Plenary
19 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 has consistently said that this review should consider all mandates, and not just the 7% of mandates which have not been renewed within the last five years.
Our leaders agreed at the Summit to ‘strengthen and update the program of work of the United Nations so that it corresponds to the contemporary requirements of member States’. Only examining 7% of that program would seem to fall far short of our obligation to leaders.
In our view, the age of a mandate is not a significant criterion for determining whether it should be reviewed. Instead, we should apply criteria including whether a mandate still has relevance to the UN’s contemporary agenda, and whether a mandate can realistically be discontinued or downgraded.
Applying our preferred criteria, CANZ has, over the last two months, offered several practical, moderate proposals which we consider are ready for early action. I again refer delegates to our statement of 5 June, in which we listed a few of these. As a matter of coincidence rather than intent, proposals CANZ has put forward have typically concerned mandates from among the 93% which have been renewed within the last five years.
Having said that, we have heard your request that, as a first step, States focus only on the 7% of mandates which have not been renewed. We understand your motivation is to move this process forward. As a sign of our strong support for the efforts you have made, we are willing today to discuss the non-renewed mandates at this meeting.
Since the last informal on 14 June, CANZ has looked through the list of the 382 non-renewed mandates. Our impression is that there may not be much fertile ground for achieving real reform in the short-term by reviewing the mandates on that list.
The electronic database of mandates provided by the Secretariat indicates whether each mandate is ‘constitutive’, and whether it is ‘recurrent’. Using these labels, we have examined the 382 mandates by dividing them into three groups.
First, 25% of the 382 mandates are neither constitutive nor recurrent. We cannot see what current purpose these mandates could possibly serve. CANZ proposes they be discontinued, but notes this would be nothing more than a book keeping exercise, and would not affect the work the Secretariat does today.
Second, 16% of the 382 mandates are constitutive. Many constitutive mandates would be difficult to review quickly, given that States would need to assess the work done by the bodies those mandates constituted. The current work programs of those bodies have, at least partially, been determined by mandates from among the 93% which have been renewed in the last five years. Accordingly, assessing the value of these bodies with reference only to the 7% of non-renewed mandates is very difficult.
Third, 59% of the 382 mandates are not constitutive, and are recurrent. These could entail current work for the Secretariat, although many of these mandates were adopted so long ago that it is difficult to ascertain whether they still have any relevance, and thus whether there is any real reform value in reviewing them. We would ask the Secretariat to identify as soon as possible which of these mandates are still being implemented.
On this basis, our initial impression is that there is not much scope for achieving real and quick reform by examining only the list of 382 non-renewed mandates. Nonetheless, we will continue to examine these and other mandates to develop further proposals.
The difficulty of examining the non-renewed mandates in isolation highlights the importance of agreeing upon a roadmap to examine all mandates. Such a roadmap could usefully group all remaining mandates into thematic clusters, and outline timelines for considering each cluster one-by-one. CANZ believes this approach is worth considering.
As always, CANZ remains committed to this process and interested in hearing specific proposals for mandates review from all States. We hope to hear some more today.
Thank you, Mr co-Chair.