
USUN PRESS RELEASE # 38 (02)
March 15, 2002
Statement by Ambassador James B. Cunningham, Deputy
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, on Civilians in
Armed Conflict, in the Security Council, March 15, 2002
Thank you, Mr. President. I also want to thank the
Undersecretary-General for his
report
today and for the effort of him and his staff to produce this document.
I think it is a good piece of work -- and also an innovative piece of
work in helping us be more concrete about this important subject.
I also want to join others in thanking
you,
Sir, and your delegation, for
your effort in working with the members of the Council and with the
Secretariat to reach agreement on the document. It was a good practice
and precedent that I hope we can emulate in the future.
We have always considered the protection of civilians in armed conflict
to be at the heart of the United Nations task and this Council's task in
dealing with war and conflict. Unfortunately, the long list that the
Undersecretary General provided this morning of examples of the
difficult problem could be even longer. It is an urgent and pressing
problem but I think the discussion today and the aide memoire show that
we are, in fact, institutionally, making some progress in dealing with
it. I also
particularly wanted to welcome the affirmation by Mr. Oshima of the zero
tolerance policy to be followed when the protectors begin to prey on the
protected.
The aide memoire is a useful step forward I think because it provides
clarity and focus and specifics to the discussion that we're having
about how best we can organize ourselves to afford the maximum amount of
protection to civilians. It sets out rather clearly and schematically
and usefully, I think, the instruments that the international community
and this Council can bring to bear depending on the circumstances. I
was also glad to hear Mr. Oshima's remarks about how knowledge of the
existence and use of those instruments could be spread more broadly
throughout governments and throughout the UN system. We promote very
much the intent to follow-up on the aide memoire and to further refine
it in the future as our experience and use of the instruments increases.
I was particularly struck by the aide memoire's precedence column. That
column shows I think, as one would hope, that we are bringing these
instruments to bear. And I think it is also particularly interesting
that almost all of the examples set out in the precedence column are in
Resolutions that we have adopted in the last two years which I hope
shows that we are in fact merging our operations in the Council with the
more theoretical approach taken in the thematic discussions.
We look forward to the Secretary-General's report in November. We join
others in encouraging better coordination and integration within the UN
system and between the UN system and nations who are participating in
various aspects of peacekeeping or other operations. I'd like to lend
my support to the thought that
OCHA and
DPKO
consider providing us with a joint briefing on this in the future.
Thank you, Mr. President.