By Piragibe Tarragô
Mr. Chairman,
Thank you for convening this meeting to consider the relationship between the Security Council and the General Assembly and for your opening remarks. I am also grateful for your letter dated 16 April.
As widely known, in previous Sessions, the issue before us was discussed in the context of the debate on working methods. My delegation continues to believe that the original clustering to be more appropriate and should be restored as we proceed in our negotiations. It is our view that, to a certain extent, in the exercise in which we find ourselves, asserting the authority of the General Assembly can be achieved through adjustments to the working methods of the Council. In other words, an effective, action-oriented approach to the issue would require that we work on the concrete, specific practices of the Council in its dealings with non-members. Brazil's position in such domain was enunciated in our last meeting.
My delegation considers the strict adherence to the Charter as the most appropriate way to ensure the adequate relationship between the Security Council and the General Assembly. The functions and powers of both are clearly spelled out in the Charter. The Council must not claim or exercise competencies not granted to it under the UN founding document. The Assembly, in turn, must not shy away from exercising its Charter-mandated authority when needed, including in matters related to international peace and security, with due regard to the functions and powers of the Security Council.
Mr. Chairman,
This is our last meeting of the first round of intergovernmental negotiations. I would like to thank you for the manner in which you have conducted our work so far. You have managed to avoid sterile discussions of procedure and potential pitfalls and helped us to complete a phase of our negotiations that could have gone awry.
I would like to make a few comments on the way forward. Ahead, we face the challenge of moving the process to the stage of actual negotiation and not more general statements. For this to happen, we need to undertake a more focused discussion of the proposals. You have already indicated the willingness to prepare an overview of our discussions since 4 March. It could be useful, but should not be a simply descriptive report of the debates. We have had many reports since 1993 and the Security Council remains unreformed. What we need is a document to facilitate effective and result-oriented negotiations. Such text should basically organize the proposals presented by Member States under the main issues.
We think that a document of that nature would be in line with Decision 62/557, which mandates that negotiations are to be based on positions of and proposals by Member States. If we genuinely want to engage in meaningful negotiations, we need a sort of paper that sets out the options.
We doubt the validity of the argument that language in Decision 62/557 would prevent the Chair from producing papers. A text that organizes the views and suggestions of Member States is obviously based on their proposals and nobody else's and therefore consistent with said Decision. And this is the type of job one expects from the Chair or facilitators.
Therefore, Mr. Chairman, a paper focusing Member States' attention on the substantive proposals will be key to move this process forward in the next phase, as is the wish of the majority of delegations.
Thank you very much.
