The UN at 60: The Challenges Ahead
Prof Tham Seong Chee
President
UN Association in Singapore
Ms Claire Chiang
President
Singapore Compact for Corporate Social Responsibility
Distinguished Members of the Diplomatic Corps
Ladies and Gentlemen,
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the United Nations. Anniversaries are appropriate opportunities for review and reflection. The UN has achieved much to be proud of since 1945. Most importantly, the UN has helped in preventing another major world war and mediated the end of several conflicts. The UN has made good progress in codifying human rights as a whole and advancing norms of behaviour. There have also been advances in the rights of women, children, minorities as well as those of disadvantaged and disabled people. The UN is playing a critical leadership role within the community of multilateral organisations to help the poorer, less developed nations eradicate extreme poverty. Efforts are also being channelled towards integrating these poorer countries into the global economy. Significantly, in the area of rule of law, a vigorous apparatus of international law has grown up around the UN. Rule of law is particularly important for small countries like Singapore which makes up a majority of the UN membership. In the absence of the rule of law, the law of the jungle will prevail. That kind of a world would be a more dangerous place for small countries.
2. As we applaud the UN's achievements, we must not lose sight of many of the challenges that we continue to face. Challenges that must surely have been beyond the imagination of the original framers of the UN Charter. Few could have anticipated that the casualties and horrors of war will now derive mainly from conflicts within states instead of between states. They would not have imagined the catastrophic terrorism such as was witnessed on September 11, 2001. Would they have foreseen trans-national diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), avian flu, and HIV/AIDS? Or natural disasters of such massive scale as the Indian Ocean tsunami last December. Or the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, which coupled with the terrorist threat, brings the scourge of terrorism to catastrophic heights.
3. Encouragingly, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has led a concerted effort to reform the UN from within and to tackle the new security challenges arising from the new global environment. In the leadup to the recent High-Level Plenary Meeting at the 60th UN General Assembly, Mr Annan commissioned a number of studies on reforming the UN. These culminated in the excellent reports by the High-Level Panel on Threat, Challenges and Change, the Millennium Project and the Secretary-General himself.
4. Given the calls for a comprehensive revamp of the UN, there were naturally high expectations for the High-Level Plenary Meeting to produce a substantial outcome. This even overrode the original focus of attention of the High-Level Plenary Meeting which was to review progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to eradicate poverty and improve the social and development conditions of countries by 2015. Eight goals were set down by world leaders at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. They were to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development. To-date, the implementation of the goals has been uneven. That was the consensus at the Regional Ministerial Meeting on Millennium Development Goals, which Indonesia hosted in August 2005 to prepare the region's inputs on the MDGs for the High-Level Plenary Meeting.
5. Nevertheless, the High-Level Plenary Meeting took stock of the implementation of the MDGs and endorsed an outcome document on UN Reform which was approved by the UN General Assembly almost unanimously. Some observers have criticised that the outcome document fell short of expectations considering it did not include many of the reforms Mr Annan had earlier envisaged. However, regardless of these shortcomings, the outcome document is a useful step in the right direction. It is understandably difficult to get 191 member states to agree on such a diverse and staggering array of issues. You may recall that there were only 50 members when the UN was founded. Furthermore, the UN can ultimately progress only as far as the members states want it to. Thus, credit must be given to 59th UNGA President and Gabon Foreign Minister Jean Ping who worked against great odds to deliver the outcome document.
6. Singapore shares the disappointment of those who wanted mention of non-proliferation and disarmament in the outcome document. However, we noted that the outcome document has made progress on a number of key issues. We are pleased that a new Peacebuilding Commission will be created to help countries emerging from conflict. We welcome the recognition of the concept of "Responsibility to Protect". The international community, through the United Nations, now has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
7. We should take a forward looking attitude towards the result of the recent UN Summit. There is no point dismissing it, as it is by our actions on implementation that history will judge us. As the 60th UNGA President from Sweden Jan Eliasson pointed out to the Permanent Representatives in New York recently, "The Document should not set a limit on our ambitions; rather it should be a beachhead from which we launch ourselves forward". Soon after assuming the UNGA Presidency, Mr Eliasson has promptly embarked on a work plan to implement some key priorities on UN Reform like development issues, Peacebuilding Commission, Human Rights Council, Management Reform, Responsibility to Protect and UNSC Reform among others. Singapore looks forward to achieving substantive outcomes from the 60th UNGA under Mr Eliasson's outstanding leadership. In the process of the reform, we should be bold yet realistic. Reform is an evolutionary process and not an event.
8. There has been an unfortunate string of bad news recently. The discovery of bird flu virus in Romania and Turkey marked the arrival of bird flu in Europe after it has largely been confined in Asia. This raises the spectre of a possible worldwide avian flu epidemic. We also witnessed a second round of bombings in Bali. We saw devastation caused by hurricane Katrina in the US and earthquakes in Pakistan and India. These incidents remind us the importance and urgency to work together to counter threats to global peace and security. In this regard, the UN will continue to play an indispensable coordinating role in helping us achieve a lasting peace for mankind.