Note to Correspondents

Treaties on Protection of Civilians to Be Highlighted at 2004 Ratification Event

Treaties on the protection of civilians -- the primary victims in today’s violent conflicts -- are in the spotlight this year in the annual event intended to encourage Member States to sign and ratify treaties during the high-level debate of the United Nations General Assembly.  Entitled “Focus 2004:  Treaties on the Protection of Civilians”, the event will run from 21 to 24 September, in the Kuwaiti Boat area on the ground floor of the General Assembly Building beginning at 9 a.m. each day.

During the event, which was organized by the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs Treaty Section in cooperation with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Member States who have not done so already will be able to sign, ratify, or accede to any treaty for which the Secretary-General acts as depositary.

The emphasis on treaties on the protection of civilians reflects a key concern of the United Nations.  In his 2003 report on the Millennium Summit, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan noted that civilians “inevitably bear the cost of the complex and intractable conflicts that have led to the death or forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people and which can only be addressed by a more integrated collective approach to their deepening protection needs”.  And in his March letter of invitation, he asked heads of State or government to participate “consistent with the pledge made by Member States in the Millennium Declaration to ‘expand and strengthen the protection of civilians in complex emergencies’”.

A Call to Make a Difference

Today’s armed conflicts are “tragically characterized by the widespread displacement of civilians, grave human rights abuses, the use of sexual violence as a brutal weapon of war, the recruitment and use of child soldiers, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, severe restrictions on humanitarian access and attacks on humanitarian personnel –- all of which are committed within a culture of impunity”, says Jan Egeland, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.  He has also called upon Member States to “make a real difference to the lives of civilians who are trapped in situations of armed conflict by ensuring that the fundamental legal principles aimed at ensuring their protection are properly implemented on the ground”.

The treaty event brings together the great human rights treaties -- the two International Covenants, the conventions on the rights of women, children, and migrant workers, and the racism convention -- with those more directly connected with armed conflict, such as the Genocide Convention, the Convention against Torture, the Rome Convention, which established the International Criminal Court, and the United Nations Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel.  Complementing these treaties are a range of other agreements, including those relating to the use of destructive weapons, which specifically safeguard human welfare, and treaties on the transport and trafficking of both humans and firearms.

Treaties require States Parties to give effect to their provisions -- such as making the use of child soldiers illegal, or trafficking in firearms -- to translate their requirements into enforceable law.  Once it has “entered into force”, a treaty’s effectiveness might be described as proportional to the number of State Parties it has, and none of this year’s treaties has yet achieved “universal participation”.  The higher the percentage of participation, or States Parties, a treaty has, the greater its strength and effectiveness, because only a State that is party to a treaty is required to enforce it.  Thus, the underlying purpose for the treaty event: universal participation.

At the five treaty events which have taken place at United Nations Headquarters since the first in 2000, a total of 828 treaty actions have taken place.  Over 500 multilateral treaties are deposited with the Secretary-General.

Contact:

For additional information, please contact Ellen McGuffie in the Department of Public Information (DPI) at (212) 963-0499, or Palitha Kohona in the Treaty Section, Office of Legal Affairs, at (212) 963-5048.  Detailed information can be found in the booklet that was prepared for the event or at untreaty.un.org (username and password may be obtained by contacting the Treaty Section at the number above).

Treaties:  Status as of 17 September 2004:

Treaties Receiving Special Attention

-- Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948 (135 Parties) Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 1984 (137 Parties).

-- Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 1998 (94 Parties).

-- Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel, 1994 (74 Parties).

-- Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, 2000 (78 Parties).

-- Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, 2001 (26 Parties).

Treaties Important to the Welfare of Civilians

-- Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (Oslo, 1997; 143 Parties).

-- Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (Geneva, 1980; 94 Parties), including the following:

-- Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices (Protocol II; Geneva, 1996; 76 Parties).

-- Protocol on Explosive Remnants of War (Protocol V; Geneva, 2003; 1 Party).

Human Rights Treaties

-- International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 1966 (169 Parties).

-- International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966 (149 Parties).

-- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966 (152 Parties).

-- Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 1979 (178 Parties).

-- Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 1999 (64 Parties).

-- Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 (192 Parties).

-- Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, 2000 (79 Parties).

-- International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, 1990 (26 Parties).

Transport and Trafficking Treaties

-- United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, 2000 (88 Parties).

-- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, 2000 (69 Parties).

-- Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, 2001 (60 Parties).

-- Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, 2001 (26 Parties).

Other Treaties

-- Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, 1950 (77 Parties).

-- Final Protocol to the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, 1950 (36 Parties).

-- Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951 (142 Parties).

-- Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, 1967 (142 Parties).

-- Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, 1954 (57 Parties).

-- Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 1961 (27 Parties).

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