I am delighted to join you today - and honoured by this opportunity to address the World Affairs Councils, a nationwide organisation that has distinguished itself through its efforts to promote enlightened public discussion of vital international issues. The relationship between the United Nations and the United States of America is most emphatically a vital issue - and we owe Jerry Leach and the Foreign Policy Association a special thanks not only for making it the theme of this National Conference, but for bringing the Conference here. As this audience is well aware, the full list is somewhat longer. There are few national leaders who do not understand in their bones that the future of every country is directly linked to the future of its children - and that by investing in children and in the families that sustain them, a country is ultimately investing in its own development.
Children are the bearers of our common future.
The entire community of nations acknowledged as much when they embraced the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child - and vowed, a decade ago, to fulfil the goals of the World Summit for Children. Moreover, children have a right to have a name and a nationality - as well as to express themselves freely and, in line with their evolving capacities, to participate in decisions that affect them. This wide recognition of the rights of children is not merely rhetorical - far from it. In scores of countries, in every region of the world, the importance of child rights is reflected in concrete changes in law, in policy, and in practice. And this toll is occurring in the face of daunting new challenges.