The world is smaller and more interdependent going into the New Year, but the cause of inter nationalism remains constrained by many barriers which divide its peoples. Although the potential for more co operation in the interest of human development is clearly visible, the institutions through which it might be expressed are still weak and lacking in the wholesale commitment by national leaders which alone guarantees that they can be strengthened.
Bosnia, the Middle East and Northern Ireland are regularly linked in current rhetoric about the processes of peace and each of them, indeed, faces critical challenges in the year to come. Following the remarkably successful peace process in South Africa, consolidated last year and now so easily taken for granted as it runs into normal conflicts, it is import ant to uphold and maintain the optimism that has sustained the hope for peace elsewhere, including on this island.
The Bosnian settlement now being implemented by a powerful Nato force under United Nations mandate accurately symbolises the balances of interest, force and commitment which currently determine international affairs. Decisive leadership by the United States was required to put it on course, a fact that rankles with many European leaders who hoped that the European Union was more willing to take on the burden of security.
1996 will see a further critical chapter in this story as the European Union reopens the question of how or whether it should strengthen cooperation on foreign policy, security and defence issues. One important lesson they should draw from the Bosnian events is precisely that there can be no self contained solution to such a conflict, which affects many more peoples and interests than can hope to become EU members.
The United Nations must remain the primary focus of such international endeavour, however much it has been affected by an unimaginative debate on reforming its structures and a reassertion of power by the largest states acting alone or in tandem. The US is most at fault in this respect it has yet to absorb the lesson that in the post Cold War world its legitimacy as an international actor can be enhanced, not diminished, by working through the UN. This should apply above all to its relations with Russia which it is now in danger of antagonising once again by an ill judged and hasty enlargement of Nato.
International governance is making strides on the political and security fronts, but has in the last couple of years been most notable in the economic field. 1995 saw the World Trade Organisation assume full authority over the Uruguay Round treaty. Its provisions have become the benchmark for regional free trade liberalisation, whether in Latin America, in Asia, where China's economic strides will soon entitle it to membership, or across the Atlantic between the most developed states. The least developed ones, overwhelmingly concentrated in Africa, deserve special and privileged treatment as they struggle to overcome problems of indebtedness and international neglect.
Ireland is fortunate to have made the transition, in recent decades, to a more advantaged position within the international community. As it assumes important responsibilities in the presidency of the EU there is a real opportunity to bring its experience to bear, on the many trends and issues that will flow through our political affairs in 1996.