2022 Speech - Germany
| Session Number | 77 |
|---|---|
| Year | 2022 |
| Country | Germany |
| Country Code | DEU |
| Speech |
It is with humility and deep respect that I address the General Assembly today — both as the newly elected Chancellor of Germany and as a proud representative to our United Nations.
My country and the United Nations are indivisibly linked. Today’s democratic and reunited Germany owes its role on the world stage to our international friends and partners who placed their trust in us to become and to remain a peace-loving member of the international community. We know that we owe our freedom, our stability and our prosperity to an international order with the United Nations at its core. Therefore, my country’s commitment to this Organization and its noble goals — peace, development and equal rights and dignity for every human being — will never wane. Unfortunately, I am expressing that commitment at a time when we are getting further away from those noble goals. After decades during which we overcame walls and blocs — a time when we marked the fall of the Iron Curtain and German reunification. After the technological revolution of the Internet and the digital transformation, which have made us more interconnected than ever before, we are now facing a new fragmentation of the world. New wars and conflicts have emerged. Major global crises are piling up before us and are combining and reinforcing one another. Some have even seen this as a harbinger of a world without rules. It is true that the risks to our global order are real. And yet I do not hold with the image of a world without rules — for two reasons: First, our world has clear rules. Rules that we, the United Nations, created together. The Charter of the United Nations promises all of us freedom and peaceful coexistence. This Charter is our collective rejection of a world without rules. Our problem is not the absence of rules. Our problem is the lack of willingness to abide by them and enforce them. But the image of a world without rules leads us astray for a second reason. If we do not defend, further develop and strengthen our global order together, then it is not chaos without rules that we face, but a world in which the rules are made by those who can dictate them to us by dint of their military, economic or political power. The alternative to a rules-based world is not anarchy, but the dominion of the strong over the weak. The vast majority of us cannot be indifferent to whether the rule of power or the power of rules wins the day. The key question that we as an international community face is this — should we stand helplessly by and watch as some seek to cast us back into a global order in which war is a common instrument of politics, in which independent nations have to submit to their stronger neighbours or their colonial masters, in which prosperity and human rights are a privilege of the lucky few? Or will we manage to stand together and ensure that the multipolar world of the twenty-first century remains a multilateral world? My answer, as a German and a European, is this: we have to manage that. We will manage that if we take three fundamental principles to heart. First, the international order does not happen by itself. If we do nothing, then the Charter is but a piece of paper. The Charter calls on all of us to uphold its purposes and principles. We must not stand idly by when a major nuclear Power, armed to the teeth — a founding Member of the United Nations and a permanent member of the Security Council, no less — seeks to shift borders through the use of violence. There is no justification whatsoever for Russia’s war of occupation against Ukraine. President Putin is waging that war with one single objective: to seize Ukraine. Self-determination and political independence do not count for him. There is only one word for that. It is imperialism, plain and simple. The return of imperialism is not only a disaster for Europe; it is also a disaster for our global peaceful order, which is the antithesis of imperialism and neocolonialism. That is why it was so important that, here in this Hall, 141 countries categorically condemned Russia’s war of occupation (see resolution ES-11/1). But that alone is not enough. If we want the war to end, we cannot be indifferent to how it ends. Putin will give up his war and his imperialist ambitions only if he realizes that he cannot win. In doing so, he is not just destroying Ukraine but is also ruining his own country. That is why we will not accept a peace dictated by Russia. That is why we will not accept any sham referendums. That is why Ukraine must be able to defend itself against Russia’s invasion. We are supporting Ukraine with all our might—financially, economically and with humanitarian assistance, as well as with weapons. Together with our partners around the world, we imposed tough economic sanctions on the Russian leadership and Russia’s economy. That is how we are making good on a promise that each and every of our countries made when joining the United Nations, namely, to join forces to maintain international peace and security. There is one more thing that I would like to add, which is that not one sack of grain has been held back on account of those sanctions. Russia alone has prevented Ukrainian grain ships from putting out to sea, bombing ports and destroying agricultural enterprises. “Where hunger prevails, there can be no peace.” (A/PV2128, p.3). My predecessor, Nobel Peace Prize winner Willy Brandt, said that when he addressed this Assembly in 1973, as the first Federal Chancellor to do so. Today we are witnessing that that sentence also works the other way around. Those who want there to be no hunger must ensure that Putin’s war does not prevail — this war that even in countries far away from Russia is leading to rising prices, energy scarcity and famine. The fact that grain exports have been made possible once again thanks to the mediation efforts of Secretary- General Guterres and Tiirkiye deserves great respect. Germany is also supporting Ukraine with the export of food, and we will stand by Ukraine when it comes to shouldering the enormous costs of rebuilding the country. At an international expert conference that I will host with the President of the European Commission in Berlin on 25 October, together with supporters of Ukraine from all around the world, we will think about how we can manage that Herculean task. Our message is this: we stand firmly at the side of those under attack, for the protection of the lives and the freedom of the Ukrainian people and for the protection of our international order. The second principle for preserving that order is as follows. All of us will be judged against the obligations that we have jointly entered into. Responsibility always begins at home. Let us take climate change, for example, which is the biggest challenge of our generation. We, the industrialized countries and major emitters