UN General Assembly
2008

forum that is the General Assembly brings us together as sovereign equals, each acting on behalf of a country, with one vote, as guaranteed by the Charter of the United Nations. The sacrosanct character of the foundational doctrine of sovereign equality and its accompanying binding obligation to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity constitutes the very nature of the enduring legitimacy of the United Nations. This arrangement has not changed, and I believe it must not change — unless we seek to overthrow the Charter and overturn the global legal order upon which it is built. I come before the General Assembly as the President of a country that has become caught up at the heart of one of the most dangerous challenges to the 29 08-51570 nature of the international system since the founding of the United Nations. I speak of the unilateral, illegal and illegitimate declaration of independence by the ethnic Albanian authorities of our southern province of Kosovo and Metohija, a territory that stands at the