EU Presidency Statement - UN Charter Committee

Mister Chairman,

I have the honor to speak on behalf of the European Union. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe associated with the European Union, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, the associated countries of Cyprus, Malta and Turkey, as well as the EFTA country member of the European Economic Area Norway, align themselves with this statement.

Mister Chairman,

Before touching upon the most important themes that the Charter Committee has dealt with during its last session, I would like to thank the Chairperson of the Committee, Mrs. Mirza Gnecco, as well as the other members of the Bureau, for the efficiency with which they have presided over the work of the Committee.

I should first like to address the question of the implementation of provisions of the Charter related to the assistance to third States affected by the application of sanctions. The European Union considers that all efforts should be made in order to reduce the negative effects of sanctions on third States, without affecting the efficiency of the sanctions regimes. In other words, maximizing the impact of UN sanctions on the decision-makers of the targeted entities, while simultaneously minimizing the negative effects on the civilian population and third countries, ought to be the dual objectives of any sanctions regime.

The EU believes that the time is ripe for an in-depth discussion on this item by the Charter Committee. Over the last few years, the Secretary General has produced a series of useful reports that together provide a rich basis for this discussion, especially the report of the Ad Hoc Expert Group (A/53/312), which contains a set of recommendations and proposals for innovative and practical measures of international assistance to third States, aimed at minimizing the negative impact of sanctions on vulnerable groups in the target State and on the economies of third States. In order to allow the Committee to engage in an efficient and comprehensive debate on this issue, it would be desirable to also have the report available of the Secretary General, requested by resolutions 54/107 and 55/157 of the General Assembly, on the feasibility in political, financial and administrative terms of the recommendations of the Ad Hoc Expert Group. The European Union also awaits with interest the conclusions and recommendations of the Working Group on sanctions of the Security Council. The European Union hopes that the Charter Committee will proceed to a substantive debate on this priority issue on the basis of these documents during its next session.

Among the proposals aimed at mitigating the impact of sanctions on vulnerable groups in the target State while preserving the effectiveness of sanctions, is the idea of targeted or smart sanctions, which has already been commented upon within the Charter Committee at its previous sessions. The Committee could benefit from drawing on important work already done on this issue within the context of initiatives such as the Interlaken and the Bonn-Berlin processes, of which the conclusions will be presented during an open meeting of the Security Council at 22 October.

Mister Chairman,

Another item related to sanctions and discussed at the last session of the Charter Committee was the second part of the revised paper submitted by the Russian Federation, devoted to the humanitarian limits or aspects of sanctions. The European Union wishes to recall its position that the Charter Committee should avoid duplication of work that is already done by more appropriate organs. Although these concerns of duplication and repetition remain, it was possible to make substantial progress and to narrow the differences at the last session of the Committee. This progress justifies expectations of concluding the work on this second part of the working paper at one of the next sessions of the Charter Committee.

Mister Chairman,

The EU wishes to thank the Secretary-General for his ongoing efforts to reduce the substantial backlog in the publication of the Repertory of Practice of United Nations Organs and Repertoire of the Practice of the Security Council. As a unique record of the applications of the Charter of the United Nations and the activities of UN organs, these two publications are of a great value to the UN Member States. The European Union welcomes the implementation by the Secretariat of programme it has elaborated to reduce the backlog on the basis of a fixed timeline. The EU encourages the Secretariat to continue its efforts.

In regard to the Répertoire, progress in updating has been rather modest. This is mainly due to a lack of resources, in combination with the low priority accorded to this publication. The EU wishes in this regard remind delegations of the existence of a Trust Fund, created in May 2000, to which several EU Member States have already contributed. The additional resources, provided by this Trust Fund, should enable the Secretariat to further accelerate the updating of the Répertoire

Under the chapter Peaceful settlement of disputes, the Charter Committee discussed extensively the proposal of the delegations of Sierra Leone and the United Kingdom on prevention and settlement of disputes. Although the working paper, which was a further revision of the draft submitted at the 55th session of the Charter Committee, received wide support, it could again regretfully not be adopted by lack of full unanimity. The European Union considers that the new working paper of the sponsoring delegations, which further took into account observations made during the last reading, reflects in a balanced way positions expressed during consecutive sessions of the Charter committee. It therefore hopes that the document will finally be approved by the Charter Committee at its next session, once the paragraph-by-paragraph reading of this document is finalized.

Mister Chairman,

The latter issue brings me to the next item, i.e. the working methods and the need of rationalization of the Charter Committee. This item, which for the European Union is a priority, has been discussed by the Sixth Committee for many years and has been formally on the agenda of the Charter Committee since its 2000 session. The reasons for this are well known: in spite of its commendable past record in areas such as peaceful settlement of disputes and rationalization of the UN procedures, the Charter Committee has in its more recent past suffered from an inability to arrive at concrete results. This lack of productivity led to fading interests of delegations for the work of the Special Committee, which was reflected by an extremely low level of attendance at meetings and by a non-utilization of conference services up to 38% in 1999.

In the most recent years, some improvement could be achieved, such as a better use and management of the allocated conference services. But more should be done to restore the efficiency and credibility of the Special Committee and enable it to implement the objectives of its important mandate. The European Union has pointed to the causes of the low productivity of the Committee and made some concrete suggestions over the last few years. The list of items the Special Committee has been charged with, is long and fragmented, which makes it difficult to conduct focused and result-oriented work. In addition, all of these items, including those on which agreement would not seem to be within reach in the foreseeable future, or which duplicate the work of other bodies (peacekeeping operations, sanctions related questions, reform of the Security Council, revitalization of the General Assembly) reappear on the agenda each year. Instead, it is necessary to biannualize or triannualize, at the very least, those items and check if positions of delegations have sufficiently changed to allow progress. Another necessary measure is the introduction of a cut-off mechanism in order to prevent that continued, repetitious discussion of topics for many years without any concrete results.

Proposals should also be submitted as early as possible in order to give delegations sufficient time to study them before the sessions. We also believe that the report of the Charter Committee's session should be adopted in a less time-consuming manner, following the example of the Ad Hoc Committee on Terrorism. Finally, it is highly desirable to subject new proposals to a preliminary examination by the Committee before they are inscribed in its agenda. This is a matter not only for the Committee itself to reflect upon, but also for the General Assembly, which has the task of adopting the mandate of the Committee. In any case, it is inappropriate to inscribe new items on the agenda of the Committee, as long as the old ones remain unresolved and the Committee's working methods unchanged.

At the 2000 session of the Charter Committee, a very useful proposal, submitted by the delegation of Japan, served as a basis for this question. It contained a range of measures which would strengthen the Charter Committee and which the EU fully supported. Unfortunately, it was not possible to reach consensus at that time. At the last session of the Committee, the debate on the improvement of the working methods continued on the basis of a new working paper of the delegation of Japan, the provisions of which were considerably watered down compared to the preceding version. The European Union is worried about the incapability of the Charter Committee to reform itself and regain an acceptable level of efficiency and credibility. The EU hopes that at its next session the Charter Committee will conclude its work on this item by approving a final document containing concrete measures, otherwise the whole exercise of rendering the Charter Committee more efficient and productive would have been useless.

Finally, Mister Chairman, I would like to touch upon the duration of the session of the Committee for 2002. In the last few years, we have shortened, without affecting the work of the Committee, the duration of its session to 8 working days spread over two weeks. Under the current circumstances, these durations should not be prolonged in 2002, since all of the items can be usefully dealt with during the allocated time. In the view of the European Union, the question of the duration of the session of the Charter Committee should not be dissociated from its capability to substantially reform its working methods.

I thank you, Mister Chairman.

| Top |