David Lange Quotes

We must face the fact that the United Nations is not yet the international equivalent of our own legal system and the rule of law.

As a conservative power, the United States has a vital interest in upholding and expanding the reign of law in international relations.

What makes the United Nations an appropriate source of legitimacy for intervention is that it is the only place where the claims of the strong are put through the test of justification in front of the weak.

International institutions like the UN can only be as effective as its members allow it to be.

The rules that organizations such as the United Nations rely on were not written by the majority of the world’s people, who have long seen powerful states declare exceptions for themselves. Newly powerful states will challenge this system --

I wish to see the Hague Court greatly increased in power and permanency

The U.S. - the idea that the U.S. has introduced and imposed principles of international law, that's hardly even a joke. The United States has even gone so far as to veto Security Council resolutions calling on all states to observe international law. That was in the 1980s under Reagan.

I think we are realizing that we are going to have to have an international rule of law.

Britain must be the champion of international law.

The notion that the U.S. can impose its will unilaterally on the World Bank reflects a fundamental misunderstanding about how multilateral organizations should work.

Putin goes to bed at night knowing he can break all the rules, and the West will follow all the rules.

It is not just for a few states to sit and veto global approvals.

Whoever wants peace among nations must seek to limit the state and its influence most strictly.

There are nearly 200 countries and a population of over 6 billion in today's world. International affairs should be addressed by all countries through consultations rather than monopolised by a few powers.

There is a movement to get an international criminal court in the world, voted for by hundreds of states-but with the noticeable absence of the United States of America.

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.

Transferring our sovereignty and decisionmaking power to the WTO, to the United Nations, or any other international body is not in the long-term interests of our people.

Over many years, the United States has worked to persuade and compel governments around the world to abide by the rules. By spurning our own rules, we put that effort at risk.

I don't think there is necessarily a contradiction between being a hegemonic power on the one hand and functioning multilaterally on the other.

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.

Globalisation must have, as a critical component, international dispensation in the locality of U.N. institutions. It cannot be, and must not be, business as usual in the establishment and location of international institutions, especially of the United Nations.

The U.S.-led western alliance, while acting as an advocate of democracy, rule of law and human rights, is acting from the opposite position, rejecting the democratic principle of the sovereign right of states enshrined in the U.N. Charter and trying to decide for others what is good and what is bad.

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.

If there is one great power, and the great power has taken upon itself the right to preempt and is choosing for itself when and in what circumstances it's going to do that, obviously it leads people in the rest of the world to wonder how far this doctrine extends.

Costa Rica is not afraid to go before any international body.