It is always a great pleasure for me to exchange views with such a distinguished group as yourselves. Today, I would like to share with you some thoughts on peace and security which I consider important at this juncture in history. In considering these two issues, we are undertaking an effort that is not without precedent. While the concept of peace has differed with time, its significance, and even more, its pertinence, has held true. We need peace for human sustenance, for human development, and, ultimately, for human survival.
Peace is more than the absence of war.
To live in peace is to live without want. Thus, security must encompass the full spectrum of human needs in order to ensure sustainable peace. In the turbulent world of the late twentieth century, we frequently lose sight of the human being as the principal impetus of all political action. The modern international system, dominated by realism and the market, and swept up in the frenetic search for greater competitiveness and increased levels of production and consumption, frequently ignores the people whose well-being must be the most important focus of our time. At the end of the twentieth century, humanity is at a point where it must decide its own fate.