As 179-member Assembly opens, an action-oriented United Nations is 'more intensely felt worldwide.' (includes related information on committee highlights)

"The presence of the Organization is being more intensely felt worldwide as it helps people in danger, need or despair", UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali asserted as the forty-seventh session of the General Assembly got under way on 15 September in New York.

"Never before in its history has the United Nations been so action-oriented, so actively engaged, and so widely expected to respond to needs both immediate and pervasive", the Egyptian-born UN chief executive, who took office on 1 January 1992, stated. His report on the work of the Organization (A/47/1), reflected the near-universal concern of a membership which had increased by 20 in the 10 months between 17 September 1991 and 31 July 1992, when the former Soviet republic of Georgia became the 179th UN Member State.

At the outset of his tenure, Mr. Boutros-Ghali maintained it was possible to sense "a new stirring of hope among the nations of the world and a recognition that an immense opportunity is here to be seized". Not since the end of the Second World War, he said, had "the expectations of the world's peoples depended so much upon the capacity of the United Nations for widely supported and effective action".

A |New chapter'

With "the end of the bipolar era and the opening of a new chapter in history", States once again saw the UN as "an instrument capable of maintaining international peace and security, of advancing justice and human rights, and of achieving, in the words of the Charter, |social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom'".

However, he went on the transition from the old to the new UN was neither easy nor risk-free. As the international community looked towards days filled with promise, it must also be prepared to deal with uncertainty.

"The departure of one set of global problems has been followed by emergence of a multitude of others", he said. But a better world was within reach in 1992. It was time, he concluded, "to move forward deliberately and conscientiously towards the realization of the vast potential of this unique Organization and to bring new life to the world of the Charter".

Peace Endowment

Fund

In his report, Mr. Boutros-Ghali proposed the establishment of a $1-billion peace endowment fund to finance the initial cost of authorized peace-keeping operations and a levy on arms sales and international air travel.

The proposals were presented in the face of the ever-deepening financial crisis of the UN and to ensure that the Organization was fully prepared to respond to new challenges of international action. The Fund should combine the assessed and voluntary contributions from Governments, the private sector and individuals. As tax on arms sales would help maintain a UN arms register, while an international air travel tax was justified because secure air travel depended largely on the maintenance of peace, the Secretary-General indicated.

Other proposals would authorize the UN to borrow from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and allow a general tax exemption for contributions made to the UN by foundations, businesses and individuals.

Mr. Boutros-Ghali also supported previous proposals that interest be charged on Member States' assessed contributions not paid on time and that the Secretary-General be allowed to borrow commercially, should other sources of cash be inadequate.

|Unique historic

transformation'

Samir S. Shihabi of Saudi Arabia, President of the forty-sixth General Assembly, passed the gavel on 15 September to the new President, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Stoyan Ganev, who had been elected by acclamation at the opening of the forty-seventh Assembly session.

After his elections, President Ganev told the Assembly that in recent years, a "unique historic transformation" had been witnessed in different parts of the world, which clearly outlined "a common tendency of enhancing democracy, freedom, rule of law and respect for human rights". Overcoming East-West confrontation and ideological rivalry had created better conditions for common action on regional and global levels.

However, the international community faced serious challenges and difficult problems which posed potential threats to world peace and security. Millions of people continued to suffer the ravages of war. Progress towards peaceful settlement of long-standing regional disputes had not yet relived mankind from the terror of armed conflicts.

Economic recession, social tensions, nationalism, racial and religious intolerance, ethnic hostilities and gross human rights violations remained threats to national and international stability, he said.

On 18 September, Mr. Ganev told the press in New York that there was every reason to hope that the forty-seventh Assembly session would prove to be a major step toward revitalizing the UN as "an effective and user-friendly international mechanism of peacemaking, peace-keeping and peace-building".

