UN General Assembly
1990

In the midst of the immense chaos that the French Revolution caused in Europe two centuries ago, in a world suddenly left without points of reference and threatened by new forms of despotism, a philosopher of that age and of all ages enthusiastically but cautiously distinguished between universal law, the promise of everlasting peace among nations and respect for the freedom of all. Today, when the end of the cold war is changing the world's geopolitics, when the people of Eastern Europe are once again finding the magnificence and the risks of freedom and when, at the same time, the danger of a war with unprecedented consequences is emerging and new problems are gaining priority, we must return to the principles of that centuries-old perception.