STATEMENT BY
H.E. MR. ASTERIO R. TAKESY
SECRETARY (MINISTER) OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
OF THE FEDERATED STATES OF MICRONESIA
IN THE
FIFTY-FIRST
UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
New York, September 25, 1996
Check Against Delivery
Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General,
Excellencies and Distinguished Guests,
Once again, it is my honor as Secretary of External Affairs for the Government
of the Federated States of Micronesia to address the General Assembly.
First, I wish to thank the distinguished former President, His Excellency,
Professor Diogo Freitas do Amaral, for his enlightened and skillful leadership
during the historic fiftieth General Assembly.
As always, we acclaim the tireless
dedication of the Secretary-General, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who, throughout
the time of our membership, has worked unceasingly to make the United Nations a
more effective instrument for the betterment of our lives.
Mr. President, the people of my country are particularly pleased that you have
been elected to lead this Body during its crucial fifty-first Session, Last
year we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations and
took stock of its accomplishments during the first half-century. Now, we begin in
earnest to apply the resolves we made toward the future of this Organization
and the world. There may be no other single individual who has been as
instrumental or as effective in leading the world community in recent years to
find difficult common ground, particularly on issues relating to
environmentally sustainable development.
We are heartened by your past achievements, Mr. President, and are
thankful for your willingness to undertake an even greater commitment as
our President during this Assembly.
Mr. President,
This is a year of strong reflection for the people of the Federated States of
Micronesia. Ten years have passed since we emerged from the United Nations
Trusteeship system, and five years since we took our place as a Member of the
United Nations. During those years we have worked hard to build our capacity
to contribute, even as a remote small-island State, to the advancement
of all our common goals. Despite severely limited resources, both in
terms of personnel and finances, we have accorded a high priority to our
participation in United Nations activities and to meeting our financial
commitments to the Organization. It remains our strong belief, Mr.
President, that this priority has not been misplaced.
Mr. President,
At the time we joined the United Nations the world's attention was focusing on
the global aspects of protection of the environment, and on the necessary
inter-relationship between the environment and development. These were
the subjects of the historic work at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992. That
landmark conference gave us, thanks in large part to you, Mr. President, Agenda
21 and its associated mechanisms. Since then, much has been accomplished through
the work of many institutions and individuals, such as the Commission on
Sustainable Development and the Under-Secretary-General for Policy
Co-ordination and Sustainable Development, Mr. Nitin Desai. We look
forward to the special session of this Body next year which will be held to
review progress during the first five years following the UNCED and to
appraise the effectiveness of the institutions that have grown up around it.
In the case of the Federated States of Micronesia, this movement was very
well-timed. Just as our internal process of development began in earnest, we
received guidance from Agenda 21 as to sustainability and the integration of
environmental protection and development. A short time later, at the
Barbados Conference which had been mandated by UNCED, we participated in
analyzing the barriers to development faced by all small-island developing states.
While we took encouragement from the international and regional aspects of
Agenda 21 and the Barbados Programme of Action, we were also motivated to
integrate the Rio and Barbados outcomes into our own national policies regarding
development. Today our National Council on Sustainable Development, chaired by
our Vice President, plays a central role in the formation of my country's
development policies.
Since last year my country has been assisted by the World Bank, IMF and the
Asian Development Bank in undertaking broad economic policy and government
structural reforms with a view to strengthening the private sector and
optimizing efficiency in the public sector. We are taking serious steps to
downsize the public service workforce. At the same time measures are being
taken to raise government revenues through tax rate increases and support
for the public sector. All of our public utility services including
telecommunication are being commercialized while a good number of
our public works services are being privatized.
For a small island developing country such as the Federated States of
Micronesia, the condition and productivity of our limited land areas,
and of the sea that surround us, are key to our survival. Only in recent times
have we, and others like us, come to realize the vulnerability and fragile
nature of a world long taken for granted. It is in the nature of islands
to regard our remoteness as our primary protection against all dangers. But the
twentieth century has taught us how the land on which we live, and the resources
of the sea on which we depend, can be destroyed as a consequence of events
that take place far from OUT own shores. Thus, we are compelled to raise our
voice against long-standing actions and practices throughout the world as well
as within our own region.
As long ago as 1972, Principle 21 of the Stockholm Declaration established that
national sovereignty can no longer be asserted to justify actions that "cause
damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond national
jurisdiction." The affirmative responsibility of States to ensure the
avoidance of such damage is specifically reiterated in Principle a of the Rio
Declaration on Environment and Development. The responsibility is now
recognized as a doctrine of generally-accepted international law.
