Statement by Mr Andrew Williams, Permanent Mission of New Zealand to the United Nations sixth committee, on behalf of Australia, Canada and New Zealand on item 86: the rule of law at the international and national levels
13 october 2008
(As delivered)
Mr Chairman,
I have the honour to speak today on behalf of Australia, Canada and my own country New Zealand.
The rule of law is fundamental to the United Nations and the Charter. The original goal of this Organization was to bring the rule of law to international relations. Over the past 63 years the UN has helped to reinforce the rule of law through diverse work in areas such as human rights, peacekeeping, disarmament, development and good governance. It remains important that the UN’s organs, including the General Assembly and Security Council, continue to strive to advance the rule of law. The UN also needs to uphold its own internal standards for the rule of law.
CANZ thanks the Secretary-General for his helpful recent reports and the Rule of Law Coordination and Resource Group and Rule of Law Unit for their work to date. We continue to see both the Group and Unit as a central repository and facilitator of the UN’s rule of law work. It is important that we support the ongoing work of the UN system to promote the rule of law. We agree that the Secretary-General and Member States need to provide the necessary assistance to the Unit to enable effective coordination and assessment of UN rule of law initiatives, including through a combination of staffing and adequate resources, to ensure that the Unit achieves its goals.
We support the Secretary-General’s characterization of the Unit’s three broad areas of activity: (1) coordinating all UN rule of law assistance; (2) developing UN system-wide strategies and policy; and (3) enhancing partnerships in the UN system and with external actors. We agree with the Secretary-General’s suggestion for a UN strategic approach which includes conducting joint assessments with national stakeholders to determine rule of law needs, and look forward to the 2009-11 strategic plan.
CANZ also supports the Secretary-General’s call for greater measures to assess the practical effectiveness of the UN’s rule of law activities, including those of the Unit. We noted the Secretary-General’s conclusion in his report A/63/226 that often existing rule of law programmes were without proper methods to evaluate their true impact. Recent positive developments for the UN’s growing role in promoting the rule of law needs to be complemented by the ability to critically assess whether there is demonstrable progress as a result of the UN’s country-specific activities. Proper assessment will over time increase the effectiveness of UN efforts. We would like also to see clearer timeframes for achieving the Unit’s objectives, and in this regard look forward to the establishment of the Unit’s website.
CANZ continues to support the selection of one or two concrete sub-topics on which to focus our work, as called for in General Assembly resolution 61/39. We believe a focus that is practical and action-oriented will provide Member States and the Organization with the most benefit. As we did in our debate last year, CANZ supports a sub-topic based on strengthening international criminal justice at the international and national levels, in particular, so-called “residual” or “legacy” issues that arise as the international and hybrid criminal courts and tribunals complete their cases. Examples of such issues include the review of new evidence, consideration of further proceedings, access and control of confidential court files and documents, and sentence fulfilment and enforcement-related issues.
As recognised by the Secretary-General, there is an increasingly urgent need to consider these “residual” and “legacy” issues, including any potential role for the International Criminal Court. We welcome the ongoing informal work in the Security Council related to the ICTY and ICTR joint paper in 2007 on residual functions, and the work done by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. These issues are also relevant for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, and will be in future for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The first of the ad hoc tribunals may close in 2009. If the international community is not prepared to address these issues shortly, we may undermine much of the good work that has been done.
CANZ remains willing to work constructively for a consensus on sub-topics which best reflects the views of the whole Committee.
Thank you
Mr Chairman