Kofi Annan's agenda for reform is assured of strong support from Ireland, writes Dermot Ahern.
The report of the High-Level Panel established by the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, to examine the role and structures of the UN, is a comprehensive and compelling document.
Its recommendations, if implemented, would go a very long way towards establishing the new consensus which we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century and to ensure that the UN remains at the centre of our collective security system.
Ireland, like most small nations, sees the UN as the ultimate guarantor of our freedom and safety. As a neutral state, outside military alliances, we do not believe that the challenges facing the international community can be satisfactorily resolved through unilateral action by any one country, or group of countries. To that end, the UN is the cornerstone of Ireland's foreign policy.
I see Ireland's role in the forthcoming debate as being a strong advocate of Secretary-General Annan's reform agenda.
We support calls for a General Assembly which is better able to focus on the most compelling issues of the day and a Security Council which is representative of the contemporary world rather than 1945. We will support a strengthened UN secretariat and greater emphasis on post-conflict peace-building.
The noble ideal of the UN's founders - to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war" - remains as valid today as in 1945. The founders, however, could not have imagined the complexity of the threats and challenges we face at the start of the 21st century.
We live in an increasingly interlinked and interdependent world where none of us is isolated from the threat of terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and of course the consequences of war, as well as famine and the scourge of poverty.
Kofi Annan summed up the challenge well at last year's General Assembly when he said: "We have come to a fork in the road. This may be a moment no less decisive than 1945 itself. We must not shy away from questions about the adequacy and effectiveness of the rules and instruments at our disposal."
We all need but cannot take for granted a global organisation which is legitimate, effective and responsive to global concerns. The High-Level Panel's report provides us with the opportunity to engage in a serious debate on the future role, values and scope of the UN system.
The report starts from the obvious premise that no state can stand alone and that collective action is indispensable. It recognises, correctly, that today's threats respect no national boundaries and that no state is invulnerable to those threats. We all share responsibility for each other's security and wellbeing.
The challenge to us, the UN member-states, comes at a critical time when many question the purpose and integrity of the UN and the system of collective security it embodies. The UN system itself is under great strain. The bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad on August 19th, 2003, in which 22 people died, brought it home to us that we cannot always take it for granted that the blue flag of the UN can provide protection.
The tragic fate of Margaret Hassan further demonstrates that those who work to the highest ideals of humanitarianism are not immune from danger.
The UN has for the most part served us well over the last 60 years. It can continue to do so, for the benefit of all peoples, if we adapt its structures and operations to the conditions which exist at the beginning of the 21st century. But we also have to equip it to deal effectively with the inter-related challenges and threats which have been identified, and, in this way, show the world that the UN is once again driven by the determination and idealism which inspired its founders.
Some observers see the UN almost solely through the cracked prism of its failure to agree collectively on how to deal with one issue - Iraq. However, while the media understandably focuses on Iraq, about 70 per cent of the time of the Security Council is taken up with conflict-prevention and peacekeeping in Africa.
We in Ireland know from our recent experience of Security Council membership that the council is in need of change. To enhance its legitimacy, it must become more representative of all the peoples of the world, not just the victors of the second World War. It must have better tools to prevent conflict and end humanitarian crises.
But even in its existing flawed format, the council has achieved much, and it remains the only mechanism which has the political legitimacy and the authority under international law to end conflicts across the globe.
More than 800 Irish troops will spend this Christmas abroad - 400 of them in Liberia - as testimony to Ireland's ongoing commitment to UN peacekeeping, without which the lives of people in Africa and elsewhere would be immeasurably worse, with little prospect of relief from the scourge of war.
The risks run by its dedicated staff every day were brought home to us by the kidnapping of three UN electoral workers, including Annetta Flanigan, in the wake of the substantial UN achievement in ensuring the success of the presidential elections in Afghanistan.
It is time for the governments of the member-states to act together with determination and, in the words of Kofi Annan, to "seek common solutions to common problems". This will require political will and effective structures. Neither one on its own will suffice.
We must act now on the recommendations set out in the report of the High-Level Panel. Ireland, given its traditional commitment to the United Nations, will not be found wanting in this regard.
Dermot Ahern is the Minister for Foreign Affairs