One fourth of a nation lost.

• Position: Belarus

Belarus was one of the founding Member States of the United Nations, perceived by its founding fathers as a guarantor for both small and large nations, irrespective of the level of their economic development and military might, to defend them based on equality of rights and national interests in the international arena. An integral part of the former Soviet Union, Belarus was given the status of a full member of the United Nations as a recognition by the international community of its outstanding contribution to the defeat of the Nazi troops and the tremendous human loss--a fourth of its citizens--suffered during the Second World War.

The first years of its membership in the United Nations witnessed the rise to qualitatively new heights of the Belarusian international diplomacy. The Permanent Mission of the Republic of Belarus to the United Nations, opened in 1958 despite limited diplomatic staffing, gradually increased the country's contribution to various UN activities.

During the cold war, Belarus could not avoid being involved in the global confrontation as an integral part of the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, it was making a tangible contribution to UN activities in the process of nuclear disarmament and decolonization, establishing a new international economic order. Belarus, from the very outset of its state sovereignty, took part in several major international fora held under the aegis of the United Nations. Going far beyond mere participation in the development of the final documents of those fora, Belarus does not limit itself to the national programmes of action, but is in a permanent search for mutually beneficial cooperation with regional partners as a sure means to expedite and facilitate the implementation of internationally adopted decisions under the UN aegis.

In April 1997, for instance, an international conference on sustainable development of countries with economies in transition was jointly organized in Minsk by the Belarus Government and a number of UN funds and programmes and the UN Secretariat. The idea to establish an international centre for sustainable development in Minsk also originated from Belarus. Today, it is actively engaged in the preparatory process for the ten-year review of the Agenda 21 implementation and the international intergovernmental forum on financing development. It has been repeatedly elected to the UN Economic and Social Council and its numerous commissions and committees. In 1998 and 1999...