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Mr. President,
This is the first major decision that we have taken in the follow-up of the
decisions of our leaders at the 2005 Summit. And yes we have been able to
respect the timelines, which were indicated by leaders i.e. to operationalize
the Peacebuilding Commission by the end of this year.
2. Pakistan attaches great importance to this decision given the fact that the
concept of acting together of the three principle organs and of all relevant
actors involved in post conflict situations was a concept which was first tabled
by Pakistan in the Security Council in the form of our proposal for Ad Hoc
Composite Committees. We are very grateful to you Mr. President and the two
Co-Chairs who have worked very hard on evolving the draft resolution and we have
tried through the negotiations and in the informal consultations to present our
contribution to the evolution of this decision.
3. We have accepted the draft resolution, Mr. President, because it has been
adopted on the basis of consensus and we believe that the principle of consensus
must be applied to all decisions that will be taken in the reform exercise.
Indeed we have several difficulties with the provisions of the text that has
been adopted and I would like to take this opportunity to clarify our position
with regard to some important aspects of this resolution.
Mr. President,
4. Firstly, as regards the establishment of the Peacebuilding Commission we
continue to maintain that the Summit had already established the Peacebuilding
Commission and we therefore interpret Operative paragraph 1 which provides for a
decision to act concurrently with the Security Council as only being designed to
operationalize the Peacebuilding Commission rather than to establish it and we
believe it is an important, if technical, differentiation.
5. Secondly, We continue to maintain that the roles and interaction of the
principal organs of the United Nations e.g. the Security Council, the General
Assembly and ECOSOC must be equitable, balanced and simultaneous. Each
post-conflict situation has security dimensions, peace dimensions, and
developmental dimensions and each organ of the United Nations and each agency of
the United Nations which has a role to play, must be enabled to play that role
in an equitable and full manner rather than be constrained or constricted by the
jurisdictions established by for example the Security Council. Indeed it is only
such common action that is the value addition that will be provided by the
Peacebuilding Commission. If the Security Council or any other principal organ
were to establish exclusive jurisdiction over the activities of this body, this
body in our view would be superfluous. It is only by acting together that we can
develop the synergies of the entire system to advance the goal of post-conflict
reconstruction and peace. Therefore, we believe that there is tension between
paragraph 16 of the draft resolution and the rest of the provisions of this
document, para 13 and 14 in particular, as well as the spirit and the letter of
the Summit’s decision.
6. Thirdly, Mr. President, with regard to the composition of the organizational
committee, we had started from the presumption that this composition would be
functional in nature; therefore, it would include the membership of the Security
Council but this would include permanent and non-permanent members. Secondly it
would include membership of the ECOSOC to bring in the developmental dimension
and it would include representation of the top troop-contributing countries and
financial contributing countries.
7. In response to the concerns of some of our colleagues with regard to the
possibility of regional under-representation, we have agreed to the inclusion of
membership from the General Assembly as well in order to balance functional
representation with equitable regional representation. And, secondly, Mr.
President, I must state with all possible vehemence that we have consistently
argued against permanent membership of Peacebuilding Commission and indeed of
any other organ of the United Nations but we have been made aware of the actions
that have been tabled in the Security Council where the additional draft
resolution clearly contradicts the spirit of this resolution which we have
adopted in the General Assembly and which would provide for permanent membership
of the 5 Permanent members of the Security Council. We consider that this
development at the very outset of the operationalization of the Peacebuilding
Commission will be a most unfortunate development. But if there is insistence on
part of the 5 Permanent members to be permanently represented in the
organizational committee of the Peacebuilding Commission, I would submit that
other countries which contribute in other ways e.g. by putting the lives of
their sons and daughters in harms way by providing troops for United Nations
Peacekeeping, perhaps they too would deserve equal treatment with the Permanent
members of the Security Council.
9. In any case, Mr. President, we would urge you to reconcile the spirit of this
resolution with the actions which are underway in the Security Council so that
we start our work on this Commission with the right foot forward and not distort
the important consensus decision which we have adopted in this hall today.
I thank you, Mr. President.