UN General Assembly
2001

only 17 more ratifications to go. The creation of the Court will represent an extremely significant step in the ongoing struggle to eliminate impunity for the worst crimes known to humankind. These are only the most immediate and most obvious steps to ensure our collective security, but our agenda must be far broader than this. Nothing has more violently shaken our sense of security than have the events of 11 September. But our conception of what constitutes security and the nature of the threats that may be posed to it was already undergoing dramatic evolution prior to the attacks. The denial of human rights, the spread of HIV/AIDS, persistent mass poverty, unchecked environmental degradation and the blight of drugs and crime all undermine stability, reduce human potential and obstruct social and economic progress. They are threats to human security, as are discrimination and racism, which the Durban Conference was intended to address. Unfortunately, it failed to achieve its potential and instead provided a forum for propagating long- standing hatreds and biases, and the world is poorer for that.