PRESS CONFERENCE BY CHAIRMAN OF ASSEMBLY'S LEGAL COMMITTEE

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY CHAIRMAN OF ASSEMBLY'S LEGAL COMMITTEE

The General Assembly's Sixth Committee (Legal) completed its work for the fifty-third session yesterday afternoon, approving 12 resolutions and two decisions, all without a vote, Jargalsaikhany Enkhsaikhan (Mongolia), Chairman of the Committee said at a Headquarters press conference today.

That accomplishment was due to the constructive atmosphere that prevailed in the Committee during the session, he said. The Committee dealt with all the 11 agenda items allocated to it, and efforts were made to ensure that agreements were reached on each item considered by the Committee.

Highlighting some of the issues discussed, Mr. Enkhsaikhan (Mongolia), who is also Permanent Representative of Mongolia, referred to the Committee's agreement to have the Preparatory Commission for the establishment of an International Criminal Court convene early next February to begin work on the Court. The Commission would possibly meet for eight weeks during 1999 to begin the practical arrangements for the establishment and the functioning of the Court, including the finalization of the draft text of the rules of procedure and evidence and of the elements of crimes. The aim was to have those proposals prepared by 30 June 2000, as requested by the United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of the Court, which took place in Rome from 15 June to 17 July. The Conference adopted the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

A resolution on the Court approved by the Sixth Committee would enable Member States, whether big or small, he said, to participate fully in the work of the Preparatory Commission. He emphasized that States that had signed the Rome treaty and those who were specially invited by the General Assembly to the Rome Conference would participate in the work of the Preparatory Commission. Provision had also been made for the participation of intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. The Rome Conference proved to be very useful, he said, adding that the Committee felt that its momentum should be maintained.

Continuing, he said the Committee approved without a vote a set of draft principles and guidelines for international negotiations. The draft was negotiated in the working group of the Committee, and it was hoped that they would prove useful in managing international relations and the peaceful settlement of disputes, as well as creating new norms of international law. The adoption of the principles and guidelines would not by itself create the necessary political will of States essential for successful negotiations. However, he believed that they could serve both as general guidelines for conducting meaningful and effective negotiations by setting minimum standards of conduct of States at negotiations and also as a general criteria against which the conduct of other States at negotiations could be assessed.

The Committee decided, as part of a broader understanding on the issue of combating international terrorism, to initiate the elaboration of a draft convention for the suppression of terrorist financing by the Ad Hoc Committee on terrorism, he said. "This would be an important and extremely useful practical measure to combat terrorism." The draft resolution on the subject would also urge States that had not yet done so to consider becoming parties to the existing international conventions on terrorism.

Judging from the status of those instruments, he said there was much that could be done to enhance their usefulness, by wider accession to them. For example, he said the 1991 Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the purposes of detection, which entered into force last June, had less than 40 parties. The International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, which was opened for signature on 12 January this year, so far had only 24 State parties. No State had yet ratified it, he added. It would take 22 ratifications before the Convention would enter into force. He hoped States would sign the two conventions, particularly the one on suppression of terrorist bombings, which he described as very important.

He said the representatives worked hard until the last day of the Committee's work to try to finalize and have a draft international convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism adopted. That would have eliminated yet another legal lacuna in combating that dangerous form of international terrorism. Member States realized that nuclear terrorism was a very real issue and needed to be considered with all urgency and the seriousness it deserved. "Disregarding this danger may result in the gravest consequences and may pose a threat to international peace and security, not to mention to national security of States", he asserted.

There was, therefore, the need to produce an international legal instrument to prevent or effectively suppress acts of nuclear terrorism, he added. He hoped that progress would be made in work on the draft convention early next year at the session of the Ad Hoc Committee on terrorism to enable the General Assembly, through its Sixth Committee, to adopt it.

Underlining the importance of continued struggle against international terrorism, he said the Sixth Committee had decided that at the fifty-fourth session of the General Assembly, it would establish a working group to continue the drafting work that would have been started in the Ad Hoc Committee. Then after the Ad Hoc Committee had presented its report, the Sixth Committee itself would continue its consideration of the item. It had also been decided that the Ad Hoc Committee would be convened in the year 2000 to continue its work on the elaboration of a comprehensive legal framework of conventions dealing with international terrorism.

Responding to questions, he said the definition of what constituted terrorism was one of the important questions related to the subject of international terrorism Member States would have to address in the near

Sixth Committee Press Conference - 3 - 25 November 1998

future. At the request of the General Assembly, the Sixth Committee had been focusing on specific aspects of terrorism. Following completion of work on a draft convention on the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism, the Ad Hoc Committee would take up a French proposal on a draft convention for the suppression of terrorist financing. After that, Member States would have to consider a comprehensive convention to combat international terrorism. That was where difficulties would arise, he said, recalling that the issue of definition of terrorism had been debated in the 1970s and 1980s. The question would be addressed after the completion of work on the two conventions.

There were two questions that delegations had to address with regard to the draft convention on the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism, he said. One was the scope of application, since some delegations maintained the convention must expressly provide for exclusion of official activities of armed forces while other States opposed such a reference. The second question was related to the legality of the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. Many hours had been spent in consultations on those two issues and in the end it had been decided to refer them to the Ad Hoc Committee at its next session in March 1999.

Explaining the issues further, he said the Committee had looked at the philosophical question of whether the convention should address the legality or illegality of the possession of nuclear weapons, and the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. There were two different positions, one that the draft convention was intended to address the question of nuclear terrorism only and should not be concerned with disarmament, and the broader one of the legality or illegality of nuclear weapons.

Replying to a question on the establishment of the International Criminal Court, he said that the resolution that had been approved had opened the way for participation of all States in the work of the Preparatory Commission. It was an important point, because with this resolution, "we do not foreclose the door for negotiations for all States, even those that voted against the Statute in Rome". He reminded correspondents that seven countries voted against the adoption of the Statute. "We need all countries to be on board and in order to do that we have agreed that the work of the Preparatory Commission would be open to participation by all States." The States that had difficulties with the contents of the Statute had stressed that they would still have those difficulties with the Statute itself even if they participated.

What were the roadblocks to the Court coming into being? a correspondent asked. The biggest roadblock, he said, was the need to have the participation of all States. And another problem would be to continue the work that had been started in Rome. For example, general provisions had been set out which now needed to be filled in, as in further defining crimes and coming up with a definition of aggression.

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