SIXTH COMMITTEE ELECTS OFFICERS FOR FIFTY-EIGHTH ASSEMBLY SESSION, CONVENES AS WORKING GROUP ON REPRODUCTIVE CLONING

Fifty-eighth General Assembly

Sixth Committee

1^st Meeting (PM)

SIXTH COMMITTEE ELECTS OFFICERS FOR FIFTY-EIGHTH ASSEMBLY SESSION,

CONVENES AS WORKING GROUP ON REPRODUCTIVE CLONING

The Sixth Committee (Legal) elected its officers for the current General Assembly session at an organizational meeting this afternoon and immediately convened as a working group to resume the elaboration of a treaty banning reproductive cloning of human beings.

Chaired by Lauro Liboon Baja Jr. (Philippines), the Committee elected three Vice-Chairpersons:  Allieu Ibrahim Kanu (Sierra Leone), Gaile Ann Ramoutar (Trinidad and Tobago) and Tal Becker (Israel).  Metod Spacek (Slovakia) was elected Rapporteur.  Vaclav Mikulka, Director of the Codification Division of the Office of Legal Affairs, is the Committee Secretary.

In his opening statement, Mr. Baja called on Committee members to exercise the political will to make progress in their deliberations on the critical issues on the Committee’s agenda.  He said the Committee would continue to take action on draft resolutions as they became ready.  Also, the Committee’s work programme would be applied with flexibility in accordance with progress in deliberations.

The Committee elected Juan Manuel Gomez Robledo (Mexico) as Chairman of the Ad Hoc committee on the International Convention against the Reproductive Cloning of Human Beings.  In that capacity, he will chair the Committee’s working group on the matter, established by the General Assembly in December 2001.  That was in response to a proposal by France and Germany to elaborate a Convention against an activity that the Committee, in its first report (document A/57/51), called a troubling and unethical development in biotechnology that raised moral, religious, ethical and scientific concerns of far-reaching implications for human dignity. 

Deliberations on the Convention concern differences in approach.  Some favour a two-step process in which reproductive cloning is banned immediately while the more complicated question of therapeutic cloning is addressed.  Others want both forms banned comprehensively since the technologies are virtually identical.  During last year’s debate, delegates remained divided on the scope of the Convention and means to implement it.  The resolution finally adopted called for the working group to continue its work during the current Assembly session.

The working group will meet through 3 October and the Sixth Committee is expected to take up the matter in plenary on Monday, 20 October.

The Committee also decided to establish a working group on the scope of legal protection under the Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel.  The Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on the matter, Christian Wenaweser (Liechtenstein), will chair the working group.

Finally, the Committee postponed until next week a decision on forming a working group to continue the work of the Ad Hoc Committee on measures to eliminate international terrorism.  The Ad Hoc Committee chairman, Rohan Perera (Sri Lanka) would advise on the matter.

Other issues before the Committee for this session include:  the report of the Special Committee on the Charter; requests for observer status; the legal aspects of the new international economic order; the International Criminal Court; jurisdictional immunities of States; the report of the International Law Commission; report of the Committee on Relations with the Host Country; and the United Nations programme of assistance in teaching international law.

The Sixth Committee will next meet in plenary at 10 a.m. on Monday,6 October, to begin considering the report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

* *** *