End of 46th session

As the forty-sixth General Assembly ended on 14 September, then Assembly President Shihabi told delegates:

"Recent events that followed each other during the last 12 months have changed the trends of history, in the second half of the twentieth century, probably the trend of history for a long time to come." The past 12 months had witnessed the beginning of the post-cold-war era. "At this delicates stage", the UN stood "on the crossroads of history to play its role".

The Assembly, he continued, should strongly guard its role in accordance with the what the UN Charter had bestowed upon it, because any "short-sighted attempt" to affect that role would result in a weakening of the whole international organization system. It would be the shortest way to marginalize the role of the UN system as a whole, he said.

On 14 September, he told the press that he favoured formation of a council of former Assembly Presidents to support the Assembly as the UN's central organ.

Because the Office of the Assembly President remained mostly dependent on the support of the President's own Government, it had a transitional nature, he said, lacking the institutional elements needed for it to play the full role envisaged by UN members - "a major factor that could lead to the weakening of the General Assembly, the principal organ of the Organization".

New items

The agenda of the forty-seventh Assembly includes 148 items - 10 less than the record 158 considered in 1989. There were 54 items to be considered directly in plenary, including 4 of the 8 new items on the agenda: observe status in the Assembly for the International Organization for Migration; complete withdrawal of foreign military forces from the territories of the Baltic Stats; coordination of the activities of the UN and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe; and emergency assistance to Pakistan and to the Philippines.

Of the other four new items, the question of a disarmament regime for Latin America and the Caribbean was assigned to the First Committee; two items - emergency assistance of the reconstruction of Afghanistan and assistance to Croatia - went to the Second Committee; and one - financing of the UN Operation in Somalia - was to be considered by the Fifth Committee.

Not a propaganda forum

Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Vladimir Petrovsky told the press in New York on 15 September that the Assembly was "no longer a venue for political propaganda, but the most effective multilateral forum for constructive and action-oriented consideration of all items ... and for working on the basis of consensus".

He said the forty-seventh session would be one of the most significant sessions in UN history, because it was being held "in a totally new political climate", one where all principal bodies of the UN could play the roles intended for them by the Charter. That was especially true for the Assembly, which was "the unique, universal body" in the UN system.

Mr. Petrovsky said the current session was being entrusted to determining how best the Assembly could be used for maintaining peace and security. It was expected to address issues of economic and social development in the post-cold-war era, he added, when also the question of disarmament had been recognized as a constituent of an international security agenda, which had a close and mutually supportive relationship with other activities in collective security. In a changing world, the Assembly should also focus on the issue of sustainable development to make the UN serve the interests of the international community.

Mr. Petrovsky pointed out that the UN was owed $1.8 billion in unpaid dues for both the regular budget and peace-keeping operations.

"The United Nations is mandated to make peace, but not to print money", he stated, and emphasized that financial problems became its "top political problems" and should be seriously addressed by all Member States. Otherwise, there was a danger that the UN could become a victim of its own popularity.

As all UN activities should be action-oriented, consideration was being given to a review of the structure and mandates of the Assembly's Main Committees, including the possibility of merging the mandates of some Committees or changing their responsibilities.

Highlights

The Assembly's plenary is to review and act on a wide variety of topics, including the Middle East, Central America, Cambodia, southern Africa and the consequences of Iraqi occupation of an aggression against Kuwait.

The Assembly was expected to adopt a resolution commending the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction that was adopted in Geneva by the Conference on Disarmament, and recommending its opening for signature with the formal signing ceremony envisaged to take place in Paris, probably in January 1993. The new Convention creates the most extensive verification mechanism ever included in an international disarmament convention.

The Assembly is also expected to decide to hold a World Summit on Social Development in 1995 and establish a Sustainable Development Commission to assess national environment policies and implementation of "Agenda 21", the international plan adopted by the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in June.

The Assembly is expected to adopt a set of principles, developed over 13 years of debate in the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, containing goals and guidelines to ensure the safe use of nuclear power sources in outer space, to be known as the Principles Relevant to the Use of the Nuclear Power Sources in Outer Space.

The forty-seventh Assembly is schedule to recess on 18 December and officially conclude on 20 September 1993.

