2022 Speech - Costa Rica
| Session Number | 77 |
|---|---|
| Year | 2022 |
| Country | Costa Rica |
| Country Code | CRI |
| Speech |
Costa Rica congratulates the President of the General Assembly at its seventy-seventh session on his election. We are confident that his extensive political experience will be crucial to the success of the work ahead.
A maelstrom of challenges is shaking the foundations of our Organization. The pandemic has been raging for three years now, and 30.3 per cent of humankind have yet to receive a single vaccine. The climate crisis and biodiversity loss are hitting us mercilessly and without discrimination. We are currently experiencing that at first hand in Pakistan, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica. Yet as the most vulnerable countries we are the ones stepping up our efforts, creating large protection and conservation areas and increasing our adaptation and mitigation efforts, while the biggest carbon emitters and those responsible for the climate catastrophe continue to ignore their obligations. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine not only violated the principles of the Charter of the United Nations but also provoked a humanitarian, fuel and financial crisis that will drive millions of people into food insecurity and poverty. Moreover, the invasion has also threatened our collective security system and provoked renewed division and polarization into geopolitical and economic blocs that pit East against West and North against South. All that is happening at the very moment when we needed to build more bridges and fewer walls, when we should not lose sight of the situations in Yemen and Mali, in Myanmar and Syria, in Libya and Haiti, in Tigray and the Sahel and between Israel and Palestine. The attacks on democracy and human rights, especially those of women and girls, also know no borders. The decline of democracy is evident in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, the Asia-Pacific and my own region, where the situation in Nicaragua demands the urgent attention of the international community to ensure the release of hundreds of political prisoners, the restoration of freedom of expression and the press, civil society’s right of association and a return to democracy. In terms of rights, the cruellest example can be found in Afghanistan, where for the past year girls above the sixth grade have been forbidden to go to school, leaving them even more exposed to violence, poverty and exploitation. We have come to the General Assembly to identify comprehensive solutions to the multiple crises we face, because it is impossible to end poverty without empowering women and girls, ensure respect for human rights without addressing climate change, and address the reform of the international financial system without new parameters for the allocation of assistance. First, for Costa Rica, the response to the multiple crises we face must be based on a rights and obligations approach. Human rights and unequivocal respect for human dignity and value are not just words. They are obligations undertaken by States, enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and all our human rights treaties and instruments. They are also the expression of the legitimate and universal aspirations of every person, of all peoples, who after all are the ones who enable us to be in this solemn Hall and to speak on their behalf. Costa Rica too faces challenges and gaps with regard to the full enjoyment of human rights, the building of a culture of peace and non-discrimination and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. We are aware that human rights are essential to combating poverty, inequality and exclusion. They are not a stumbling block, and nor should they be. They are nothing less than the only way forward. Costa Rica has never closed its doors to migrants who see in our country a route of passage or a destination to integrate into our society. In 2021, we were fourth in the world in terms of receiving new refugee applications per capita. And we welcome the largest number of Nicaraguan citizens of any country in the world. However, our economic situation and tight finances, together with massive migratory flows, limit our ability to take action and jeopardize the shelter that we always provided to the hundreds of thousands of people who have sought refuge on our soil in the past. It is with a real sense of urgency that we call on the support of the international community to address that challenge, which has been aggravated not only by conflict and poverty but also by the impact of climate change. In a context of multiple and accumulated crises, human rights must forge new paths. Costa Rica welcomed the General Assembly’s recognition on 28 July of the universal right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment (resolution 76/300). For my country that is a beacon of hope comparable to the proclamation of the right to water, to development or to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it is the right response to our triple planetary crisis of pollution, climate change and the loss of biodiversity. The resolution is a point of departure rather than of arrival. Costa Rica will continue to work with Member States, the United Nations and all stakeholders to break down the silo mentality and provide effective solutions to human problems, especially for those who suffer the most — the most vulnerable, marginalized and excluded. True to our commitment to the rights agenda, Costa Rica has decided to submit its candidacy for election to the Human Rights Council for the period from 2023 to 