of greenhouse-gases, have a very special responsibility in that regard. With that in mind, we reiterated our intention at the Group of Seven (G-7) Summit in Germany in June to forge ahead in order to achieve the 1.5°C target, not despite the war and the energy crisis, but precisely because climate neutrality also leads to greater energy security. We stand by our pledges to support emerging economies and developing countries in their efforts to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change, with new, fair energy transition partnerships, for example. We will not abandon countries that are struggling the most in the face of loss and damage as a result of climate change. By the time of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt, we therefore want to establish a global shield against climate risks. Our yardstick must be the obligations that we have entered into. Nowhere does that insight seem more obvious to me than in the protection of human rights, since they reflect the deepest need of each and every one of us to live our lives in freedom, unharmed and in dignity. That lies at the heart of what makes us humans, who we are and what we have in common, no matter where we come from, no matter what we believe and no matter whom we love. I say that with the history of my country in mind. Germany, which betrayed all civilized values with the murder of 6 million Jews, an act that is without parallel, is aware of just how fragile our civilization is. At the same time, we have an obligation to respect and defend human rights at all times and in all places. My country is the second-largest donor to the United Nations system and the second-largest donor of humanitarian assistance. In Germany in recent years, we have taken in millions of refugees from the Middle East, Africa, Afghanistan and, most recently, Ukraine. That is something of which we are proud. But we also have to pay heed and take action in places where hundreds of thousands are made to endure suffering, tyranny and torture in prison camps or jails, such as in North Korea, Syria, Iran and Belarus. We must pay heed and take action when the Taliban deprive women and girls in Afghanistan of their most basic rights, and we must pay heed and take action when Russia commits war crimes in Mariupol, Bucha and Irpin. We will bring the murderers to justice. We are doing everything in our power to support the International Criminal Court and the Independent International Committee of Inquiry on Ukraine, established by the Human Rights Council. Particularly those who bear particular responsibility for our order in the world by dint of their strength and their influence should have an interest in bolstering our common institutions. The former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights briefed us about the situation of the Uighurs in Xinjiang a few weeks ago. China should implement the High Commissioner’s recommendations. That would be a sign of sovereignty and strength and a guarantee of change for the better. A third principle must be taken into consideration if we are to preserve the international order. We must adapt our rules and institutions to the reality of the twenty-first century. Far too often, those rules and institutions reflect the world of 30, 50 or 70 years ago. That also goes for the Security Council. For many years, Germany has been committed to its reform and its expansion, first and foremost to include the countries of the global South. Germany is also prepared to assume greater responsibility as a permanent member and, initially, as a non-permanent member for the term from 2027 to 2028. I kindly ask Member States to support our candidacy — the candidacy of a country that respects the principles of the United Nations and offers and seeks cooperation. To my mind, it is entirely natural that the up-and-coming, dynamic countries and regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America must be given a stronger political voice on the world stage. That is in all of our interests, as it gives rise to joint responsibility and greater acceptance of our decisions. Nationalism and isolation will not solve the challenges of our age. More cooperation, more partnership and more involvement are the only reasonable response, whether in the fight against climate change, global health risks, inflation and disrupted supply chains or our approach to displacement and migration. I say that with profound conviction. The insight that openness and cooperation safeguard peace and prosperity has made the past decades the happiest in the history of my country so far. As President of the G-7 this year, it is therefore a key priority for me to promote a new form of cooperation with the countries of the global South that not only claims to take place on a level playing field, but one on which actors genuinely see eye to eye, especially since that level playing field has long existed de facto if we consider the increasing political, economic and demographic influence of Asia, Africa and Latin America. From the outset, we coordinated our objectives very closely with Indonesia, as the holder of the Group of 20 presidency. We have involved the countries holding the chairmanship of the African Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, as well as India and South Africa, in our G-7 discussions. That gave rise to new models of global cooperation that have one thing in common, namely, the fact that they are characterized by joint responsibility and mutual solidarity. We are fighting the hunger crisis with a new Alliance for Global Food Security, and I would like to invite all Member States to join the Alliance. We launched the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment in order to jointly mobilize $600 billion for public and private infrastructure investments around the world over the next five years. In doing so, we are taking a big step towards implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. With a newly emerging climate club, we are pressing ahead with friends and partners worldwide to implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change even more swiftly and efficiently. Such approaches are pillars that support our international order because they deliver results from which citizens in all our countries stand to benefit and that they expect from the United Nations. “We the peoples” — it is not for nothing that those are the first three words of our Charter. We should note that those words are not “We the Member States” or “We the representatives”. We have an obligation to our peoples. We owe them a global order that allows them to live in peace, which protects their rights and which opens up opportunities for education, health and development for them. Such an order does not come about by itself. Defending, further developing and strengthening it is our task as the United Nations. Germany extends the hand of cooperation to all Member States in that endeavour. |