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100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International

laid the foundations for what should be done but it is vital that we do more, and
do it soon. The Secretary-General urges Governments to adopt and ratify the
Kyoto Protocol on reducing admissions of greenhouse gases, so that it can
enter into force by 2002. Governments are also asked to consider incorporating
the UN System of “green accounting” into their national accounts so as to
integrate environmental issues into mainstream economic policy.

Although wars between States have become less frequent, over the last 10
years more than 5 million people have died as a result of internal conflicts. One
of our major tasks must be the strengthening of peace operations on the global
and regional levels, taking into account that today's complex peace operations
are very much different from the traditional monitoring of cease-fires. Their
objective, in essence, is to assist the parties engaged in conflict to pursue their
interests through political channels instead of resorting to military ones. The
review of all aspects of peace operations is very much in need. (It is being
undertaken currently by a high-level panel appointed by the Secretary-General
which is set to present its' recommendations to the SG this month and its
report to the next session of the General Assembly.)

As the Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament, I would also
like to emphasize that we must be more rigorous in our pursuit of arms regula-
tion. Member States need to recommit themselves both to reducing existing
nuclear weapons and strengthening the regime of non-proliferation. But nucle-
ar weapons are by no means the only threat. Small arms are a serious issue. One
of the most common daily killers in the world, for example, is the automatic
rifle. Without more conscientious regulation of all kinds of armaments, we
cannot consider ourselves to be on the path to a more peaceful world.

Freedom from fear also refers to sanctions. Over the last 10 years the
Security Council has often resorted to sanctions as a means of punishing rogue
States. But we have come at last to realize that there is no such thing as a rogue
State, only rogue regimes. We need to target sanctions so that we punish the
regime and not the innocent people.

The ideal solution to all the challenges we are facing today, is prevention.
We should not dismiss the notion that prevention is possible. Take for example
internal armed conflicts, if we are to prevent them we need to understand their
causes. Frequently we see that internal conflicts are a result of poor governance,
particularly in places where there are sharp inequalities between different
ethnic and religious groups. In order to have good governance it is necessary to

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