Press Conference by General Assembly President

 

At Headquarters today, in his first press conference since assuming the Presidency of the sixty-fifth United Nations General Assembly, Joseph Deiss, of Switzerland, said the work of the 192-member body had so far been “quite positive” and he wanted to maintain “global governance” as the theme of its efforts throughout this entire year.

“Global governance is not global Government.  I have the feeling that sometimes that may be misunderstood,” he told correspondents, and explained:  “We are not heading towards something like a world parliament; global governance is a way for organizing decision-making in a world of sovereign States with national parliaments.”  He added that it could also be said that global governance was required for issues that could not be solved by countries acting alone.

Among the initiatives to make global governance more efficient, he intended to hold an informal meeting of the Assembly in November after the upcoming meeting of the “Group of 20” (G-20), to help build cooperation between the two bodies.

The Assembly was also very active in the effort to reform the Security Council, which he said was crucial to reaffirm the role of the wider United Nations in the Organization’s “core business” of maintaining peace and security.  “The commitment by Member States to move forward on this issue remains very strong,” he said, noting he himself did not have the power to push specific options on Security Council reform, but would push for “win-win solutions and common ground”.

Another core issue was disarmament, and Mr. Deiss said all instruments available to the United Nations should be used to break the stalemate and establish a world free of nuclear weapons.  He praised significant and positive progress with the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation, the reaffirmed commitment to multilateralism at the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference and the high-level meeting on disarmament convened by the Secretary-General on the margins of the general debate.

In the work of the first five weeks of the Assembly, Mr. Deiss said he appreciated determined pledges by Member States to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and now asked for follow-up and early action.  The Assembly had completed nearly all nominations for facilitators who could now start work on Security Council reform, Human Rights Council review, as well as next year’s high-level meetings on communicable diseases and HIV/AIDS.

In the coming months, the Assembly planned to hold thematic debates on disaster risk reduction, border issues, global governance, green economy, and international migration and development, as well as an informal dialogue with the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability.

Next week, the President said, he would be travelling to Nagoya, Japan, for the high-level ministerial segment of the Conference of the Parities to the United Nations Convention on biological diversity.  “We must tackle the alarming loss of biodiversity occurring throughout the world largely due to unsustainable human activities.  Biodiversity loss is especially severe for the poorest countries relying on agriculture, fishing, forestry for their subsistence,” Mr. Deiss said.

Asked about plans to also visit the site of the atomic blast in Hiroshima during his visit to Japan, he said that he was going to pay tribute to victims of that tragedy and show commitment to all disarmament issues, which he believed was in line with policies being pursued by the Assembly.

To a question about why the Assembly had issued no statement on jailed Chinese activist and 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Liu Xiaob, Mr. Deiss said he did not think it was the role of the Assembly President to comment on events outside the United Nations.

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For information media • not an official record