UN General Assembly
1983

168. To provide this assurance, I suggest, the United Nations must find the capability and the will to mount effective peace-keeping operations. As I stated earlier, the Organization has been notably weakened by being bypassed when such a need arises; yet there can be no expectation of effective United Nations action. Perhaps the most obvious feature of past peace-keeping ventures by the United Nations was that the war was already under way when the peace-keepers were sent. In these times when grass fires can so readily become conflagrations, we must surely think carefully about the scope for more pre-emptive action. 169. Along with remedial action in respect of peacekeeping, there is desperate need for revitalized United Nations activity in the areas of disarmament negotiations and the defence of human rights.