UN Summit
Agreement has been reached on the UN Summit outcome
document. It is not as ambitious as Norway had hoped, but several important
decisions are in line with Norway’s priorities.
- This outcome document will make the UN Summit less
successful than we would have wished, but it is far from being a failure,
Minister of Foreign Affairs Jan Petersen commented at the opening of the
summit. We are disappointed by the lack of progress on non-proliferation and
disarmament. But progress has been made in several other areas, and we must make
sure we take advantage of it, said Mr Petersen.
Norway has taken a broad approach to the summit and has given
priority to a number of other issues in addition to non-proliferation and
disarmament, such as intensifying co-operation on reaching the Millennium
Development Goals and restructuring development co-operation; enhancing UN
peace-building efforts; strengthening the UN’s human rights bodies and its
humanitarian response capability; and modernising and reforming the UN. Norway
has also stressed that the outcome document should take account of women’s
concerns and participation.
Norway was disappointed that it was not possible to reach
concrete results on non-proliferation and disarmament. Still, significant
progress has been made due to Norway’s initiative. Compared with just a few
months ago, there is now far broader international agreement on important
non-proliferation and disarmament issues.
- I would venture to say that Norway has played a constructive
role as regards the issues of non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament, said
the Foreign Minister. We are being listened to, and there are clear
expectations for Norway to continue playing an active role. This was also reflected in UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s
opening address at the summit, where Norway was the only country he mentioned
specifically. He stressed how important it is that we continue to pursue our
efforts in this field. This gives us an obligation to do so, said Mr Petersen.
Norway is disappointed that it was not possible to agree on a
definition of terrorism. It is, however, positive that the outcome document
acknowledges the link between development, peace, security and human rights. It
is encouraging that the summit has reaffirmed that the conditions for the use
of force must be based on the UN Charter.
The outcome document refers to and reaffirms the MDGs and
gives broad support to the restructuring of development co-operation advocated
by Norway and others in recent years. On the other hand, the document is
disappointingly weak on issues related to the environment and climate. We
regret that it was not possible to agree on stronger wording with regard to the
monitoring of commitments.
Norway welcomes the decisions aimed at strengthening UN
peace-building efforts, for example to establish a peace-building commission
and a peace-building fund. It is positive that human rights-related efforts
will be boosted through the establishment of a UN Human Rights Council and that
agreement was reached on increasing allocations to the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights. However, complex negotiations remain before any final conclusions
can be drawn. We welcome that the responsibility to protect populations from
genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity is clearly
established in the document.
Regarding UN reform, clear – although in many ways only
temporary – progress has been made in the outcome document. Much remains to be
done before firm conclusions can be drawn as to whether the administrative
reforms really address the needs for change that have been identified.