Yet, Mr. President, today we look back on a year during which, at best, only
mixed progress has been made by the nations of the world in discontinuing or
regulating activities harmful to the environment of others. Particularly in
the region of the Pacific Islands, our broad expenses and our helpless populations
Administration of its opposition to plans to establish a nuclear waste
storage facility on Palmyra Atoll, in our Region. But experience has shown
that good intentions are not always sufficient protection. We must also rely
on Global mechanisms such as the Basel and London Conventions, and on regional
actions to establish zones of protection, such as under the Noumea
Convention and the recently concluded Waigani Treaty.
I emphasize, Mr. President, that the progress made in all these areas is not
lost on us. However, if our children and their children are to inherit a livable
world, we must all somehow find a way now to take seriously the message of the
Stockholm Declaration. We must face the hard fact that each time the Preventive
and Precautionary principles are placed on hold to allow some offending activity
to continue "just a little longer," the global resolve expressed at Rio and
reflected in many actions since is seriously undermined. Glacial progress
is better than no progress, but it is not enough where the stakes are
literally Apocalyptic.
Mr. President,
As much as we support the process of the Framework Convention on Climate Change,
it appears that intensive negotiations are leading in the direction of
elaborate compromises which might represent masterful diplomatic
achievement, but fall far short of effectively addressing the Convention's
objective. Recently, at the Second Conference of the Parties in Geneva, we
witnessed a sorry spectacle in which a few delegations blocked the negotiators
even from taking note of a critical and unanimous scientific Finding, namely
that, "there is a discernible human influence on the global climate." It
fell to the Ministers in attendance to make their own declaration recognizing
the obvious importance of this and other findings in the Second Assessment Report
of the Interdepartmental Panel on Climate Change.
When there exists this degree of helplessness on the part of a great
majority to come to grips with a problem, even after the denial factor
has been laid to rest, one begins to fear that we lack the capacity to save
ourselves from ourselves. There is too little time remaining before the next
Conference of the Parties in Kyoto, where it is anticipated that a protocol
or other legal instrument will be adopted which sets specific targets and
timetables for emissions reductions beyond the year 2000. That action will
determine whether the Convention can indeed serve to address the threat of
global climate change. Yet, at this point, the only specific suggested text,
tabled by the Alliance of Small island States, is regarded by some larger
industrialized countries to be over-reaching even as a first step. The
outlook is not encouraging.
Thanks to the work of the IPCC in producing its landmark Second Assessment
Report, we now know that due to the inertia of the Earth's climate system in
adjusting to changed inputs, it is already too late to prevent significant
loss of land areas and habitability due to sea level rise during the upcoming
century. We must therefore begin in earnest to contemplate measures to adapt
to and defend against these consequences. In order to implement such
measures island countries will require the financial and technological support
of the industrialized world. Without it, tens of millions of people on islands
and in low-lying coastal areas throughout the world are certain to
become homeless, No longer can the World afford to leave the development of
adaptation measures on the back burner. We must begin to act now.
Mr. President,
As a nation covering over a million square miles of ocean, we place a great
importance on the sustainable use and management of marine resources within
and adjacent to our territorial limits. We are pleased with the coming into
effect of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which has provided
us with a framework to deal with many important issues in this field. The
resulting management mechanisms are of particular importance to those of us
surrounded entirely by oceans.
Other events of encouragement have included the opening for signature of
the Agreement on Straddling Fish Stacks and Highly Migratory Fish stocks last
December and the election last month of twenty one judges for the International
Tribunal for the Law of the Sea,
Further, we note with great satisfaction the election of an esteemed Pacific
islander, Ambassador Satya Nandan of Fiji, as the first Secretary-General of
the International Seabed Authority in Kingston Jamaica. With his election and
subsequent actions of the Assembly of the Authority last month, the Authority
is finally in place as called for in Part XI of the Convention. With a
substantial percentage of the global mineral resources lying beneath the
surface of the oceans, the International Seabed Authority has a crucial role in
ensuring that the ocean environment is protected throughout the process of
exploitation. In this connection, it is important for this Assembly to provide
adequate financial resources to the International Seabed Authority during
this session, as it has done with other bodies, until states parties can assume
the responsibility some time next year.
