UN needs reform: Alatas

SEMARANG (JP): Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas underscored yesterday the need to reform the United Nations as part of the on-going international effort to establish a new world order.

In his acceptance speech for his honorary doctorate in law, Alatas said legal certainty is all the more imperative in the current globalization process.

The current international order is governed by the politics of power rather than international laws, he said before professors and law experts of the state-run Diponegoro University and guests, including foreign ambassadors who flew in for the occasion from Jakarta.

"For developing countries, certainty about the rules of the game that everyone in this new world order must respect, is an absolute necessity and is something they will always fight for," Alatas said.

The United Nations, as the only universal institution with wide ranging authority and tasks, is the most appropriate and effective mechanism for ensuring legal certainty, he said.

The UN Security Council should be reformed and its membership expanded, not only geographically, but also on the basis of objective criteria, he said.

The council's role, coverage and procedures must also be reviewed in this reform, he said.

Alatas' paper yesterday was entitled "Indonesia's diplomatic efforts to the establishment of a new world order." (har/emb)