General Assembly Session 58 meeting 29

Mr. Aguilar Zinser (Mexico)

I am speaking today as we meet to exchange views on the annual report on the activities of the Security Council from 1 August 2002 to 31 July 2003.

We wish first to thank Ambassador John Negroponte, the Permanent Representative of the United States, for having introduced the report in his capacity as President of the Security Council for this month. We also thank the delegations of the United Kingdom and Spain for their support in the preparation and streamlining of the report's introduction.

As it did last year, Mexico, as a member of the Security Council, insisted on the need to draft a substantive introduction to the report to include analytical elements of interest relating to the issues being considered by the Council, an account of how they are addressed and the corresponding decision-making process. While the members of the Council -- the five permanent members in particular -- appear to have become more open to and aware of their responsibility to be accountable to the General Assembly by submitting a substantive report, we recognize nonetheless that much remains to be done to fulfil the obligation under paragraph 3 of Article 24 and paragraph 1 of 15 of the United Nations Charter so as to ensure that the report is genuinely a useful reference for those Members of our Organization that do not take part in the Council's decision-making process.

We stress the relevance of including in the report indices of progress in the activities of the Council that would enable all the Members of the Organization to determine more clearly the areas requiring redoubled action and reorientation. The monthly appraisals of the Council's work prepared by its Presidents have helped to enhance knowledge and understanding of that work and therefore represent an important contribution to the preparation of the annual report with a view to ensuring the report's inclusion of analytical elements on the Council's work in a form wherein such information may be of service to the Members of the United Nations.

During our term as a non-permanent member of the Council, we have striven to make the organ more transparent, responsible and sensitive to the need to base its actions on the common interest. This requires not only initiatives, but also daily action to make the Council's working methods more transparent. We have also reiterated the vital need to promote greater openness in the decision-making process and the broader inclusion of all 15 members of the Security Council in that process. There should be no first- and second-class members of the Council. All of us should participate in decision-making on the same footing.

We have also voiced our positions in the Open-ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council and Other Matters related to the Security Council, with a view to improving its working methods and transparency. Some progress has been made, but much remains to be done. We hope that the Council will continue to adopt measures to improve its work, promote transparency in its decision-making process and encourage greater interaction between the Council and the General Assembly with a view to improving coordination of the Council's work with that of other bodies that play an active role in addressing conflict situations. The General Assembly may be assured of Mexico's determination to continue to participate constructively in the Working Group's reflection on this issue.

We are convinced that Security Council reform is one of the issues of greatest interest and importance on the United Nations current agenda. We are therefore grateful for the opportunity to state our views, as we have in previous years, on the arduous exercise under way in the Open-ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council.

The need for reform in the Security Council is not a new one. For several years now, the States Members of this Organization have been considering ways and means of achieving it. The activities of the Working Group are extremely valuable, not only because of the intensity of its discussions, but also because of its contribution to changing practices and processes in the Council's working methods. No one can deny either the constructive effect that the Working Group's deliberations have had on the Security Council's practices, particularly over the past five years, or the prevailing deadlock on the issue of expanding membership. We must acknowledge that the latter is the result of a polarization of positions and not of the negotiating format adopted by the Working Group.

At the same time, as noted a few weeks ago in this very Hall by President Vicente Fox of Mexico,

"There is little worth in considering a Council with a larger membership if the resolutions that it issues are not respected or if they lack a common interpretation of the scope of their provisions. We must ensure the right kind of representativeness, limit and regulate the right of veto and call for greater transparency and for creating a more balanced relationship with the other organs of the United Nations system, particularly the General Assembly". (A/58/PV.9, p. 22)

Mexico stresses yet again that the way to achieve reform is not by expanding anachronistic privileges within the Security Council, such as the status of permanent membership or the right of veto, and underscores the need for reform in order to secure better representativeness and geographical balance on the Council. While certain States not only have unacceptable pretensions, but continue to block agreement on elements that would otherwise enjoy consensus, neither the Working Group nor any other exercise will be able to achieve the overall agreement required for any reform of the Security Council, in accordance with General Assembly resolutions 48/26 and 53/30.

