1 December 2004
I welcome the launch tomorrow of the Report of the UN’s High-Level Panel.
The Panel was set an ambitious target - to lay the foundations for a new consensus on collective security to take the United Nations into the 21st century. They have done an excellent job. The UN has been weakened by division in the last few years. This report provides the basis for it to unite again.
The Report has a simple, but fundamental premise: we all share responsibility for each other’s security. The threats we face today are inter-linked: poverty, disease and environmental degradation, as well as terrorism and the proliferation of WMD. We need a strong UN to deal with them. Most importantly, the Security Council must take responsibility for gripping these problems.
The Report includes an important recommendation for a new Peacebuilding Commission; recognition that the UN must organise itself better for conflict prevention; innovative proposals on the key threats of proliferation and terrorism; and endorses a collective international ‘Responsibility to Protect’, that is to act against genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law - which I have long argued for.
I welcome the Panel’s emphasis on the UN’s collective responsibility to protect the environment - a priority issue for the UK’s upcoming G8 Presidency.
The Panel addresses the question of Security Council membership. A Security Council that better reflects today’s world will be better able to deal with today’s threats.
But the Panel’s report is about much more than Security Council enlargement. Britain will play a leading role in taking forward work on the range of the Panel’s recommendations, including in the run-up to the Millennium Review Summit next September and as part of our G8 and EU Presidencies in 2005.
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