US Ambassador to the UN has called his country “the conscience of the world”
UN, March 29. /Offset. TASS Oleg Zelenin/. The US, serve for the world conscience and are not going to abandon this role. With this statement made by the permanent representative of the country at the UN, Nikki Haley.
“The United States is the conscience of the world. We will not give up this role. We will insist that our participation in the work of the UN consistent with this role,” the diplomat said, speaking a lecture at the new York Council on foreign relations. According to Haley, she is going to make the world body “an effective tool” to promote American values.
Priority — human rights
Speaking about the programme of work of the UN Security Council under the presidency of the USA in the next month, Nikki Haley announced that he was going to pay great attention to the discussions on human rights topics. In particular, the American delegation plans to hold a debate on the relationship between human rights violations and armed conflict.
“It would be very significant if any country will try to prevent to hold this debate,” — said the diplomat. According to her, the UN Security Council need to recognize just how serious a challenge are violations of human rights, as well as to ensure that it is understood all the rest of the country.
“Depends on peace and security, to support who are committed to the Security Council. The fact that peace and security cannot be achieved in isolation from human rights. Time and again we see that human rights violations are not a side effect of the armed conflict, and its cause,” said Haley. In her speech she elaborated on the situation in Syria, accusing the government in Damascus in torture and the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure, as well as stating the involvement of Russia and Iran to the conflict war crimes.
Against the discussion of human rights issues in the UN security Council consistently support Russia and China, who repeatedly reminded that the discussion of these issues is the Council for human rights in Geneva.
USA assess the effectiveness of peacekeeping missions
As reported by Nikki Haley, another important theme of the U.S. chairmanship in the Security Council is the peacekeeping activities of the UN, which, according to her, is not effective enough and too expensive. She cited the example of the mission in Afghanistan, which has never been analyzed over the 15 years of its existence. “No one has ever thought to check whether it fulfills any task. This is unacceptable,” — said the permanent representative of the United States.
“We are prepared to offer a strategic overview of this and other missions to investigate the situation. Peacekeeping occupies the major share of the UN budget. In our review we will determine which missions required structural reforms, establish which it is necessary to strengthen, which to restructure, and which to cut,” said Haley.
According to her, the goal is not to simply reduce the costs of peacekeeping operations, the budget is 7.9 billion dollars a year, and to ensure that the “blue helmets” worked “better and smarter”. “This is an issue on which we have a General Secretary (Antonio) Guterres is consent. We have developed a set of principles by which we will conduct a review of operations, starting with the most basic: effectiveness and accountability”, she explained.