = os.getenv("PATH_INFO") |
| 196 maintrunk(pathpart) |
| 197 |
| 198 |
| maintrunk = <function maintrunk>, pathpart = '/generalassembly_57/meeting_40' |
| /data/vhost/www.undemocracy.com/docs/trunk.py in maintrunk(pathpart='/generalassembly_57/meeting_40') |
| 131 elif pagefunc == "gameeting": |
| 132 LogIncomingDB(hmap["docid"], hmap["gadice"] or "0", referrer, ipaddress, useragent, remadeurl) |
| 133 WriteHTML(hmap["htmlfile"], hmap["pdfinfo"], hmap["gadice"], hmap["highlightdoclink"]) |
| 134 elif pagefunc == "agendanumexpanded": |
| 135 LogIncomingDB(pagefunc, hmap["agendanum"], referrer, ipaddress, useragent, remadeurl) |
| global WriteHTML = <function WriteHTML>, hmap = {'docid': 'A-57-PV.40', 'gadice': '', 'gameeting': 40, 'gasession': 57, 'highlightdoclink': None, 'htmlfile': '/home/undemocracy/undata/html/A-57-PV.40.html', 'pagefunc': 'gameeting', 'pdfinfo': <pdfinfo.PdfInfo instance>} |
| /home/undemocracy/unparse-live/web2/unpvmeeting.py in WriteHTML(fhtml='/home/undemocracy/undata/html/A-57-PV.40.html', pdfinfo=<pdfinfo.PdfInfo instance>, gadice='', highlightth=None) |
| 322 if dclass == "spoken": |
| 323 if not gadice or agendagidcurrent == gadice: |
| 324 WriteSpoken(gid, dtextmu, councilpresidentnation) |
| 325 elif dclass == "subheading": |
| 326 if agendagidcurrent and (not gadice or agendagidcurrent == gadice): |
| global WriteSpoken = <function WriteSpoken>, gid = u'pg003-bk01', dtextmu = u'<h3 class="speaker"> <span class="name">Mr. Stac...such endeavours to the best of our abilities.</p>', councilpresidentnation = None |
| /home/undemocracy/unparse-live/web2/unpvmeeting.py in WriteSpoken(gid=u'pg003-bk01', dtext=u'<h3 class="speaker"> <span class="name">Mr. Stac...such endeavours to the best of our abilities.</p>', councilpresidentnation=None) |
| 69 print '</cite>' |
| 70 |
| 71 print dtext[mspek.end(0):] |
| 72 |
| 73 print '</div>' |
| dtext = u'<h3 class="speaker"> <span class="name">Mr. Stac...such endeavours to the best of our abilities.</p>', mspek = <_sre.SRE_Match object>, mspek.end = <built-in method end of _sre.SRE_Match object> |
<type 'exceptions.UnicodeEncodeError'>: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xe9' in position 2143: ordinal not in range(128)
args =
('ascii', u'\n\t<p id="pg003-bk01-pa01">I would like to voice ...such endeavours to the best of our abilities.</p>', 2143, 2144, 'ordinal not in range(128)')
encoding =
'ascii'
end =
2144
message =
''
object =
u'\n\t<p id="pg003-bk01-pa01">I would like to voice ...such endeavours to the best of our abilities.</p>'
reason =
'ordinal not in range(128)'
start =
2143