Finally, we express our readiness to continue to participate actively in the Working Group in the hope that all Member States will demonstrate the necessary political will to find common political positions, abandon unattainable claims and work together in the interests of the international community as a whole.

Mr. Amer (Libya)

The President of the Security Council for this month has introduced the Council's report covering the period from 1 August 2002 to 31 July 2003. My delegation believes that the General Assembly's discussion of the report will provide an opportunity to review developments in the maintenance of international peace and security, to assess the Council's performance in that context, and to determine the adequacy of that performance with respect to the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and to its own mandate.

We are discussing the report of the Security Council in the context of measures adopted by the General Assembly to strengthen the relationship between the decision-making bodies of the United Nations and the Council. In that context, I would refer to resolution 47/233, in which the Assembly encourages Member States to participate actively in a substantive and in-depth discussion on and consideration of the reports of the Security Council, and to resolution 48/264, in which the Assembly calls on its President to propose appropriate ways and means to facilitate an in-depth discussion by the Assembly of matters contained in the reports submitted to it by the Security Council. Resolution 51/193 of 17 December 1996 specified a number of measures related to the annual reports that are submitted by the Security Council to the General Assembly.

In the framework of decisions adopted by the General Assembly, we note that the Council's report, contained in document A/58/2, stresses the fact that consultations of the Council with troop-contributing countries for peacekeeping have continued on an ongoing basis throughout the reporting period. We call on the Council to hold even more consultations with Member States with respect to fulfilling the objectives of peacekeeping operations. We believe that briefings by the Council to Member States should be improved by being made more appropriate and regular.

We thank the Presidents of the Council for the monthly assessments they give to the General Assembly so that it may comprehensively and objectively assess the Council's accomplishments. I would stress the need for the Council to brief Member States on missions to crisis areas, their mandates and their conclusions. We would also highlight the need for consultations between the Presidents of the General Assembly and the Security Council in moments of crisis and for the institutionalization of such measures, which should be inscribed in the Council's provisional rules of procedure.

We believe that the Council should solicit the views of the International Court of Justice more often on legal questions, in accordance with Chapter VII of the Charter. That practice proved very useful during the joint meeting with regional organizations in April, when great interest was shown in adopting it as a way of accelerating our response to the challenges of our changing world. Article 48 of the provisional rules of procedure of the Council stipulates that the Council's meetings should be public unless otherwise indicated. We have noticed that the Council has increased its open meetings, which give Member States an opportunity to express their viewpoints.

We are concerned about the informal private consultations of the Council, which do not allow Member States to be informed about developments, contravene resolution 51/193 and disregard the requests of the General Assembly. While we believe that these consultations may help the Council to discharge its duties, it is unacceptable for States to have to deal with a given situation without having any information on it. We ask that the relevant provisions of the Charter, in particular Articles 31 and 32, be implemented in order to allow States to participate in the consultations and to provide greater transparency in the Council's work.

During the reporting period, the Council debated items on the maintenance of international peace and security, missions were dispatched and troops deployed to resolve crises. Such activity, however, did not extend throughout the world. In one specific case, the Council was silent while war raged. On the issue of Palestine, the right of veto paralysed the Council's ability to adopt measures to end the aggression against the Palestinian people and to dispatch any international forces. This paralysis prompts us to reconsider the role of the Council and the exercise of the right of the veto.

It is clear that Africa has been a priority in the Council's work. The Council spent a great deal of its time in open meetings to discuss Africa. My delegation welcomes measures adopted to end the conflicts in Somalia, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other parts of the continent. We are convinced that development must be accompanied by peace and security and that measures therefore need to be taken to reflect the economic and social problems of Africa, including poverty, marginalization and debt.

In conclusion, it has become customary for the General Assembly to hold this discussion on the report of the Security Council. It is not enough, however, merely to take note of the report, however great a priority the maintenance of international peace and security may be. The proposals of Member States must be submitted to the Security Council in accordance with rules 10 and 11 of the Assembly's rules of procedure in order to enhance the Assembly's contribution to the maintenance of international peace and security.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Chau (Viet Nam)

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