Benigno Aquino III Quotes

Well, there's been plenty of ultimatums, and one thing that we better be very clear is that we can't continue to have the kind of defiance of the United Nations, the defiance of the international community that we've had.

No country can dictate its laws to the world.

When America rejected the League, she had deliberately chosen to rest solely upon treaties with the sanction of public opinion alone…

There was an implicit conviction that the UN would be stronger than the sum of its constituent member-states.

The U.N. can meet and discuss, but we don't need their permission.

We shouldn't discuss the world of tomorrow in terms of becoming a balance to the United States. The real issue is whether the United States will define herself as part of the U.N. system-or not.

The problem with the United Nations is that while democracy within nations is the best available form of government, democracy among nations can be a moral disaster - especially if some nations are not democracies.

So, the international community are all the countries that are important: the United States definitely everywhere; the European Union because it is very important, and also, they do show a great deal of international responsibility; and then the local players.

What we need now is a Treaty of the World not a Treaty of Rome.

As the highest ranking American official in the United Nations organization, I came to understand thoroughly that the national constitutional processes of the member states define the status of territories under their sovereignty.

There is no such thing as the United Nations.

But I believe that the DPKO at this time was very much involved with American administration and was acting, taking on consideration the demand or the recommendation of the American administration. American administration was very powerful.

I've been quite involved in a lot of U.N. operations over the years. I was a U.N. observer at the East Timor referendum in 2000. I've been very involved in that for a long time.

The nations must be organized internationally and induced to enter into partnership, subordinating in some measure national sovereignty to worldwide institutions and obligations.

If the United States leads a multinational force into Iraq without United Nations backing, Canada should fight beside its neighbour. We've gone from being a middle power to a muddle power on this one.

The United Nations has become a place where many countries seek to achieve a lynching of the United States by resolution.

The European organisation contemplated could not oppose any ethnic group, on other continents or in Europe itself, outside of the League of Nations, any more than it could oppose the League of Nations.

But I would say if the Security Council is only relevant if it agrees with the United States, then we have come a long way in a direction that I do not like very much.

International Law

The international body must have the institutions and powers it needs to do what it is created to do; in other words it must be boldly and openly set up as a super-state on a level above the national sovereignties, and that, in turn, means that the Member States must have accepted in advance as much limitation and subordination of their particular sovereignties as this superior sovereign power requires.

If governments do not want to work with the U.N. and the international organizations, there is a limit to what you can do. And there is also a limit to patience.

If the savior of man would revisit and declare himself for a League of Nations, I would be opposed to it.

Multilateralism is the democracy of international society.

How can we expect other nations to respect our law if we don't respect theirs?

No nation is responsible to itself alone, but that laws of political morality are universal; and that obedience to such laws is incumbent upon all nations.