UN General Assembly
1997

50 years of the United Nations different, more exciting and generally more beneficial to the world at large. We can plead no alibi or extenuating circumstances should we fail to do so. For, unlike in San Francisco, when nearly two thirds of the present membership of the United Nations did not participate in the creation of the bold new world, this time around, we, all 185 nations at the United Nations, are the world, and we are present at the reordering of the new international world order, as envisaged by the reform proposals of the United Nations and its organs. We should take the opportunity to establish a revamped United Nations of shared values and interests and to promote a greater equality of States. Students of history will bear testimony to the fact that over the centuries, centres of power and influence have shifted constantly from one part of the world to another. The rise and fall of great empires has been a constant phenomenon in human history. A gale wind of