UN General Assembly
1992

brought itself to the brink of self-destruction and wasted vast resources, many opportunities and much time, thereby hampering world economic development and social progress and damaging the environment. On the other hand, the colonial system collapsed and many Asian, African and Latin American countries gained independence and strengthened their positions in the international arena. Mankind has reached into outer space and started taming nuclear energy. The positive and negative effects of all this have been reflected in the activities of the United Nations, the mirror of world tendencies and international relations. The East-West cold war came to an end as a direct result of the increased interpendence of nations, the interrelationship between the political. economic and humanitarian spheres, the bankruptcy of confrontational policies and the arms race, the changes in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and the emergence of new thinking. Thus the 1980s and 1990s mark, in my view, the beginning of a transitional period shaping a new world order. At this very juncture, with the disintegration of the bipolar world and the creation