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Mr. president, last year we meaningfully celebrated the 80th founding anniversary of the United Nations. As we marked the watershed in UN history, reviewing its past 80 years and looking ahead into the future, mankind ardently desired and aspired to put an immediate end to the current chaos of international relations and regain peace and stability. Unfortunately, however, what the world witnessed every day for the last one year was a harsh reality rampant with unprecedented mutual distrust and confrontation, infringement on sovereignty and military conflicts that led to extreme unrest and disorder globally. The new year started with a most despicable world startling act of state sponsored terrorism, followed by worldwide outbreaks of other appalling incidents and events which anyone with a common sense and knowledge can hardly imagine.
The world we know today is safer, more prosperous, and more just because the United Nations exists. The founders of the United Nations had witnessed two world wars and a global economic collapse. They knew something we must never forget. When law gives way to force, everybody loses. When cooperation collapses, everybody pays. When institutions fail, chaos follows. They did not build the United Nations because they believed mankind was perfect. They built it because they understood mankind is not. They built it because they knew that without rules, without dialogue without cooperation, history has a habit of repeating its darkest chapters. The responsibility is now ours. Not only the Secretary generals, ours. The United Nations belong to the Member States. We decide whether it succeeds or fails. We decide whether reform advances or stalls. The time for reports has passed. The time for action is now. It is our turn to face the monsters of our time.
The first and foremost challenges of humanity are to redress economic injustices, create wealth, and more broadly and accurately ensure fair distribution of wealth and income. The prevailing injustices stem from the denial of the rights as well as enabling environment for humanity to create and accumulate wealth without any encumbrances on the one hand, and the usurpation of the right and opportunity for rational distribution of whatever nominal wealth they create under suppressive conditions on the other. This is precisely the reason why the prevailing international order has become, and is dubbed as a zero sum game. In the event, the imperative for installing a new world order predicated on justice and rationality, and that jettisons the zero sum system remains humanity's fundamental individual and collective rights. In this respect, the overarching mission of the endeavour struggle of mankind can be summed up in one to fairly own their economic resources and produce of their work, and march on a sustainable path of generational progress and prosperity by accumulating wealth. Two to secure peace and stability in order to guarantee prosperity and economic growth. Three to ensure prevalence of fairness and justice as vital prerequisites for peace and stability. Four to promote mutual respect, complementarity and cohesion or integration so as to bolster wider regional and global peace and stability, as well as mutual growth.
Mr. president, 80 years of patience is enough. The time for structural reform is now. While we welcome the UN80 reform agenda to make this organisation agile, efficient and accountable, true reform must address the core structural issue: the UN Security Council. Africa is home to 1.5 billion people and account for nearly one third of the UN membership. Yet 80% of Security Council mandates concern Africa peace and security, while Africa remains without a single permanent seat on the organ responsible for global peace. This historical injustice is no longer tenable. Liberia reaffirms its support for common African position on proposed reform of the United Nations Security Council. We celebrate the presentation of the African model during the recent intergovernmental negotiation, which advances us toward text based negotiation. Africa demands no fewer than two permanent seats, with all accompanying rights and responsibilities, including the veto, so long as it exists, as well as additional non-permanent seat. Correcting the imbalance is not a favour for Africa. It is necessary to restore United Nations trust, credibility and legitimacy. Mr. president, the choices before the 81st General Assembly is stark. We can allow multilateralism to drift towards irrelevance, or we can change course and act boldly to restore trust, credibility and legitimacy. Liberia's journey from civil conflict to constitutional democracy, and from broken institutions to accountable governance, shows what is possible when nations commit deliberately and consistently to restoring trust and managing transformation. As we did in San Francisco in 1945, Liberia is ready, together with all member States to save mankind from the scourge of war guarantee human dignity and leave no one behind. Let us leave this assembly committed to a United Nations that is not deliberate on crisis, but also resolve them and restore trust through results, protect the vulnerable, honour the right of all nations, and secure a peaceful planet for generations to come.
Austria was still occupied while the superpowers were testing hydrogen bombs. And yet from this podium, Eisenhower named two things that did not yet exist negotiations to restore Austria's independence, and an international agency that would bring nuclear technology under international oversight to serve, as Eisenhower said, the needs rather than the fears of mankind. In 1955, Austria was free again. Two years later, the IAEA began its work and Vienna became its home. The world did not ban atomic energy. It built rules for its peaceful use. But those rules came only after Hiroshima and Nagasaki had shown the terrible cost of waiting. We cannot afford to wait for a catastrophe to happen. With artificial intelligence, we can still act first. For this reason, Austria joins the UN Secretary General and the president of the ICRC in calling for a legally binding instrument with clear prohibitions and restrictions on autonomous weapons. Voluntary guidelines are not enough. We need binding rules that keep human beings in control and ensure accountability. And we must not drag this out. Mr. president, every rule and reform I have spoken about serves one purpose peace.
