Sixth Committee
20 October 2005
Scope of legal protection under the Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel
Statement by Ben Playle
Second Secretary and Legal Adviser
of Australia to the United Nations
(Check against delivery)
Mr Chairman
Australia remains strongly supportive of efforts to broaden the scope of legal protection under the Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel. We are particularly conscious that the Summit set us the task of concluding an Optional Protocol to that Convention during the sixtieth session of the General Assembly. Australia is committed to that goal. We thank the Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee and Working Group, Ambassador Wenaweser, for bringing us closer to its realisation
In marking the second anniversary of the attack on UN Headquarters in Baghdad, Secretary-General Kofi Annan noted no-one had been held accountable for that deplorable crime, offering ‘yet another appalling example of the impunity that so often follows assaults on United Nations personnel around the world, be they peacekeepers, humanitarian workers or others’. This serves as a timely reminder of the importance of this item. So too do attacks on UN personnel in the past year, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Afghanistan, in Sudan, and elsewhere.
Mr Chairman
In both the Ad Hoc Committee in April this year, and the recent meeting of the Working Group, States have put forward a number of proposals designed to resolve the outstanding elements of the draft Optional Protocol. Allow me to mention two of them.
First, Australia particularly welcomes States’ willingness to work towards extending the automatic application of the Convention to UN operations delivering humanitarian, political or development assistance ‘in peacebuilding’. As we have said previously, this represents a good, compromise solution. As we have also said previously, Australia supports the broadest possible application of the Optional Protocol. Accordingly, we encourage States, in practice, to adopt a broad interpretation of the phrase ‘in peacebuilding’ which includes all phases and elements of peacebuilding operations.
Second, Australia is reluctantly willing to accept a narrow provision enabling States to opt-out from applying the Protocol to a UN operation providing emergency humanitarian assistance in response to a natural disaster. But we note history shows that natural disasters often lead to a breakdown in law and order. UN and associated personnel deployed in such circumstances are exposed to exactly the sort of risks against which the Convention aims to provide protection. Accordingly, we would encourage States, in practice, not to exclude the Protocol’s application to operations responding to a natural disaster whenever such risks exist.
Mr Chairman
Australia has been a strong proponent of a robust Optional Protocol which would apply the Convention automatically to the broadest range of UN operations. Australia has reluctantly moderated its position to accept that protections of the extended regime might be afforded only to a subset of UN operations, to be determined with reference to the perceived risk to which UN and associated personnel are exposed. These are substantial concessions. The draft text upon which recent negotiations have focused is significantly less than Australia has consistently sought. It affords less protection to UN and associated personnel than we believe they deserve. But, after five years of negotiations, we recognise the text we are working on represents what is achievable in this forum.
In that context, Australia looks forward to working with other States in a similar spirit of compromise with a view to adopting an Optional Protocol which provides some additional protection to UN and associated personnel. We look forward to that outcome being achieved during this session, consistent with the commitment made by our leaders.
Thank you, Mr Chairman.