UN General Assembly
1993

dimension - or, as the United Nations Secretary-General so fittingly called it, the "irreducible human element" - found a firm place on the international political agenda. This has given rise to great expectation among our citizenry and in all of us. It is incumbent upon the members of the international community to keep the promises made in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, for, in the end, the success of the Vienna Human Rights Conference will be measured by whether it was able to reverse the general trend and build communities which provide the individual with a decent human existence complete with civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. We have here goals that will have a global impact on the evolution of humanity, even if their implementation is only in the incipient stage. In the past 12 months the situation in the Balkans has deteriorated dramatically. The tireless efforts of the Secretary-General and the peace mediators in Geneva have not yet been able to end the fighting or bring about concrete