General Assembly Session 55 meeting 38

The President

I give the floor to the representative of Italy to introduce draft resolution A/55/L.8.

Mr. Vento (Italy)

As Permanent Representative of the State that is the current Chairman of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, I am honoured to introduce a draft resolution on this new item in the agenda of the fifty-fifth session of the General Assembly. Allow me to also take this opportunity to welcome the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Mr. Walter Schwimmer, and the delegation from the Council's Parliamentary Assembly that is here to follow the work of the General Assembly.

This item was inserted in the agenda in accordance with Recommendation 1411 of 21 June 1999 of the Council's Parliamentary Assembly, which stressed the need to enhance cooperation between the two organizations, in view of the contribution that the Council of Europe has made to the United Nations over the past 50 years, particularly in promoting the rule of law and the protection of human rights and democratic values.

Cooperation between the United Nations and the Council of Europe started in 1951, just two years after the Council was founded, with the signing of an agreement that was updated 20 years later, in 1971, through the Arrangement on Cooperation between the secretariat of the Council of Europe and the United Nations.

Another milestone was the adoption at the forty-fourth session of the General Assembly of a resolution granting observer status to the Council of Europe.

The draft resolution that I am presenting today cites more recent examples of this cooperation, as follows.

At the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly, entitled "Women 2000", the Council of Europe contributed to the fight against trafficking in women and to the promotion of gender mainstreaming, while at the twenty-fourth special session, on the implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development, the Council embraced the strategy for social cohesion, focusing on the protection of social rights, access to housing, employment and social protection and family and children policies.

The Council has supported United Nations efforts to restore peace in Kosovo by establishing close working relations with the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo and focusing on legislative reforms in line with texts such as the European Convention on Human Rights.

On 11 to 13 October 2000, the Council organized a successful pan-European Conference on racism and intolerance to prepare for the 2001 United Nations World Conference in South Africa.

Other tasks lie ahead: the Council of Europe intends to contribute actively to the special session of the United Nations General Assembly for the follow-up to the World Summit for Children, scheduled for September 2001.

In his recent visit to the Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg, the President of the Italian Republic, Mr. Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, recalled the high ethical and political beliefs that inspired the founding of the Council of Europe. It embodied the faith of European citizens in a system of shared values, enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, whose fiftieth anniversary will be celebrated in Rome on 3 and 4 November with a Ministerial Conference. Some of the pillars of this ambitious legal system are the European Social Charter, the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. These instruments, together with other conventions and recommendations, have helped consolidate the principles of freedom and justice in Europe. Moreover, the original vision of the Council of Europe helped pave the way for the integration of the European Union.

The borders of European civilization are not pre-established or strictly linked to geography. Rather, they depend on the power of these values to be understood and shared throughout the world. The Council currently consists of 41 States, representing more than 800 million people, but others will soon join, giving the organization a pan-European dimension. The Holy See, the United States of America, Canada, Japan and Mexico are observer members. Within the organization, consideration has begun on the possibility of granting a special "cooperative" status to countries interested in participating in its work, particularly in the field of democratization and modernization of the judiciary.

As Secretary-General Kofi Annan pointed out during his recent visit to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, amid the great transformation known as globalization the world is still fighting intolerance, racism, xenophobia and desegregation -- the very dangers targeted by the founders of the Council of Europe.

This is why we are convinced that closer cooperation with the United Nations can bear great results. This is why we would like to consider the idea of creating a liaison office for the Council in New York on a reciprocal basis.

I wish to conclude by recalling that the Council of Europe, as the sole pan-European organization, is in a position to make a substantial contribution to the United Nations in meeting its rising challenges. To grapple with these challenges effectively will necessitate a synergistic coordination of our efforts and resources.

For example, the Venice Commission, the Council's authoritative advisory body on legal and institutional matters, which celebrated its tenth anniversary last June, has begun to elaborate a package of standard legal elements and constitutional proposals towards finding a solution to the ethnic conflicts of member States.

Moreover, the interaction between culture and the environment is one of the main themes of a Ministerial Conference taking place in Florence even as we speak. On this occasion, an important new legal instrument, the Landscape Convention, has been opened for signature. The Convention contains highly innovative content and proposes to raise public awareness of quality-of-life issues.

However, the most important concept inspiring the actions of the Council of Europe, which I am convinced that the United Nations also fully shares, concerns democratic stability -- entailing the interdependence of human rights, democracy, good governance and the rule of law, as well as conflict prevention, peace-building and stability. For more than five decades, the Council of Europe has been developing significant expertise in these issues. It is thus now able to make an increasingly substantial contribution to the prevention of conflict and, when unfortunately necessary, to long-term post-conflict peace and institution-building. The Council of Europe's capabilities in conflict prevention lie in a combination of standard-setting, cooperation -- both collectively between all member countries and bilaterally -- and monitoring, at the legal and political levels.

At this historic juncture, it would be timely for the General Assembly to ask the Secretary-General to explore ways and means of enhancing an already advanced cooperation in order to meet the challenges, old and new, of the third millennium.

Since both the Council and the United Nations place human dignity at the centre of their missions and mandates, stronger working links between them can only aid in the achievement of their noble cause.