[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 36 (Monday, September 11, 2000)]
[Pages 2018-2020]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Joint Statement by the Permanent Members of the United Nations Security 
Council on the Millennium Summit

September 7, 2000

    We, President Jiang Zeming of the People's Republic of China, 
President Jacques Chirac of the Republic of France, President 
Vladimirovich Putin of the Russian Federation, Prime Minister Tony Blair 
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and 
President William Jefferson Clinton of the United States of America have 
met in New York on 7 September 2000 and hereby state the following:
    Mindful of the special responsibilities of the Permanent Members of 
the Security Council in regard to the maintenance of international peace 
and security, we share a solemn commitment to ensuring that the UN is 
stronger, more effective and more efficient than ever before as it 
enters the 21st Century.
    The challenges facing the UN and the world community are daunting. 
To meet such challenges, the world community's response must be quicker, 
more targeted, and better coordinated than ever before. As the world's 
only truly universal organization--in terms both of its mandate and its 
membership--the UN has an essential role in the 21st Century.
    The UN can only be as effective, as creative and as authoritative as 
its members will

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it to be. Moving into the next century, the Permanent Members of the 
Security Council pledge, together with the entire membership, to 
strengthen the UN, ensure the authority of the Security Council and 
uphold the Purposes and Principles of the Charter. Bearing primary 
responsibility under the Charter for the maintenance of international 
peace and security, the Security Council, in particular its Permanent 
Members, has an abiding interest in ensuring that the UN is equipped to 
meet the challenges it faces. We therefore commit ourselves to 
strengthen the operational capabilities of the Security Council in this 
area. Only by strengthening our dedication to the Purposes and 
Principles of the UN Charter, and by endowing the UN with the means to 
deliver on its many commitments, can we fulfill our obligations to 
ensure that the UN can achieve its full potential.
    To this end, we will focus our efforts on the following priority 
areas:
    Enhancing Leadership for Peace and Security--The UN's leadership 
role, particularly in maintaining international peace and security, must 
be strengthened to reflect the organization's changing challenges and 
priorities. This evolution must take into account both the shifting face 
of the world community and the types of conflicts the UN must confront 
today. We commit ourselves to foster a more transparent and broadly 
representative UN Security Council to enhance its effectiveness as the 
leading body in the field of international peace and security.
    Strengthening Peacekeeping--The nature and number of international 
conflicts demanding UN involvement has shifted fundamentally over the 
past decade, a change that has yet to be reflected in structural reforms 
to equip the UN to fulfill the array of mandates it now faces. We pledge 
to move expeditiously to endow the UN with resources--both operational 
and financial--commensurate to the tasks it faces in its peacekeeping 
activities worldwide. Enhancing the United Nations peacekeeping capacity 
should strengthen the UN's central role in conflict prevention and 
settlement. We look to the recommendations of the Secretary General's 
Expert Panel on Peace Operations as an important element to be 
considered in order to ensure the UN's effectiveness in this vital 
arena.
    Revitalizing Management--The breadth, scope, and complexity of the 
UN's activities demand effective leadership. We pledge to support steps 
to empower the Secretary General with a mandate to modernize and 
streamline the Secretariat further, to evaluate the effectiveness and 
efficiency of programs, and to focus the organization's resources on 
priority areas, while bringing closure to activities that no longer 
warrant continued investment.
    Replenishing Human Resources--The UN's most valuable resource is its 
people. The skill, vision, and dedication of the UN Secretariat staff 
have made possible all that the UN has accomplished to date, and will 
determine the organization's future. We pledge to support prompt steps 
to ensure that the UN's base of human capital, particularly in the field 
of peacekeeping, can be fortified through a process that is transparent, 
equitable, and designed to attract the very best talent available from 
all corners of the world.
    Reaffirming Financial Commitment--As enshrined in the Charter, the 
UN's financial base must accurately reflect the capabilities and 
responsibilities of every Member State. We pledge to support measures to 
broaden the resource base for this institution through financial 
structures that are equitable, transparent and reflective of current 
realities for the regular budget and the peacekeeping budget, and the 
financing of UN activities. We recognize the need to adjust the existing 
peacekeeping scale of assessments, which is based on the 1973 system, in 
light of changed circumstances, including countries' current capacity to 
pay.
    Taking into account our special responsibilities as Permanent 
Members of the Security Council and the duty of all Member States to 
meet their financial obligations to the UN, we commit to creating a more 
stable and equitable financial foundation for current and future UN 
operations, including through adjustments to the peacekeeping scale of 
assessment to reflect the role of all Member States, and especially the 
role of all Permanent Members in peacekeeping financing.

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    In each of these areas we pledge to work together in coming months 
and years to ensure that the UN is imbued with the resources, the 
vision, and the support it needs. As Permanent Members of the Security 
Council, we will continue to fulfill our obligations under the Charter 
and commit to making UN organization stronger and more effective. To 
that end, we agree to have more regular exchanges of views on important 
international issues at all levels.
    We express our appreciation and support for the UN Secretary General 
for the role he plays in the service of peace, development and 
strengthening the United Nations.
    As we move into the next century, we pledge to work with the entire 
UN membership to bridge differences and agree on new measures to build 
on the promise of the UN's first 55 years.

Note: An original was not available for verification of the content of 
this joint statement.