Mr. President,
One of the great learning experiences we have had during our early years of UN
Membership has been to appreciate the need for us all, collectively, to act by
example and insistence, to alleviate the suffering of people wherever situated
who are denied their basic rights as human beings. The Constitution of the
Federated States of Micronesia reflects in its Declaration of Rights, the
standards ingrained in our culture over many centuries, and it has given us
perhaps a certain sense of complacency in this area. But we have come to
appreciate that the worldwide collective effort to confront human rights issues
both strengthens our own society, and affords us an opportunity to participate
in helping others.
Despite the inevitable impact of increased contacts with modern Western
society, the strongest aspects and values of our traditional cultures
remain strong, because they are appropriate to our circumstances. We
continue to adhere to the concept of the extended family, for example, and many
of the principles that are inherent in that system have long ensured a respect
in our society for basic human rights.
But changing times inevitably challenge old traditions, and the maintenance of
our traditional human rights standards becomes a process of adaptation to our
increasingly mobile and homogeneous society in which legal and governmental
institutions now also play a central role. Here we stand to benefit by
involvement and participation in the international human rights movement, as
was pointed out by our Vice President in his address to the World Conference in
Vienna, several years ago.
As we have studied the mechanisms and obligations of the various UN treaties
on human fights we have entered into constructive internal debates. Children,
for example, are among our most important treasures, and so we acceded
first to the Convention an the Rights of the Child. The preparation of our first
Report to that Convention was a thought-provoking exercise.
Traditionally, women in island cultures have been treated with love and respect,
but have not participated fully in public affairs. This is beginning to
change. We recently sent a strong delegation to the World Conference on
Women in Beijing, and are actively considering accession to the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. In all, we
realize that our own application of human rights standards must evolve
progressively along with our society:
The Federated States of Micronesia also accepts the responsibility to continue
to speak out, along with similarly committed States, on the need to
challenge those governments who still refuse to accord their own citizens the
fundamental rights of human beings. It is a long and often discouraging
process, but only with a strong, constant, collective voice can the
international community maintain the progress being made in exposing and
deterring abuses by the powerful against the unempowered.
Mr. President,
Much attention has been drawn in the past several years to the serious
financial condition of the United Nations Organization, and to the need to
reform and restructure it. Some members are so disheartened by the slow pace of
this effort that they have lost the resolve to maintain their own financial
commitments to the United Nations, making the problems worse and
threatening the continued ability of this Organization to carry its work.
It is the view of the Federated States of Micronesia that while there may be
inequities in the structure of assessments, Members should address
these while continuing to meet existing commitments that were established
pursuant to agreed procedures, There will always be some level of
disagreement over structures and the requirements of funding. But it would be
a tragedy of historic proportions if the pursuit of the goals of the Charter were
substantially hindered by Members feeling that they can rightfully tailor
their contributions to their degree of satisfaction with how their particular
demands are met. The fact is, Mr. President, that with due regard for the
importance of our overall work here, this Organization even without reform is
well worth its cost - especially when one considers the amounts spent by
nations on activities that do not contribute to international peace and development.
Mr. President,
There is no question but that, as we begin the next half-century of its work,
the capacity of this Organization is challenged by issues that seem to grow
rapidly in number and complexity. But this is not a sign of failure, nor of a
lack of capacity. Neither does it suggest that we need another instrument.
It is, rather, an indication of the increasing interconnectiveness of the
global community, and of the growing inclination among nations to find and
recognize their common interests and to work together in the advancement of
those interests.
In order to maintain and improve the responsiveness of the United Nations in
a world where it faces increasing demands it is necessary that, on a
continuing basis, we apply effective upgrades to the ways we do our work
here. Only in this way can we keep the organization on a positive course, and
faithfully translate the mandates of the Charter into terms of continuing
relevance. This is the real meaning of reform. It is not a consequence of past
inadequacy, but a positive evolutionary development.
This is easily said, but as we all know, it is very difficult to put into
practice. Even so Mr. President, we must not allow that high degree of difficulty
to plunge us into frustration and defeat. The great achievements of those
who have been here before us during the last fifty years must be honored by our
unshakable determination to take the United Nations into the next millennium
as the single most effective multilateral instrument for the betterment of mankind.
I believe that this Assembly can and will accomplish much to add to the list
of tangible achievements both for the direct benefit of peoples of the World
and for the improvement of this Organization itself. We have the
history, the vision and the leadership; moreover, the urgency is clearly seen by
us all. Let us resolve to apply ourselves as never before, and to live
up to the great potential that resides in these hairs.
Thank you, Mr. President.
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