VOICES ON THE EVE OF THE MILLENNIUM.

• Position: Last United Nations general debate of 20th century

Representatives of 180 Member States, including 36 Heads of State and 19 Prime Ministers, voiced their aspirations for the next millennium and presented their views on the future of the United Nations in this last general debate of the century. The need for a peaceful world and the development of humankind were at the centre of their concerns.

In the light of recent humanitarian crises, world leaders, speaking at the fifty-fourth session of the General Assembly, believed that stronger multilateral mechanisms were needed to respond to the global challenges of the twenty-first century. There was general consensus that globalization and international law were redefining the notions of state sovereignty and human rights. The Secretary-General, highlighting the question of humanitarian intervention at the outset of the debate, urged the international community to move "from a culture of reaction to a culture of prevention", stressing that the Organization's main challenge was to unite the world in defence of human rights.

Some States, such as Australia, Denmark, El Salvador, Gambia, Hungary and Thailand, remarked that absolute sovereignty and non-interference were no longer tenable in cases of serious human rights violations. The President of the United States reasoned that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's actions in Kosovo followed the "clear consensus" spelled out in several Security Council resolutions. "Had we chosen to do nothing in the face of this brutality", he said, "we would have risked discrediting everything the United Nations stands for." The President of Colombia called the effective application of the UN Charter the "rational response to interventionist or isolationist tendencies". Italy's Foreign Minister said the world's response to future challenges should be "dictated by respect for universal principles rather than by a balance of power". The Foreign Minister of Poland said "Rwanda demonstrates what Kosovo might have become, had we not intervened in 1999, and Kosovo demonstrates what Rwanda might have been, had we intervened in 1994".

A number of States, including Malaysia. Samoa, the Sudan, Suriname and Syria, feared that unilateral interventions outside the enforcement mechanisms sanctioned by international law threatened developing countries and undermined the existing security system. The President of Algeria, also representing the Organization of African Unity (OAU), criticized the blurring of humanitarian aid and...