UN General Assembly
2014

This has been an enormously difficult year for the United Nations. As the Secretary-General has pointed out, we are living in an era of an unprecedented level of crises. I echo his call for leaders to unite. At a time when the world seems to be breaking apart, it will serve us well to remember what unites us. We need to look no further than the Charter of the United Nations. The preamble to the Charter offers a vision that seems so difficult for us to fulfil: we are determined “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. The Organization was created, above all, to prevent war. Indeed, it offers a system of collective security that is far more effective than anything that existed before. Yet the events over the past year have shaken its very foundations. At times, it seems that we revert to the habits of past centuries. We are disturbed by the acts of aggression perpetrated against Ukraine and by the illegal annexation of parts of its territory. Those acts