The 38th Floor.

THE 38th FLOOR

Joint action to combat drug abuse...

The disastrous phenomenon of drug production, trafficking and abuse is a clear example of the kind of problem that in an increasingly small and interdependent world must be tackled through joint efforts. As the problem is a global one, it requires a global response that only the United Nations can effectively provide. This is not a new task for the Organization, as it inherited these functions and responsibilities, when it was founded, from the League of Nations.

To the World Ministerial Summit on Drugs, London, United Kingdom, 9 April 1990

Blanket over realities...

The danger is that, in dealing with issues of international concern, we too often lose sight of their human implications and moral dimensions. The particularities of the human predicament are too often eclipsed by concern with the legal or diplomatic plausibility or the political appeal of positions taken by Governments. Even the word "peace" can become an abstraction, an immense blanket thrown over the concrete realities of pain and suffering in the world today. Let us make no mistake about it: there cannot be a more sustained affront to human dignity than absolute poverty. As long as a proportion of the world's resources will continue to be allocated to such wasteful pursuits as the arms race, this affront will continue to darken the fate and future of an untold number of our fellow human beings.

Upon receiving the Onassis Foundation Athinai Prize for "Man and Mankind", Athens, Greece, 5 April 1990

Dignity and rights of people...

The first premise and a fundamental provision of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is that the dignity and rights of each member of the human community are equal. Moreover, the Declaration makes clear that the rights it proclaims are not subject to national or cultural differences. The rush of current events, which reminds us strikingly of our interdependence and our common humanity, makes clear the significance and the vision of this affirmation of the universality of human rights.

We must therefore maintain and reinforce the existing international protection for human rights. Our efforts to create public awareness and spread information must permeate the entire breadth of international society to create a true universal culture of human rights. Our assistance programmes must be developed to give all countries the opportunity to strengthen national laws and institutions. The United Nations must step up its efforts to identify at an early stage all such violations and to act effectively to end them.

Another key challenge for our future work will be to enable people to participate more fully in decisions affecting their own lives. Over the last two or three years, democratic political institutions have been restored or established in a number of countries. Less noticeable, but equally important, has been the call by people, particularly in developing countries, for other forms of participation to supplement the democratic political process.

From the John Humphrey Human Rights Lecture at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, 30 May 1990

To remain a force...

For the Non-Aligned Movement to remain a force in international affairs, it has to do more than contribute to the thinking which infuses debates in the Organization. It has to summon the capability of helping to resolve the international conflicts, actual or threatened, which affect international peace. Sad to say, a good many of these conflicts are those between non-aligned nations. Closely related to this is the lamentable phenomenon of developing countries devoting a large proportion of their slender resources to military outlays. This drains their economies and damages their prospects of social and economic progress. These matters are also, of course, related to the essential mandate of the United Nations. But, in handling them, the United Nations would be far better placed if its efforts were directly complemented and reinforced by those of the non-aligned countries.

At the Ministerial Meeting of Non-Aligned Countries, New York, 24 April 1990

An inescapable response...

As long as international co-operation remains merely an idea to which we give no more than intellectual assent, as long as it means only a broader view of national interests, it will continue to encounter almost insurmountable obstacles in its application. But once Governments and public opinion alike come to see it as an inescapable response to the demands of our age, it will be able to develop and, in so doing, bring concrete rewards. There is enough evidence before us which points out that an interdependent world needs men whose vision extends to the entire world. The evidence can be gathered from any sphere of international life, political, economic or social.

At Comenius University, Bratislava, Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, 8 May 1990

Forfeiting their future...

Our generation of men and women is in danger of forfeiting the future of our children. The wasting of natural resources and the contamination of air and water are reducing the options for the physically most vulnerable and politically most powerless segment of humanity--the children.

In observance of World Environment Day, New York, 5 June 1990