Among the 167 participants in the general debate - a record number - were 24 Heads of State, 1 Vice-President, 13 Prime Ministers, 10 Deputy Prime Minister, 103 Foreign Minister and 16 Chairmen of delegations. The annual exercise took place between 21 September and 8 October.

On 25 September, the Foreign Ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council issued a statement following a meeting with the Secretary-General, which reviewed the Organization's priorities over the past year.

In the statement, Qian Qichen of China, Roland Dumas of France, Andrei V. Kozyrev of the Russian Federation, Sir David Hannay of the United Kingdom (representing Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd) and Acting Secretary of State Lawrence. S. Eagleburger of the United States pledged support for the Secretary-General's "Agenda For Peace" report, issued on 23 June (A/47/277-S/24111).

The Agenda, a multi-faceted plan to enable the UN to take up a wider mission in the pursuit and preservation of world peace, features many novel proposals designed to hone the UN's ability to identify conflicts, bring about their short-term and long-term resolution, and foster peace among former adversaries.

Yugoslavia

On 22 September, the Assembly decided that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (consisting of Serbia and Montenegro) could not automatically continue the UN membership of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and that it should apply for membership and "shall not" participate in the Assembly's work.

Resolution 47/1 was adopted by a recorded vote of 127 to 6 (Kenya, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Yugoslavia, Zambia, Zimbabwe), with 26 abstentions.

The Assembly's action marked the first time it has explicitly decided that a Member State may not participate in its work. In 1974, the Assembly upheld a ruling by its President, interpreting the Assembly's rejection of South Africa's credentials, which had the effect of barring South African representatives from participating in the work of that session.

Before the vote, Milan Panic, Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, said his Government was pursuing a programme of peace and needed the Assembly's understanding and help. From the first day that the new Government of Yugoslavia had been formed two months ago, it had cooperated with the UN in every way and would continue to do so regardless of the action taken by the Assembly. He formally requested membership in the UN on behalf of "the new Yugoslavia".

Introducing the draft resolution, Sir David Hannay of the United Kingdom said the Council on 19 September had recommended the action in line with UN Charter procedures on membership questions. The Council, which would consider the matter again before the end of the year, had adopted resolution 777 (1992) by a vote of 12 to none, with 3 abstentions (China, India, Zimbabwe).

Conditions for admission were clear, he went on. The applicant must be a peace-loving State, it must accept obligations contained in the Charter an it must, in the Organization's judgement, be able and willing to carry out those obligations. The authorities in Belgrade should convince the UN that they have met those admission requirements. The resolution was neither a punitive measure nor was it designed to undermine the peace process.

In debate, a number of speakers questioned the resolution's legal basis, stating that it bypassed the Charter, set a dangerous precedent which could be used against other Member States in the future, and posed a threat to ongoing peace negotiations.

On 21 September, President Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia and Herzegovina proposed a constitutional commission made up of inter-ethnic and inter-religious representatives and international experts to develop a constitutional settlement to the conflict in his country.

Addressing the Assembly, he called for an end to the arms embargo against his country and said that if the international community chose to side-step its commitment to defend Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country should be allowed to defend itself. It was not possible to draw lines through the republic to designate ethnically pure regions. The people of Bosnia and Herzegovina could live together, and must live together, provided the equality, justice and freedom were secured for all.

On 15 September, in observance of the eleventh International Day of Peace, Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali said that the international community must continue its quest for peace with patience and determination until it met with success. The "brave men and women" of the UN peace-keeping forces in strife-ridden parts of the world had earned the respect and gratitude of the UN and the entire international community.

Cooperation rather than confrontation should be the motto of nations as they prepared to enter the twenty-first century. Violence was self-defeating and war "utterly futile". In today's world, there were no victors and no vanquished - only suffering human beings on both sides, he said.

If tolerance, understanding and respect for other cultures, religions and ethnic groups were inculcated in young people, it would "pay vast dividends by way of a more peaceful, harmonious and stable world".