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Thank you, Mr Co-Chair
On behalf of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, I would like to thank the Co-Chairs for convening this meeting, and for the opportunity to comment on the draft report and resolution concerned with revitalizing the General Assembly.
Within the United Nations system universal representation of member states is a quality unique to the General Assembly, and one which renders this body particularly well-placed to lead the international community on a range of important and interconnected issues. Revitalizing the General Assembly to fulfil this role with the utmost effectiveness and efficiency is therefore our shared interest and responsibility. CANZ welcomes the draft report and recommendations before us as substantive contributions to addressing this ongoing challenge. We share the co-chairs’ ambition to finalise and adopt these documents as soon as possible so that work can be further progressed in the General Assembly.
CANZ considers the report to provide a balanced synthesis of this group’s discussions on the role and authority of the General Assembly, the Assembly’s role in the election of the Secretary-General, and its working methods. We also view the recommendations for elements of a resolution on General Assembly revitalization as reflecting the interests of all members. However, at this time of multiple, and perhaps competing reform initiatives, we believe that the resolution should focus on those recommendations which promise the most useful and visible impact on the vitality of the General Assembly. CANZ hopes that immediate and discernable reform will not only revitalise the GA in its own right, but will also inspire and catalyse further change to consolidate and enhance this result.
There can be no doubt that a well-balanced and mutually supportive relationship between the General Assembly and the Security Council is essential for an effective United Nations. CANZ welcomes the recommendations to further enhance the relationship between the Assembly and the Security Council, as well as between these bodies and ECOSOC. As past experience has shown, there is much to be gained through cooperation, and more to be lost through conflict.
It is also difficult to fault the recommendation that General Assembly resolutions should be more concise, focused and action-oriented, and that preambular paragraphs in resolutions should be kept to a minimum. Ironic though it may be to repeat a plea against repetition, CANZ stands by its earlier statement that treating resolution language as being deleted from collective memory every time a General Assembly session ends risks drowning new and innovative thinking in a sea of recycled text.
CANZ strongly supports efforts to rationalise the agenda of the General Assembly, including through bi- and tri-ennialization, as well as the clustering and discontinuation of agenda items. Although some items are of such importance and continuing relevance that they must remain on the agenda every year, we believe that other items provide scope for consolidation and reduction. This is also true of items on the agenda of the Main Committees, and we welcome the draft recommendations’ recognition of the role that these Committees can play to this end.
In addition to the brevity of resolution text, and the placement of items on the Assembly agenda, CANZ is also keen to see improvements in the implementation of General Assembly resolutions. We note that the recommendation that the Secretariat provide an annual chart on the status of implementation of resolutions echoes recent consultations on mandate review, during which member states acknowledged that such information was critical to their ability to monitor the successes of their mandates. CANZ strongly supports this recommendation, and considers it entirely appropriate that the different branches of the UN reform process should reinforce each other in this way.
The results of General Assembly revitalization will benefit us all, and the process through which we achieve that change is in our collective hands. CANZ looks forward to being part of this group’s timely agreement on the report and the draft recommendations, and to the ultimate revitalization of the General Assembly.
Thank you, Mr Co Chair.
