Australian Permanent Mission to the United Nations

New York

Permanent Mission address: 150 East 42 Street, Level 33, New York, New York 10017 - Telephone: 1 212 351 6600 - Fax: 1 212 351 6610

UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY 55th SESSION

Fifth Committee - Item 122: Scale of Assessments for the Apportionment of the Expenses of the United Nations and Application of Article 19

Statement by Mr Henry Fox, on behalf of the delegations of New Zealand, Canada and Australia

26 March 2001

Mr Chairman

I have the honour to speak on behalf of New Zealand, Canada and Australia on Item 122, Scale of Assessments for the Apportionment of the Expenses of the United Nations.

We would like to thank Mr Gilpin for introducing the Report of the Secretary-General on the Application of Article 19 of the Charter, contained in A/55/789. This Report was requested by the General Assembly in its Resolution 55/5A of 26 October 2000 in which it decided that henceforth, in calculating arrears for the purposes of Article 19, arrears would be compared with the amount actually assessed.

This was an important decision by the General Assembly which has the effect of strengthening the incentive to Member States to pay their assessed contributions on time.

The Report before us is also important and contains a number of useful suggestions including the possible biannual calculation of arrears and, flowing from this, the suggestion that the preceding two full years be redefined as the preceding twenty-four months. We believe these ideas, which in our view would further tighten the application of Article 19, deserve serious consideration by the Committee.

Mr Chairman, in Resolution 55/5 A the General Assembly decided it would return to the issue of implementing the net-net approach to Article 19 once it had the benefit of advice from the Committee on Contributions on the Report before us. We look forward to that advice which we hope will canvass the full range of issues covered in the Report including the modalities for implementing the General Assembly's decision on the net-net approach.

We look forward to actively participating in further consideration of this issue at the 56th session of the General Assembly with a view to the speedy implementation of the General Assembly's decision.