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<title>MESSAGE FROMTHE HONOURABLE LLOYD AXWORTHYMINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRSTO THE HAGUE APPEAL FOR PEACE</title>
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<p><font face="Arial" size="+1"></font><font face="Arial" size="+1">99/35 <u>CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY</u></font></p>
<p align="CENTER"><font face="Arial" size="+1">MESSAGE FROM</font></p>
<p align="CENTER"><font face="Arial" size="+1">THE HONOURABLE LLOYD AXWORTHY</font></p>
<p align="CENTER"><font face="Arial" size="+1">MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS</font></p>
<p align="CENTER"><font face="Arial" size="+1">TO THE HAGUE APPEAL FOR PEACE</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial" size="+1"></font><font face="Arial" size="+1">THE HAGUE, Netherlands</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial" size="+1">May 13, 1999<em></em></font></p>
<p><font face="Arial" size="+1"><em>(4:15 p.m. EDT)</em></font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">I regret that I am not able to join you today at this important global assembly. The theme of this event -- achieving
global peace and security -- has lost none of its relevance or urgency since the first Hague Appeal for Peace a
century ago.</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">The overwhelming response, the impressive and wide participation, the comprehensive agenda of this gathering all
attest to a profound, universal desire to work toward this goal. They are aIso a testament to the vision and hard
work of the event's organizers, especially Mr. Bill Pace. To them I extend my appreciation. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">The program of this conference makes clear that the road to world peace has many paths. However, what unites
them is, I believe, a very simple aspiration: well-being and security for all people. I fully share this aspiration.
Promoting human security is at the heart of the new diplomacy. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">The changing nature of violent conflict and the forces of globalization have increasingly put people at the centre of
world affairs. Human security is more central than ever to national security, regional stability and global peace. For
so many, however, that security has never been at greater risk. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Today, civilians pay the heaviest price from the rise in intrastate conflict and from failed states, they bear the brunt
of the new practices of war and they suffer most from the inexpensive yet readily available weapons of modern war.
This is a reality all too palpable for ordinary people from Sierra Leone to the Balkans, from Central Africa to
Cambodia.</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Threats to individual security are not limited to violent conflict. For all its promise, globalization has also shown a
dark underside. Transnational phenomena -- terrorism, illicit drugs and crime, environmental degradation and
infectious disease, financial and economic instability -- put all of us at risk. Indeed, they have already caused
tremendous suffering, especially for the most vulnerable. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">At the same time, instantaneous communications, rapid transportation, increasingly porous borders, and rising
business, cultural and academic ties have undeniably and unalterably merged all our lives into a common destiny. In
this world, the security or insecurity of others has become very much our own security or insecurity. As a result, we
have both a responsibility and an interest to act when the well-being of others is imperiled. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">The new diplomacy, with human security at its centre, is an effort to respond to these new global realities. It is, in
essence, an effort to construct a global society where the safety of the individual is at the centre of international
priorities and a motivating force for international action, where international humanitarian standards and the rule of
law are advanced and woven into a coherent web protecting the individual, where those who violate these
standards are held fully accountable, and finally where our global, regional and bilateral institutions -- present and
future -- are built and equipped to enhance and enforce these standards.</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">To that end, human security has been the impetus behind efforts to create the International Criminal Court, thereby
strengthening the arm of international justice; it is behind the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines
[APMs] -- a novel, people-based approach to disarmament; and it is behind the movement to expand international
legal norms -- for example, to protect children in armed conflict. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Fostering human security has likewise been the motive behind efforts to adapt existing global and regional
institutions in order to integrate human concerns into their activities. This is particularly important at the United
Nations Security Council. Rather than avoiding engagement, the Council, as the legitimate decision-making body
for peace and security, should be actively involved in setting the rules -- and limits -- for international involvement
in the new, admittedly more complex, situations of modern armed conflict. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Advancing human security is also the reason for developing innovative global partnerships linking countries,
institutions and non-governmental organizations with like-minded objectives. Such coalitions between governments
and civil society helped make the campaign to ban APMs a success and were instrumental to progress in adopting
the statute of the International Criminal Court. They are harbingers of the future, demonstrating the power of good
ideas and pooled resources. Your presence here in such numbers is a powerful signal; your energy, expertise and
ideas are indispensable in the pursuit of the human security agenda.</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Finally, enhancing human security means enhancing national security. The two are not mutually exclusive. However,
the security of the state is not an end in itself. It is a means of ensuring security for people. In this context, state
security and human security are in fact mutually supportive. Building an effective, democratic state that values its
own people and protects minorities is central to promoting human security. At the same time, improving the human
security of its people strengthens the legitimacy, stability and security of a state. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Where human security exists as a fact rather than an aspiration, that situation can be attributed, in large measure, to
the effective governance of states. For this reason, peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts that focus on building
open and stable societies are an important element in enhancing human security. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Sometimes, however, when states are externally aggressive, internally repressive or too weak to govern effectively,
they threaten the security of people. In the face of massive state-sponsored murders, appalling violations of human
rights and the calculated brutalization of people, the humanitarian imperative to act cannot be ignored and can
outweigh concerns about state sovereignty. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">In this situation, when other means of addressing the threats have been exhausted, robust measures (including
military action) may be needed to defend human security. It is in this context that the response to the conflict in
Kosovo should be seen. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">The recourse to airstrikes was precipitated by evidence that repression by the Serb authorities was on the rise and
accelerating. It was and is the humanitarian imperative that galvanized NATO to act. It is engaged in Kosovo to
restore human security to the people of Kosovo. The Alliance's action is a clear signal that it is unacceptable to
slaughter people, to commit the most flagrant violations of humanitarian law against them, to deprive them
arbitrarily of their property, or to expel them from their homes and homeland. It is a clear message that those
responsible will be held accountable. Far from being in contradiction with the human security agenda, the Alliance's
campaign is an important, precedent-setting action in support of it. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Vaclav Havel observed, "The sovereignty of the community, the region, the nation, the state . . . makes sense only if
it is derived from the one genuine sovereignty -- that is, from the sovereignty of the human being." In a similar vein, I
believe that the concept of peace and security -- national, regional and global -- makes sense only if it is derived
from human security. This is the basis of the new diplomacy. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Your discussions this week will be important in charting a course in support of global peace and security for the next
century. I hope this will reflect the new diplomacy and point to ways to promote human security more effectively. I
wish you luck and look forward to receiving the results of your work.</font></p>
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