UN General Assembly
1997

remote as stars to which we cannot travel, and wealth is increasingly polarized. Under the impulse of this globalization, vaunted new technological and scientific displays are poisoning the environment, crushing biodiversity and condemning to extinction the most precarious and wonderful of all species: mankind. It would be good if that global interdependency could stop the frantic consumption, balance national development patterns, make economies sustainable and multiply the riches of the peoples. Even better, if ideas are to be truly globalized, let us welcome the clamour for urgent reform of this United Nations, as remote from its own origins as it is unable to cope with the era in which we are living. That could be dreamt of, if at least the reform started with a comprehensive and inclusive endeavour, democratizing all its bodies while preserving its universal character, its political essence and its intergovernmental nature. It is high time to go beyond the rhetoric in which we have been immersed for two years, since we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Organization with talk of reform,