Presentation to UNA-USA of the National Capital Area
Remarks by Ambassador Robert E. Hunter, Chairman of CCD  at the UN Global Day
School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, October 27, 2001

Thank you very much. Thanks to all of you. This is quite a crowd of good-looking people on a Saturday morning. I think that is testimony to the importance of the United Nations, the importance of the U.S. role in the United Nations, the importance of you people who have kept the support for the UN going even at times, at least in this town, when political leaders have shown less deference to the importance of the UN. And I’m glad to see that we’re finally beginning to pay our dues. We’ll have to do even better in the future.

 The salute also goes to the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area, for all that you have done for this day, our celebration here in Washington of United Nations Day, with a Global Community Day. We have celebrated this day ever since 1947, exactly two years after Dean Acheson at the State Department deposited the documents and brought into being the United Nations, much noted with great promise – indeed, at that point no one knew how far it could reach. It was designed in part to help the world put behind it the worst war humanity has ever experienced, and to try to do those things that would prevent further war and further cataclysm. I think we can all be proud as Americans that we have long supported the United Nations, indeed provided much of its inspiration. Now more than ever, we Americans, and people everywhere, need the United Nations to flourish, prosper, and grow. I believe this is the institution that, in the 21^st century, must finally come into its own, not just in terms of relations among states, but particularly in terms of those things that the UN sponsors, monitors, supports, and engineers, in those areas that bring to human life the fundamental underpinnings for democracy and for freedom.

 In the United States, we see that these are difficult and dangerous days. We saw terror in New York City with the loss of so many thousands of people at the World Trade Center. It was a true United Nations of disaster -- more than 60 nations were represented among the people who died at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in the field in Pennsylvania. We’ve seen terror again, and again focused in both New York and Washington, with the quiet but deadly bio-terrorism. Whether it comes from abroad or at home is of no difference in terms of striking at people who are only doing their job of trying to bring us together through the post office -- people who are quietly trying to do their work to bring communication among people of all nations, and others in doing the work of democracy in the Congress. For the first time since 1814, the Congress is operating in temporary quarters. And even yesterday, the Supreme Court was shuttered, I suspect for the first time ever. But throughout all this, of course, has been the unconquerable spirit of our people. And I say peoples of the United Nations, all represented, especially in New York City, in the spontaneous outpouring of voluntarism to try to succor the fallen, to find the survivors, to help those who had suffered so much – and to be determined that this should not be allowed to happen again.

 They figured wrong about the American people, and they figured wrong about the people who believe in the United Nations. For the first time in our history, we have reached out, not as part of defending others, reached out to the United Nations, in regard to an attack on ourselves. And we’ve reached out in many places. On September 12^th, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for the first time in its history, declared what we call an Article 5 situation, that an attack on one is an attack on all. And on that same day, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted its Resolution 1308, which, among other things, unequivocally condemns in the strongest terms the horrifying terrorist attacks, and regards such acts, like any act of international terrorism, as a threat to international peace and security, and, among other things, it expressed readiness to combat all forms of terrorism, in accordance with the Security Council’s responsibilities under the Charter of the United Nations.

 On September 19^th, a week later, the convening group of democracies, who were at the Community of Democracies meeting in Warsaw the previous year, themselves resolved to strengthen their cooperation to face international challenges to democracy. In reality, this is what these attacks were: a challenge to the workings of democratic societies, people going about their ordinary business, enjoying the benefits and responsibilities of democracies.  And then again in Resolution 1373, the Security Council extended its support in practical ways -- to finances, information, and the responsibilities of states to counter terrorism. I think this shows that the terrorists could attack two towers in New York City, but the spirit of the people who rally around still stands as well as the spirit of people of good will in that complex with the other great New York tower, on the East River, the United Nations. We will rebuild the twin towers in New York, but there is no need to rebuild the tower of strength that is the UN.

 Now we in the United States are focused on the conduct of a war on terrorism, on Osama bin Laden, on Al Qaeda, and their ilk, whoever, wherever they may be -- and in regard to at least one group, the Taliban in Afghanistan, that chose not to join what has been done elsewhere to stop this scourge.

 What we cannot fail to address in this process are the sources and the inspiration of terrorism. Not what motivates the Bin Ladens, however they are motivated, whatever perversion leads not just to suicide as an instrument, but to the enormity of enlisting so many innocents in these peaceful instruments of commerce, of human intercourse, the commercial jet planes, turned into weapons of destruction.

 But talking about the sources and inspirations of the supporters of terrorism, what can lead people in various countries to see a Bin Laden, not for the criminal that he is – along with Al Qaeda, a kind of an international Mafia -- but rather as someone to be looked up to, rather than to be looked down upon and condemned. This I think is where the UN, as much as any other institution, comes in, ranging from the practical to the political to the spiritual, and represented in what I think is a wise departure, a wise invocation by President Bush, in turning to the United Nations for nation-building in post-Taliban Afghanistan, which will be an astoundingly daunting task.

 A major element of this is clearly the role of democracy. It is a humbling task for me to talk about this, because so much has been done, by so many over many years. We now have more democracies in the world than the United Nations had members in 1945. It was a dream then, democracy for all, but it was not an impossible dream. What we now see as the great prospect for the 21^st century was seen as being so far in the future at the dawning of the UN 56 years ago. But there has long been the vision.

