EU Presidency Statement - The UN Charter

Mr. Chairman

I have the honour of speaking on behalf of the European Union, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia on the item of the agenda entitled "Report by the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization".

Permit me first of all to thank the Chairman of the Committee Sailed Mirzaee-Yengejeh and the other Members of the Bureau for their efforts and patience in facilitating the smooth running of proceedings at the last session of the Special Committee.

The first topic I wish to discuss is that of the implementation of the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations related to assistance to third States affected by the application of sanctions. The European Union believes that every effort should be made to reduce the negative effects of sanctions on third States. This is shown by the Union's backing for the measures contained in the various resolutions on this topic and by its practice of providing economic and humanitarian support to the third States affected.

The proposals by the ad hoc expert group provide a useful basis for consideration of how to minimize the consequences of sanctions for vulnerable groups in the State concerned and on the economy of third States. The European Union considers, however, that the Special Committee can only usefully and effectively launch a substantive debate on the various recommendations made in the report once it receives the views of the Secretary-General on the experts' suggestions, in particular as regards their feasibility in political, financial and administrative terms. The Union wishes, moreover, to take up the issue of targeted sanctions that were referred to by many delegations during the last session of the Special Committee. Without seeking to reduce the Security Council's rightful margin of assessment, it should be acknowledged that targeted sanctions - namely those solely directed against certain individuals or certain specific entities within the State concerned - are liable to reduce the negative effects of sanctions on the population of the State concerned and on third States. In this context, the European Union underlines the importance of the German initiative concerning the improvement of the regimes of embargo on weapons and of travel limitations. This initiative started with an experts meeting in Bonn in November 1999 and its results will be presented in December 2000 in Berlin and, probably in February 2000, in New York.

We await with interest the conclusions and recommendations on this point by the Working Group on Sanctions set up by the Security Council.

With regard to the International Court of Justice, the European Union shares the concerns voiced last year and in previous years about the need to provide it - as the principal judicial organ of the United Nations - with all the resources it requires to fulfil its missions effectively.

We welcome this year's amendments to the proposal to establish a new dispute prevention and early settlement mechanism. By refocusing the proposal on the need for States to have greater recourse to existing dispute settlement mechanisms, in particular within the framework of the United Nations, we felt, at the Special Committee's last session, that it was likely to respond favourably to the amended document. We regret that this was not the case.

The European Union wishes to thank the Secretary-General for his efforts to reduce the delay accumulated in the publication of the Repertory of Security Council Practices and of the Repertory of Practice of the United Nations Organs. As it has already pointed out, the European Union attaches the greatest importance to these publications that are extremely useful with respect to the implementation of the United Nations Charter and to the activities undertaken by the organs of the Organization. This delay in publication, however, has reached 12 years in the case of the first repertory and 20 years in the case of the second one. We feel this is unacceptable. The European Union welcomes the establishment of a trust fund aimed at updating the Repertory, to which Germany, Portugal and the United Kingdom have already contributed. It encourages all member States to contribute to this fund.

In general, and as we have stressed on several occasions, the Special Committee should avoid tackling issues that are already the subject of in-depth consideration in other United Nations bodies. Furthermore, the documents that have been considered by the Committee this year - some of which have been on its agenda for several years now - are often worded too vaguely and do not always take into account the practice of the Organization in the area under consideration. They also tend at times to alter the equilibria provided for by the Charter, notably the respective roles of the Security Council and the General Assembly. I also wish to stress once again that we feel, as we did last year, it is unnecessary to recommend the General Assembly to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the issue of the lawfulness of the use of force in the absence of explicit authorization from the Security Council.

Mr. Chairman.

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