Page 146 - 100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International_V-Petrovsky_private special edition

100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International

becoming evermore important as а venue for conferences and negotiations, an
operational centre for peace-building, disarmament, economic and social
deve1opment, аnd the protection of human rights.

4. Now, after two years in office as Director-General, I feel assured that the
role of the City of Geneva is that of the largest European centre of the UN and
international interaction. Тhе traditional spirit of Geneva - the spirit of
openness, responsibili1y, and humanism is strongly reinforced bу the
increasing cooperation between the United Nations and the federal authorities,
as well as the heads of the administration of the City, and the Geneva Canton.
Like the two banks of the Geneva Lake, rive droite and rive gauche, the citizens
of Geneva and the international community form а harmonious entity in which
one part cannot exist without the other. Looking into the future, I strongly
believe that the joint efforts of the citizen and the international community can
ensure а prosperous future for Geneva in the new millennium.

5. Perhaps, the major challenge facing the UN in its process of reformation
is that this coincides with the fundamental and unprecedentedly rapid changes
in the world. The Cold War international system has collapsed, leading to
instability, disintegration of States, and numerous ethnic and intra-State
conflicts. In the economic field the long-awaited recovery in the industrial
nations has finally started but it is not complete. It failed in the most critical
domain: employment. It is expected that even in Europe unemployment will
continue to increase, рrоbably until the end of 1995.

6. Meanwhile, in the geoeconomic sphere, the redistribution of economic
power in favour of East Asia resulted in an emergence of а tripolar structure
with Western Europe, North America, and East Asia in а position of strategic
parity. This shift of economic power has brought about а number of develop-
ments that dramatically alter global economic arrangements: а worldwide
delocalization of industrial production; а decrease in the rate of job creation in
the service sector; trade tensions between the West and the newly industrial-
ized and industrializing countries; and а desynchronization of economic cycles
in the three regions.

7. These trends are complicated even more bу the accelerated technologi-
cal progress, in particular in communications technology which contribute to
the social and political transformations. New means of communication such as
Internet has created а new media for the dissemination and exchange of infor-
mation. This media is not controlled bу any national or international authority.

124