MILLENNIUM SUMMIT - OPPORTUNITY TO REAFFIRM THE POSITIVE ROLE OF THE UN
General Assembly of the United Nations Organization

UN, New York (USA), 7 September 2000



This historic session is an opportunity to reaffirm the positive role of the United Nations and to stress the demand for the respect of human dignity and human individual and collective rights as the fundamental and universal principle of its future actions. Peace and security, the two basic objectives of the United Nations depend mainly, in today's world, on consistent respect of this principle. This is the key challenge of our future.

Experience tells us that recognizing, promoting and protecting human rights is equally important for peace and security as is recognizing and protecting sovereignty of States. Today, armed conflicts are as a rule taking place within the borders of sovereign States and not between them. These internal wars engender violence, genocide and ethnic cleansing, where people's fates depend on their belonging to a race, a nationality or a religion. Regional security and global peace are becoming increasingly dependant on the UN's capacity to efficiently intervene when States are perpetrating violence against their own citizens.

The international community has already been intervening in such conflicts. In most cases, the intervention came too late, the means were inadequate and the results insufficient. Although these are recognized facts we still lack systemic and agreed solutions that would ensure timely and efficient effects. Also for these reasons the United Nations reform is imperative. Within its premise I would place the principle that sovereignty of a State, which includes also its responsibility for its own citizens and for other States, cannot be an excuse for systematic violence and mass violations of human rights. It cannot be the value that would in such cases prevent a UN intervention.

We all were aware of and are co-responsible for tragedies that occurred in Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Srebrenica and in Vukovar and which continue to occur in the world. We are also responsible for preventing them from happening again. Clear signs in the South East Europe in particular, warn that the tragedy could happen again.

Therefore I am confident that we shall find the necessary political will to modernize and equip the United Nations for this task. I wish to believe that those who have been entrusted by virtue of the UN Charter with a seat in the Security Council and thus with a special responsibility to safeguard world peace and security will gather the necessary commitment, spirit and courage to take timely decisions.

The Security Council must act in line with its primary responsibility to preserve peace and security in the world. It must recognize circumstances that demand UN authorized action, including use of force. It must respect the principle of protecting State sovereignty but not by remaining paralyzed when faced with crimes against humanity. The international community, led by the United Nations, has the obligation to protect threatened and innocent civilian populations against genocide, ethnic cleansing and systematic mass violence perpetrated by the authorities in their own State. The right to veto, which represents a special responsibility borne by permanent members of the UN Security Council, must not be hiding behind arguments that national internal affairs are at stake and thus in such cases paralyze its work and responsibility.

I support the appeal by the Secretary General of the United Nations, His Excellency Kofi Annan regarding humanitarian interventions, quoted in his report: "We the Peoples: the Role of the United Nations in the Twenty-First Century." I expect that together we shall endeavor to make it possible for the international community to be capable of reacting and ensuring that when the principle of State sovereignty is abused, it would not remain helpless when faced with violence and mass violations of fundamental human rights.

A humanitarian intervention is an active response to a humanitarian crisis and a prolongation of preventive diplomacy which attempts to solve disputes before they grow into conflicts. It demands a new chapter in the international law which would be adapted to contemporary understanding of international morality. International humanitarian law is an impressive idea and a requirement of our time. For the time being, its norms are vague, often unknown and frequently deliberately violated. For this reason it is imperative to elaborate a doctrine for humanitarian intervention which will be based on modern interpretation of the UN Charter and in line with new international relations and norms, which in certain conditions give priority to the protection of human rights. My conviction about this is reinforced by my human and political experience from the Balkan tragedy and from Slovenia's participation in peacekeeping missions.

Honorable delegates,

Despite positive achievements, we remain, at the turn of the millennium, still far from achieving our goals in terms of global security and peace, poverty eradication, reducing the enormous disparities in welfare, development and ensuring social and legal security of people, far from equality among different civilizations we belong to and which enrich the material and spiritual lives of humankind. Now the opportunity has come to recognize the universal significance of human rights also for global security and peace in the globalized world with multiple centers of development of human civilization and to prevent former confrontations between military and political block from being replaced by confrontations between civilizations, cultures and religions which would have fatal consequences for the future of humankind. In future also the role of the United Nations remains irreplaceable. However, its authority and reputation will not be ensured by our words. People's faith in the UN will be strengthened by its effectiveness, capacity to implement declared principles, by ensuring peace, security, human dignity and human rights.

Slovenia supports the noble principles and objectives for which we have gathered here. Now, brave steps are needed. I am confident that in the spirit of the UN we are capable of making them.

Allow me, honorable delegates, to conclude by informing you that Slovenia has decided to increase next year its financial contribution for UN peace operations.


Photo: BOBO