UN General Assembly
1994

forty-eighth session of the General Assembly, of the agreement relating to the implementation of part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which opened the way for the universal acceptance of the Convention and its provisions. Let me now turn to the United Nations itself. As we meet in this session on the threshold of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, we have to recognize that the fundamental meaning of the United Nations Charter has remained unchanged; that the United Nations has undergone periods of both triumph and disillusionment; that the United Nations is still an international organization for the people as well as of the people and it is therefore supposed to be a democratic institution. It is now time to reflect on a United Nations that will serve mankind for another 50 years after 1995. It will have to be a new United Nations, one which will suit the exigencies of the twenty-first century. It will be necessary to sharpen the mechanisms that were