Plenary
14 June 2006
Informal consultations on the report of the Secretary-General entitled Mandating and Delivering: Analysis and Recommendations to Facilitate the Review of Mandates
Statement by HE the Hon Robert Hill
Ambassador and Permanent Representative
of Australia to the United Nations
On behalf of Canada, Australia and New Zealand
(Check against delivery)
Mr co-Chair
CANZ welcomes this opportunity to take our consultations a step further, and to focus more sharply on those mandates which we can all agree should be subject to early action.
We continue to think it is important to make significant progress on mandates review by the end of this month. The real issue is to determine what can realistically be achieved in that time frame. We are pleased that States are engaging constructively to that end.
CANZ remains convinced we must examine all mandates as part of this review. By the end of June, we should agree upon some early results, and a longer-term process.
In our view, this review should not be limited to mandates which have not been renewed within the last five years. They constitute just 7% of mandates adopted by the General Assembly, ECOSOC, and the Security Council.
We cannot ignore 93% of the work we ask the Secretariat to perform, and seriously say we have reviewed its work program. That would fall well short of our leaders’ expectation that we ‘strengthen and update the program of work of the UN so as to respond to the contemporary requirements of member states’.
Early results
The General Assembly should adopt a resolution by the end of June which discontinues, or reduces resources allocated to, mandates drawn both from the 7% which have not been renewed within the last five years, and the 93% which have. CANZ believes States have put forward more than enough sensible, moderate proposals for this to be realistic.
CANZ has already identified, in our statement of 5 June and previously, some mandates which we consider could be discontinued or downgraded. CANZ stands by our proposals as ones which are ready for early action. Other States have also put forward proposals, and we hope they will continue to do so.
The proposals we have all heard so far have been compiled in the paper you circulated. The proposals in the paper have come from a wide range of States during the eight plenary informals you have convened so far over more than two months. They have been carefully considered, formulated, and put forward by those States. The next, and obvious, step in this process is for us all to look more closely at them.
Having said that, you have asked us today to consider the 7% of mandates which have not been renewed within the last five years. CANZ has not identified mandates for early action based on their age, but on whether they add value to the UN’s contemporary agenda, and on whether we could realistically take action on them now.
We are confident that, beyond the proposals CANZ has already made, there are other opportunities for progress among the 7% of mandates which have not been renewed. Many of these mandates are ‘foundational’ mandates which establish UN bodies, and would be difficult to review quickly. However, at the very least, we should discontinue mandates from among the 7% which have been fulfilled, such as those asking the Secretariat to produce a one-off report, and mandates which are ongoing but no longer relevant, such as those which have been entirely subsumed by later mandates.
These mandates no longer serve any purpose. Discontinuing them should not be contentious, and nor should it require extensive information on the status of their implementation. CANZ asks the Secretariat to prepare a simple list of mandates which fall into the categories I have just described. Such a list would be useful in relation to all mandates, and not just the 7% which have not been renewed. CANZ will also continue to examine specific mandates, with a view to putting forward further proposals.
A longer-term process
CANZ believes it is equally important that we agree on a longer-term process for reviewing all mandates we do not consider now. Such a ‘roadmap’, as it has been called, should be agreed by the General Assembly this month. However, agreement on a roadmap alone in June would not be sufficient. CANZ firmly believes it must be complemented by concrete, early results from the mandates review.
The logical starting point is again the paper you circulated compiling all proposals made by States. Just as we identified on 5 June proposals CANZ supports for early action, so too did we note some proposals from the paper which will require a longer time frame.
For example, CANZ believes the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the Regional Commissions, and the Conference on Trade and Development should be externally evaluated to identify overlap within the work programs of these bodies, and between them. Each of these bodies is itself complex, and this will take some time.
The longer-term process should include set deadlines for progress, leaving no excuse for the necessary work not to be done. CANZ believes it could proceed in three phases.
First, by the end of this year, we should receive Secretariat or external reports, like the one I have just suggested. Second, in the first quarter of 2007, the General Assembly should consider and act on those Secretariat and external reports. Third, also with a view to taking action in the first quarter of 2007, an ongoing plenary informal process should consider mandates about which we may not need further information, but which States must examine to assess their continued value in light of States’ contemporary priorities.
Mr co-Chair,
We remain thankful for your and your colleague’s ongoing patience, and commitment to this process. CANZ reaffirms its conviction to assist you in achieving, this month, some early results from the mandates review, together with agreement on a practical and time bound longer-term process.
We are conscious that time is of the essence, and, as always, we are ready to engage with all States to ensure our mandates review is successful.
Thank you, Mr co-Chair.