Nevertheless, this protection is today under assault. Rearmament is accelerating throughout the world. We are seeing the use of force once again as being another political tool for some. Trade is breaking down and we are seeing a race to capture critical resources. The private sector is also part of these power relations. We are now in the era of the geo economy, and this is fertile ground for disinformation, which undermines people's trust in their institutions and leads them to question verifiable facts. Our belief has never been tried to such an extent since 1945 in Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan, the Sahel in many other places out of the media spotlight. Civilians are paying the price for conflicts which have discarded the most basic rules of humanity. And never, since 1945 has the very legitimacy of states and multilateral bodies such as the UN, been called into question to such an extent. Given this danger, let us recall our mission. In the words of Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General of the UN: The UN was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell. That is the exact scope of our task, and that is why we do not have the right to give up. First in Ukraine for almost five years, a permanent member of the Security Council has been waging a war of aggression against a sovereign state in flagrant violation of the charter. From the very outset, Monaco condemned this aggression unambiguously and unreservedly. We voted in favour of all of the General Assembly's resolutions calling and demanding for Russian forces to withdraw. We took all restrictive measures aligned with EU measures, and we also provided our humanitarian support to the Ukrainian people and hosted people displaced by the war. Our support is unwavering and it will remain so. Monaco will never recognize any annexation of territory obtained through force. Allowing this for one state would be tantamount to allowing it for all. The principality welcomes the ongoing diplomatic efforts and hopes that they will lead to fair, comprehensive, lasting peace, respecting Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Next to the Middle East, Monaco was greatly relieved by the cease fire, which entered into force in Gaza, and the fact that the hostages were freed. Nothing can ever justify the acts of terror of the 7th of October, but nor can anything justify the price paid by the civilians in Gaza. The principality calls on all parties to strengthen the fragile ceasefire and to respect every stage of it, ensuring full, safe, unhindered humanitarian access. We support efforts to rebuild Gaza, and we are concerned about the ongoing violence in the West Bank, in the occupied territories which ride roughshod over human rights and dishonor democratic values. Our belief remains the same. The only viable option is the two state solution Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security, within safe and recognized borders. Any policy that makes that scenario less likely through settlement building, or sowing terror makes peace less likely too. In Lebanon, too, Monaco supports de-escalation efforts and calls on all parties to fulfil their commitments, first and foremost Security Council Resolution 1701. The people of Lebanon have the right to a fully sovereign state in peace throughout its territory. In the Persian Gulf, finally, tensions around Iran remain a source of deep concern. Monaco pays tribute to all the civilian victims of the conflict and reiterates its solidarity with the countries of the Gulf who have been affected by the attacks. Here again, only negotiations can lead to a global agreement on the Iranian nuclear program and will prevent further escalation. Above and beyond these crises, Monaco will continue to contribute to international cooperation focused on the least developed countries through its support to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme, through development aid geared towards the health, education and empowerment of women and girls. Restoring trust also means changing the organisation itself.
Therefore, Mr. President, religious hatred must have no place in this world at all. Mr. president, Pakistan's economic revival remains a defining responsibility of my government and a mission that is very close to my heart. Through difficult, long overdue structural reforms and stringent fiscal discipline, we have restored macroeconomic stability and begun the journey towards sustainable and inclusive growth. We are modernising agriculture and industry, developing mineral resources, digitizing our economy, and equipping our youth with modern AI and IT skills. We are opening new pathways with China through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, as well as with the Gulf, Central Asia and beyond. Here I pay tribute to the visionary leadership of President Xi Jinping for spearheading the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative, and the Global Governance Initiative. On these pillars, we can surely build a shared future for mankind. Mr. president, developing countries are in dire need of timely debt relief, affordable long term financing, and a stronger voice in global financial institutions.
relationships with the states and institutions that benefited from these systems. Mr. president, technology is the new form of power that is rapidly transforming the world. And while it offers enormous opportunities for mankind, it can also create a new hierarchy in which a small number of corporations and powerful states control the systems on which the rest of humanity depends. We must ensure that artificial intelligence does not widen the gap between the powerful and the vulnerable. Technology must strengthen aspirations, not quietly erode them. Saint Lucia, therefore, calls for strong global standards on data protection, privacy and artificial intelligence; equitable access to digital infrastructure, cyber security and affordable connectivity; fair technology transfer; transparent algorithms; protection from surveillance, disinformation and cyber exploitation; and meaningful participation for small states in shaping global digital rules. The digital future must not be owned by a few. It must be governed for the benefit of all. Managing transformation means ensuring that no nation is left powerless in the face of technological change. Mr. president, my country, Saint Lucia, is a small, open and vulnerable state, but our people refuse to impose limits on their aspirations. History has blessed us with unimaginable natural beauty, ambitious, friendly people, and two Nobel laureates.
Now, let me finish by saying that artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology in the history of mankind. It will impact science, the economy, politics, security, and the very essence of our humanity. Humans can and should be in the driver's seat. We have a choice. We can compete, cooperate, or slow down. For me cooperation is the best way forward. This is why Norway and Finland have, together with leaders from nations around the world, launched a call for companies, governments, regional organizations and the UN to develop mechanisms to control frontier AI models. And I would really like for as many UN member states as possible to join this initiative.
To those cynics, I want to point out an instance that shows how hope can triumph over defeatism. And I go back to 1967 when representing the then geographically smallest member state of the United Nations, a member state that had been a member of the United Nations for less than three years, Arvid Pardo spoke up in this General Assembly in a stirring speech, Malta's permanent representative made a passionate plea to the world's common humanity. He may have been speaking on behalf of a very small nation, but he had a very ambitious vision. Pardo called for the world to treat the resources of the oceans beyond their own borders as the common heritage of mankind. His demand for a law of the sea was prescient, but to achieve it took persistence. In fact, it took 27 years before it came into being. What motivated Malta's action, then, is what motivates Malta's demands now? Doing nothing meant leaving the world's oceans to the mercy of the world's biggest, strongest and richest nations.
Quote. We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties can be maintained. To live together in peace with one another as good neighbors. And to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, end quote, they declared at a time. But although it's been 81 years since the signing of the treaty, humanity is still eagerly waiting for the day for the strong determination of that time to actually come to life.