2025. Costa Rica respectfully requests the support of the members of the General Assembly for its candidacy. Our country is an ambitious actor willing to watch over the rights of all people everywhere in the world, as well as a country that will readily commit to dialogue, mutual understanding, cooperation and solidarity in support of humankind. Secondly, human security is key to global security. We find it inconceivable that while millions of people are waiting for life-saving vaccines, medicines or food, the richest countries continue to prioritize spending on arms at the expense of people’s welfare, climate health and equitable recovery. In 2021, global military spending continued to increase for the seventh consecutive year to reach the highest figure ever recorded in history. Today Costa Rica reiterates its call for a gradual and sustained reduction in military spending, because the more weapons we produce, the more weapons will escape even our best efforts to manage and control them. It is about prioritizing the lives and well-being of people and the planet over the profits to be made from weapons and war. It is about investing in and actively building alternative approaches to security, approaches that facilitate cooperation and care rather than competition and violence. We also believe that it is possible to achieve peace and security without resorting to the use of nuclear weapons. Since the total elimination of nuclear weapons is the only guarantee against their use or threat of use, Costa Rica urges more States to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, as well as to adhere to the Vienna Declaration on Nuclear Safety and its action plan. We also urge the Russian Federation to cease its attacks on Ukraine and its civilians and critical infrastructure, to demilitarize the Zaporizhzhya plant and not to resort to nuclear coercion, which we condemn in the strongest terms. Costa Rica calls on both parties to ensure respect, at all times and in all circumstances, for international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The third transformative solution must be financial. We middle-income countries face significant inequalities and challenges, such as increased fiscal tightening, which limit our capacity for action and investment and threaten our social fabric. And even though we are home to the highest percentage of poor people and migrants in the world, our categorization does not allow us to access official development assistance or obtain concessional financing on favourable and fair terms. It is therefore vital to go beyond measurements such as gross domestic product per capita with new parameters for the allocation of aid, investment and international cooperation that take into account other aspects, such as structural deficiencies, climate risks, market fluctuations and fiscal stability. The fourth action requires a higher level of ambition and urgency to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. Safeguarding marine resources and the health of the ocean is critical to this end. In the front line against the natural disasters that hit our countries, droughts and heat waves, forest fires and unprecedented floods are people. With them in mind, Costa Rica, together with France and the United Kingdom, is leading the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, which seeks global conservation of 30 per cent of the Earth and 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030. Costa Rica, which has achieved the conservation of 30 per cent of the waters under its national jurisdiction nine years ahead of schedule, invites other States to meet this shared goal. In addition, together with French President Emmanuel Macron, we announced our interest in co-hosting, in 2025, the third United Nations Ocean Conference and in holding a meeting in mid-2024 in Costa Rica that will bring together the scientific community and civil society to formulate innovative solutions for improving ocean governance. The ocean is an immeasurable and critical resource for the continuity of life on Earth. Therefore, on this International Day of Peace, Costa Rica fervently calls for the adoption of a declaration of peace for the ocean. We cannot survive as a species without our ocean. We will not be able to fulfil our various obligations vis-a-vis the Sustainable Development Goals without a healthy ocean. Let us support the Secretary-General’s initiative for a New Agenda for Peace, which strengthens our collective capacity to prevent conflicts and resolve existing ones with sustainable, locally driven solutions. Let us renew the social contract between our Governments and our peoples, anchoring governance arrangements in human rights, trust, inclusion, protection and participation. Let us ensure gender parity and empower women — and in particular girls — in all spheres of life. Let us seek new methods to measure development that adequately reflect such essential aspects as environmental sustainability, inequalities and structural gaps, the quality of institutions and the prevalence of the rule of law. Let us build a more resilient, transparent and inclusive multilateral system and a United Nations that better embraces the needs and perspectives of all, especially within the Security Council. Let us do more to pave the way for the United Nations to fully rise to the occasion, to do all that it has the capacity and determination to do, to help it and our own countries change the course of our common destiny while there is still a destiny to change. Let us act with conviction and courage, with determination and with a real sense of urgency. The time is now. |