[en] Until the end of the Cold War, a bipolar world maintained international security through a combined system of alliances, spheres of influence, global and regional multilateral institutions - including the United Nations - and ultimately a balance of power through nuclear deterrence. With the disintegration of the Soviet empire, however, a uni-polar world has emerged that has dramatically changed the landscape of international security, with the disappearance of the Cold War rivalries and many of the associated old alliances and spheres of influence. But while in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War many preached the advent of a new world order - and expressed hope of a new paradigm of security that would be rooted in the UN system of collective security - these hopes have not materialized and that new order has not emerged. But with all the changes in the international landscape since the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons have ironically continued to hold a position of prominence as the currency of ultimate power. With the new threats and new strategic thinking, it is not surprising that the objectives embodied in the Treaty for the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), developed in the early seventies to control the further spread of nuclear weapons and to move towards nuclear disarmament, are under growing stress. Nearly 30 000 nuclear weapons continue to exist in the five nuclear weapon States (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States). And of the three countries that remain outside the NPT, two - India and Pakistan - have in recent years demonstrated their nuclear weapons capability, while the third - Israel - is generally presumed to have them. Most recently North Korea, a party to the NPT, has decided to renounce the Treaty, and is suspected of working to acquire nuclear weapons. And in the aftermath of the events of September 2001, as I have already noted, the proliferation threat gained a new dimension: the prospect of transnational groups seeking to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction. We must modernize and revamp the collective security system of the United Nations Charter - in terms of both preventive diplomacy and enforcement action. This system was built half a century ago to establish world order on the basis of common values and principles: respect for human rights and basic human dignity; economic and social development for all; the settlement of disputes through peaceful means; and prohibition of the use of force except in self defence or as a collective security measure authorized by the Security Council. We must work collectively to address global sources of insecurity and instability, including: the widening divide between rich and poor, in which two-fifths of the world's population lives on less than two dollars per day; the chronic lack in many parts of the world of good governance and respect for human rights - with despots taking shelter under the cloak of 'sovereignty'; and the increasingly perceived schisms between cultures and civilizations. Effective amelioration of these conditions that give rise to insecurity will require adequate financial assistance by the developed countries - assistance that now shamefully stands at only one quarter of one percent of the combined gross national income of the developed countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Effective remedy will also require the dynamic involvement of international institutions, governments and civil society to disseminate practices of good governance, and to monitor respect for human rights. Global respect for human rights should be the overriding norm, irrespective of any consideration of political expediency or short term interests