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Statement
by
H.E. Mr. A. J. Jacovides
Ambassador, Special Adviser Representative of the Republic of Cyprus
to the Sixth (Legal) Committee of the General Assembly
on agenda item 151: "Report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law at its thirty-sixth session"
New York, 6 October 2003
Mr. Chairman,
This being the first
time I take the floor during this Session, allow me to extend to you and the
other members of the Bureau the most sincere congratulations of my delegation on
your well-deserved election to your respective offices. We are convinced that,
with your wide experience and recognized diplomatic skill, you will conduct the
Committee’s work, which this year includes important and sensitive topics such
as the Legal Protection of United Nations Personnel, Jurisdictional Immunities,
International Terrorism, Human Cloning and the International Criminal Court, in
a constructive manner leading to fruitful results. We pledge to you our full
cooperation to this end.
Mr. Chairman,
This year’s annual
Report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (A/58/17) is
up to its usual high standards and fully justifies its reputation as a technical
body of high professional quality. The very limited time allotted to the
consideration of UNCITRAL’s Report is perhaps not sufficient to do full
justice to its substantive content. This year’s Report, succinctly and
comprehensively, sets out the various substantive topics dealt with by UNCITRAL
during its 36th Session. We note in particular that in July 2003
UNCITRAL finalized and adopted its Model Legislative Provisions on Privately
Financed Infrastructure Projects and gave preliminary approval to a draft
legislative guide on insolvency law. Through its Working Groups, it dealt with
and made progress on such topics as Arbitration, Transport Law, Electronic
Commerce and Security Interests; it continued monitoring the implementation of
the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign
Arbitral Awards; and explored the possibility of future work in the areas of
public procurement law and in the area of commercial fraud.
We note in particular,
in relation to the latter topic, that the advent and spread of technologies and
use of the Internet markedly affected the growth and incidence of commercial
fraud in particular, because of its transnational component and that the Legal
Advisers of the United Nations System, after discussing the absence of an
international legal regime for the Internet, made certain relevant
recommendations to Member States in order to fill this gap (para. 236 of the
Report). In addition to such international legal instruments already in
existence or currently being finalized, as the United Nations Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime and the United Nations Convention against
Corruption, the Commission could indeed bring to bear its unique ability to
marshal the necessary public and private interests in order to further efforts
to combat commercial fraud effectively. We have noted in this regard the
suggestion of holding an international colloquium on commercial fraud for
various interested parties, including national Governments, intergovernmental
organizations and relevant private organizations.
We also note with
interest the information provided on the case law on UNCITRAL texts (in
particular the preparation of a new thesaurus on Model Arbitration Law, as well
as a comprehensive Model Arbitration Law index), the digests of case law on the
United Nations Sales Convention and possibly of a digest of case law on the New
York Convention in cooperation with the International Council for Commercial
Arbitration; and the status and promotion of UNCITRAL legal tests (Chapter XIV).
Of particular note is the chapter on training and technical assistance provided
by UNCITRAL for developing countries and countries with economies in transition.
Reverting briefly to
Chapter V, on Arbitration, we commend the work of UNCITRAL Working Group II
(Arbitration and Conciliation) for the progress achieved so far, on the issue of
Interim Measures of Protection and the Question of Arbitrability in connection
with the activities of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
and the Working Group’s future work. Arbitration is becoming an increasingly
important method for the settlement of disputes, nationally and internationally,
as evidenced by the activities of, among other prominent institutions in this
field, the International Centre for the Settlement of investment Disputes (ICSID),
the London Court of Arbitration (LCA), the ICC International Court of
Arbitration, the American
Arbitration Association (AAA) as indeed the Permanent Court of Arbitration at
The Hague (PCA) and thus it deserves particular attention.
Mr. Chairman,
We are grateful to the
Commission’s Chairman, Mr. Tore Wiwen-Nilsson, for his clear and comprehensive
introduction of the Report earlier today, which considerably facilitated our
understanding of UNCITRAL’s work, priorities, method of operation and other
issues and concerns.
My delegation, which was
in the vanguard of the initiative to create UNCITRAL in the mid-sixties and
served on it for a number of years, is fully cognizant of the important role of
commercial law for the proper functioning of a healthy economic system and of
the need to ensure the active participation of the broadest possible number of
countries and legal systems in the UNCITRAL law making process. We therefore
actively supported the effort, ably lead by the Australian delegation, to
substantially enlarge UNCITRAL, which was achieved by consensus last year. The
primary objective is that the Commission should be representative and be fully
supported by all the juridical and economic systems. As we stated in last
year’s debate (30 September 2002), “my country, an early participant in
UNCITRAL and, more recently, a recipient of valuable technical assistance from
it, is keenly interested to contribute to the future work of UNCITRAL, in its
new enlarged composition”.
Similarly, we are
convinced that there exist persuasive reasons to support the increase of the
Secretariat’s resources, in terms of personnel and finances, so as to enable
it to discharge its duties in a way commensurate to the importance of its work
and its heavy workload and in this regard, we have noted the observations and
suggestions made this morning by the Legal Counsel, which we consider to have
much merit and which we support. The international lawyer of today needs to have
expertise in both public and private international law.
In conclusion, Mr.
Chairman, my delegation highly appreciates the work of UNCITRAL and its
contribution in promoting the harmonization and progressive development of
international trade law. UNCITRAL deserves our full support.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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