 I think it’s remarkable, in surveying the great movements of the 21^st century to bring peace, that democracy at first did not figure as central. In January 1918, Woodrow Wilson put forward his fourteen points in a speech to Congress, laying out the political and moral framework that so much still guides us today, but he only made one passing reference to the idea of democracy. The UN Charter doesn’t even use the word. Trygve Lie, the first UN Secretary General, in his famous ten-point program, his hope of bringing peace within twenty years, did not mention it in the document he sent to President Truman. Even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not use the word democracy. 

 But the underlying idea and the ideal has always been here, expressed in terms of its instruments-- what must be done to make democracy real in the lives of people.

President Truman, in opening the San Francisco conference on April 25^th, 1945, only 2 weeks after he became president, and with the war in Europe with 2 weeks yet to run, opened with a very simple phrase -- “The world has experienced a revival of an old faith in the everlasting force of justice.” Today, we could add to that word “justice,” the word “democracy,” which was implicit in what he said.

 The Preamble to the UN Charter, signed on the 26th of June of that year, includes the words:

 “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small…And for these ends,” among other things, “to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples.”

 Thus freedom, social and economic advancement are bound together, not as opposites but as essential elements of one another. 

 And so, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the child of that great former First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt -- noted for always wanting to light a candle rather than curse the darkness --, we see that the “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world…” 

 And Trygve Lie, in his document, point six: “ the importance of a sound and active program of technical assistance for economic development;” and point seven: “more vigorous use by all Member Governments of the Specialized Agencies of the United Nations to promote, in the words of the Charter, ‘higher standards of living, full employment and conditions of economic and social progress.’”

 In recent years, we have slowly come to an affirmation of the importance of the idea that originated with Emmanuel Kant, the idea that democracies, we must hope -- and so far it has seemed to be true -- that democracies do not make war on other democracies. Democracies are not just something for the individual, but also an instrument of moving beyond what was the most terrible of human centuries, that the consent of the governed is a fundamental partner with the concepts of freedom, a critical part of the triad of human rights -- the security of the person, economic rights, and political rights.

 We understood this in the creation of the Marshall Plan, followed by NATO, the understanding that, by rebuilding and in some places building from nothing, democracy can help people revive their economies. Prosperity was fundamental, not just to their lives but also to security. We have done the same, 50 years later, with NATO’s Partnership for Peace, with the European Union’s PHARE and TACIS Programs, understanding that democracy and economic and human development are all part of a single package. This relates fundamentally to the threat of terrorism today – both to protect human ideals and to counter something that Mao Zedong gave the world, the idea that for guerillas and terrorists to operate, they must have a sea of people in which to hide and to swim. It is our objective now to help drain that sea. This means dealing with poverty, with misery, with disease -- and this effort is represented by two colleagues on this panel, today, in development and in health. It means that the institutions of freedom and democracy nurture best in that soil of human hope and development

 Last year, there was the meeting of the Community of Democracies in June in Warsaw. And last September 12^th, just slightly less than a year before the horrors in New York, at the Millennium Assembly of the UN, the representatives of the convening group made their proposals for an informal caucus of the UN, understanding that democracies, which were a tiny minority and now are heading toward becoming a majority of the UN, have things to do together to help promote, in individual countries and among them, this ideal, not as an afterthought, but as the mainstream-- to help assist countries moving on that path towards democracy, because it is not an easy thing. We had seven hundred years in the Anglo-Saxon world; but many of these countries are trying to build democracy in seven or seventy. This convening group welcomed the offer of UNDP to sponsor an on-going forum to assist governments and NGOs that seek more efficient means of cooperation and assistance in strengthening the values and institutions of democracies. The OAS held a conference under this banner this year. There is the effort to spread the best practices of democracies, one country to another, to take this ideal in account in voting at the General Assembly, and to look forward to the next Community of Democracies meeting in Seoul in October, 2002.

 This idea is gaining much support. I’m pleased that some of us, including my colleague, Dick Rowson, on the panel, Walt Raymond, who is the president, have joined the Council for a Community of Democracies, and we would welcome your membership, to help build the support that will be required so this sense that there is a community of common interests and common action of democracies can be carried forward.

 All of this was propelled forward by what we now call “911.”  For us in this country, Pearl Harbor ended American isolation. Since September 11, we must hope we get the message, the fire-bell in the night, that must end our insulation. It must end the argument of unilateral vs. multilateral action; multilateral is the future. No country stands alone – a statement that now also applies to our country, where we thought for so long we could stand apart. It also shows where coalitions are needed: the great coalition against Saddam Hussein and that today against Osama and his ilk and the strength that comes from coalitions. And, yes, we must finally close the debate of whether we will be an internationalist country. We need the support of others in our instant need; thus we must also, even as a country of great strength, continue to be worthy of this support of others. Indeed, we must find a way to take American power and strength, which today are unrivaled, and turn them into lasting influence, which we can do in only two ways: to stand for our ideals above all else and to create institutions, ideas, practices, and processes that work for us, because they also work for others.

And no more so than in this institution, the United Nations, so much supported by the people in this room, but so much pilloried in places like Capitol Hill; but no place is more important than the United Nations and, by gosh, let’s keep those payments up! Development with nation-building in Afghanistan is only one start. Health and democracy.  Education.  The kind of effort needed to cope not just with terrorism, which has given us a reason immediately, but as a vital purpose for the human dimension. Where the United Nations, which has perhaps the most vital role to play in shaping the 21^st century, now coming of age some 56 years after its founding, must find in the United States a far more committed partner than has often been true in the past.

 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.