Виступ Тимчасового повіреного України при ООН Ю.Вітренка на неформальних консультаціях ГА ООН щодо підготовки декларації «75-та річниця ООН»

Co-facilitators,

[Ukraine aligns itself with the statement by the EU. In my national capacity, I would like to add the following.]

Co-facilitators,

I appreciate the initiative of the UNGA President to convene these informal consultations process on the topic, which is highly fitting both for taking stock of the Organization’s performance and for presenting ideas on how to make the UN work more efficient and relevant on ensuring sustaining peace.

It is a timely opportunity for Member-States and the UN leadership to consider measures leading to effecting real change in the prevailing mindset as well as to strengthen the capacity of the United Nations, especially in the area of maintaining international peace and security.

I would like to thank also the Co-facilitators for presenting their views in the “Food for thought” — paper, which we found very practical and forward-looking.

I am not going into the details of every question of the Paper. Instead, I would like to highlight one of the topics of the Paper’s chapter “Responding to Major Global Challenges”, namely strengthening the capabilities of the Organization in the field of conflict prevention.

As we gather here today, peace remains as an ever-elusive goal. Despite the universal appeal for peace and declared commitment to uphold it, wars and armed conflicts remain a recurring feature of today’s international affairs. Their causes may be different, but consequences are similarly horrible. With rising number of violent conflicts and with their changing nature, the existing tools and approaches that the United Nations uses to address them are called into question.

Moreover, in matters of preventing conflicts and gross violations of human rights the speed of the UN actions is crucial. In 1994 in Rwanda the UN failed to react promptly to prevent genocide. 20 years later in Ukraine the United Nations has still taken no actions to stop occupation of parts of the territory of Ukraine and foreign military aggression against my country.

At the same time, despite all the criticism and negative assessments of the UN functioning in the sphere of peace and security, currently there is no alternative to the UN in terms of safeguarding international peace and security.

Therefore, it is true that the long overdue reform of our Organization must be accomplished in order to maintain its once unquestionable credit of trust and restore its ability to take prompt preventive measures.

In this regard I would like to suggest for consideration the following commitments of the Member-States to be included to the draft Declaration:

— to increase efficiency of the United Nations in tackling the contemporary threats and challenges, both old and new, to international peace and security;

— to address the common challenges in a spirit of cooperation, shared responsibility and respect of international law, territorial integrity and sovereign equality;

— not to accept, tolerate or recognize as lawful any special advantage resulting from violation of the United Nations Charter, including military aggression and occupation;

— to prevent selective application of the provisions of the United Nations Charter, including its Purposes and Principles;

— not to deviate from the aspirations existed while establishing the United Nations, which was called to overcome the consequences of the World War Two caused by the massive human rights violations, international law negligence and totalitarianism;

— to maximize the efforts aimed at finalizing the process on modernization of the United Nations Security Council to make it more responsive to the needs of Members-States in tackling contemporary challenges in the sphere of international peace and security.

It is necessary also to condemn the territorial acquisitions resulting from the threat or use of force, which constitute a grave challenge to international peace and security, and to underline that those territories must be immediately returned.

In general, it would be appropriate also to shape a common agreement on reinforcement of collective actions in order to renew strict respect for the United Nations Charter and to put an end of its violations.

My delegation will communicate abovementioned elements to you, distinguished Co-facilitators.

In closing, I would like to assure you of our full cooperation in order to come up with meaningful and fitting this critical for the UN juncture document.

I thank you