UN General Assembly
2016

That is how the Spanish people understand the demands on us. Today, we cannot disappoint the billions of people who, like Spanish society, believe in the purposes, principles and values of the 1945 San Francisco Charter and of the 2015 Declaration on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the United Nations that Spain helped to promote in defence of what the United Nations represents. With that Declaration, we wanted to tell the world that the Charter was not simply a beacon that lit the dark times of the past, but that it also illuminates our present and our future. For it is the beacon to which the children in refugee camps direct their eyes, as do the mothers who protect their children while crossing the Mediterranean — a plight which deeply moves us. It is the hope for those who have lost loved ones owing to natural disasters or hunger, those who defend human rights and common human dignity, and those who are persecuted as victims of terrorism in all its despicable forms. It is also the inspiration for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to which we have all committed ourselves with a view to putting an end to hunger and extreme poverty and to designing a model for development that is sustainable in the course of a generation.