UN General Assembly
1990

So it seems to me that we can be enthusiastic about the real progress which has been made in the world, provided that we are sober about the tasks still to be accomplished. I would like to look very briefly at the system of international relations in which we must work. The basic unit in the system, the basic unit in this Hall, the basic unit in our Organisation will continue to be the nation state - this nation-state system which emerged, I suppose, in its modern form in Europe in the nineteenth century; and in the twentieth century the colonial empires, first in Eastern Europe, then in Africa and Asia, were transformed into smaller nation states. It is not a perfect system; no one hero would claim that. But it has proved enduring and it has been supplemented by regional grouping. Where these groupings are successful they smooth the rough edges between nation states. They bring together by choice the efforts of Member States for a particular purpose, and I believe that that will endure.