UN General Assembly
1991

Thirdly, we must make this Organization more responsive and more efficient in its working. What the Secretary-General, in his eloquent report, describes as the renaissance of the United Nations must be consolidated. We should now begin a process of analysis and consultation designed to ensure that the United Nations system as a whole functions with maximum efficiency. Without respect for human rights other achievements can hold little value. The starting point of all political activity has to be the recognition of the dignity and worth of each individual human being. It is on this that true freedom and democracy rest. He have seen in Eastern Europe and elsewhere how indomitable the human spirit can be and how irresistible is the pressure for change when a whole people acting in solidarity with each other demand an end to the needless sacrifice of individual human lives to a State system or a political ideology.