Kofi Annan Quotes
I believe that our world needs an instrument of global action as never before in history. I believe that the United Nations is the instrument for securing peace and for giving people everywhere, in poorer countries as in richer, a real stake in that peace by promoting development and encouraging cooperation. But the United Nations is only an instrument, an actor in need of props and cues from its directors, And so I will paraphrase Winston Churchill: Give us the tools-the trust, the authority and the means-and we will do the job.
Annan, Kofi. "Secretary-General's Address to the General Assembly." United Nations, 16 July 1997.
Those environmentalists who take this view do not give credence to other alternatives. For example, the same argument of environmental decision-making could logically justify one superpower nation taking over the government of all others on the planet for environmental matters. Another possibility is that the existing mechanisms and the UN are sufficient if the major powers reach agreement. Another is that science and technology will provide solutions.
When he made this statement, the United States was the only nation that had the atomic bomb, but he and other leading nuclear scientists realized that it would not be long before the Russians would also have nuclear weapons, and other countries would so follow suit. He and some others saw a world government as the best way to cope with the nuclear proliferation problems. However, there was too much diversity of values and political ideology in the world to be accommodated in a single government, and the United Nations was the only thing that was practical and that was far from a government and had virtually no sovereignty. However, during the Cold War, Russia and the United States agreed on a Nuclear Proliferation Treaty and most nations of the world, agreed, so that for the issue of nuclear proliferation, the world had a type or world government—an international treaty. However, India and Pakistan did not adhere to it and developed nuclear weapons and North Korea was never a signatory. Other countries like Iran began to evade the treaty and since there was no real world government it was difficult to enforce the treaty throughout the world.
Kofi Atta Annan was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1997 to December 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder and chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as chairman of The Elders, an international organization founded by Nelson Mandela.
