We gather this week to reaffmn our commitment to peace, justice and development.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines proudly recognises His Excellency John Ashe, son of our Caribbean soil and immediate past President of the United Nations General Assembly, for his invaluable contribution in advancing the international agenda during his superlative tenure. We joyously welcome you, Mr. President, as our new standard-bearer. As part of the African Diaspora, we celebrate with the Continent in claiming you as one of our own, and investing the same faith and confidence in your role as do the peopleof your native Uganda.
Mr. President,
Fifteen years into the 21st Century, the challenges of our times have caused some nations to question the value or role of sovereignty in an increasingly borderless world. Globalisation and modernity have
unleashed a number of forces that operate independently of national governments or borders: The ills of climate change, communicable diseases, and economic contagion spread like wildfire as external shocks
that pose serious developmental and existential threats beyond the scope of individual states to address.
Groups have emerged – from terrorists to drug cartels to certain rapacious multinationals – that span the globe and exploit systemic weaknesses to further their own nefarious self-interest.
The pressures of keeping pace in an interconnected world have led to suggestions that we can no longer rely on a traditional rulebook that does not specifically contemplate our modem challenges. Saint Vincent
and the Grenadines emphatically rejects this suggestion. The “rulebook” that governs our international cooperation is the United Nations Charter, and its principal, golden, rule is that of respect for the sovereign equality of all States. To be sure, certain administrative aspects of our rulebook are clearly long overdue for meaningful reform – like the composition and working methods of our fossilized and increasingly irrelevant Security Council. However, the principles that inform our Charter and undergird this Assembly are timeless.
Any attempt to deviate from the Charter – in word, deed or spirit – would constitute an assault on sovereignty, a departure from diplomacy and the improvisation of international law on the fly. Loss of sovereignty has never benefitted the weak or powerless. Erosion of sovereignty has never restrained the interests of the powerful. The list of nations whose sovereignty has been violated in the interest of great power convenience grows inexorably longer; while the tally of those whose populations are demonstrably better off for such violations remains tragically short. Accordingly, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines rejects the choice between modem interconnectivity and traditional sovereignty as false, and intended to accelerate a global slide into lawless unilateralism.
