UN secretary general Kofi Annan has called on the world's parliaments to throw their weight behind his ambitious agenda of United Nations reform, so that global leaders will be "ready, willing and able" to adopt them at a UN summit in September.
Mr Annan's appeal follows his appointment of Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern and three other international politicians to act as special envoys to promote his reforms around the world.
The UN secretary general will meet Mr Ahern and other envoys in New York today to brief them on their travel to promote his reforms to political leaders, civil society representatives, academics and the media.
UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said yesterday that all four envoys "have vast political experience, profound knowledge of international relations and are committed to the cause of the United Nations."
Mr Eckhard said they would divide the regions of the world among them: this would mean Mr Ahern focusing on Europe and Russia, and the other envoys, Ali Alatas, former foreign minister of Indonesia, Joaquin Chissano, former president of Mozambique, and Ernesto Zedillo, former president of Mexico, concentrating on their respective regions.
Mr Alatas was known for his defence of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor as foreign minister for President Suharno from 1988 to 1999.
This led him into conflict with the Irish government, and into a clash with the then minister for foreign affairs, Dick Spring. In the early 1990s, Mr Alatas described an article Mr Spring wrote in favour of East Timor's independence as tantamount to a declaration of war.
Mr Chissano led Mozambique for 18 years until stepping down last year after introducing multiparty democracy and other reforms.
Mr Zedillo, who led Mexico from 1994 to 2000, is currently director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalisation and a strong advocate of UN reform.
Mr Annan's proposed reforms are the biggest in the UN's 60-year history.
They include an enlarged Security Council with new rules on when it can authorise military force.
He also proposed a body to replace the existing UN Human Rights Commission, a new commitment to ending world poverty and a sweeping overhaul of the UN bureaucracy.
The reform initiative followed bitter divisions at the UN over Iraq, and allegations of mismanagement and corruption in the UN's oil-for-food programme.
In a message yesterday to the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Manila, Philippines, Mr Annan said, "I am appealing to all states to treat the proposals as a package which strikes a careful balance between the needs and interests of the various countries and regions."