Iceland, 2003

Allow me at the

outset to congratulate the President on his election to

the presidency of this General Assembly. The role of

the President in providing overall leadership to the

Assembly is crucial and I am confident he will guide us

wisely through the complex tasks ahead of us.

A month from now, a group of young people will

gather at the University of Iceland to take part in a

model United Nations conference. It is good to see

such enthusiasm for the ideals of the United Nations

among young people — as well as a desire to

experiment with how the United Nations machinery

works in practice. But I wonder whether their model

will accurately reflect how our United Nations works. I

am concerned that, if it does, will it increase or dampen

their enthusiasm?

If they were to model the General Assembly, I

suspect that their model would contrast in a number of

ways with the real thing. Their agenda would be more

concise. They would concentrate on pure and more

immediate issues of urgency. They would have little

time for often-repeated resolutions whose relevance is

chiefly historical. They would not allow such items to

crowd out more immediate matters. They would

address the world as it is, not the world of yesteryear.

To be honest, I am worried that the more accurately their

United Nations model reflected the real thing, be it the

General Assembly or the Security Council, the more

difficult it would be to explain to those young idealists

our purpose and convince them of our effectiveness.

As already stated by my Danish colleague, on

behalf of the Nordic countries, I would very much like

to welcome the proposal of the Secretary-General to

establish a high-level panel of eminent personalities to

make recommendations on issues ranging from peace

and security to reform of United Nations structures.

The General Assembly has tremendous achievements

to its credit. It is, as we affirmed in our Millennium

Declaration, the chief deliberative policy-making and

representative organ of the United Nations. The

achievements of the General Assembly in international

norm-setting and in the establishment of an

international legal framework is undisputed. Its

potential is great but, as the young people at our United

Nations model would bluntly point out, it needs fixing.

If we believe the General Assembly is where

deliberation should be carried out, let us ensure that the

agenda and procedures allow debate and deliberation to

take place in an interactive manner. If we believe that it

is the chief policy-making body, let us ensure that it

develops policy, perhaps by linking debate more

closely with the decision-making process. Policy needs

to be followed-up; we need to do more on

implementation. My delegation will contribute actively

and constructively in the forthcoming deliberations on

reforms of the General Assembly during this session.

Our young people at the United Nations model

next month will in fact be modelling the Security

Council. I suspect that they will raise some questions

about the composition of that body. Iceland is seriously

27

concerned with the slow progress in the open-ended

working group. Though it provides, for the time being,

the appropriate forum for continued dialogue, Iceland

would welcome any additional initiatives to further

intensify the process towards satisfactory resolution of

this important matter.

The Icelandic position on the reform of the Security

Council is on record. It is essential that the membership of

the Council better reflect the membership of the United

Nations as a whole. At the same time, the efficiency of

the Council must be preserved. Further steps should be

taken to increase transparency in the decision-making

process, in order to build on the welcome steps already

taken by the Council.

Iceland supports an increase in both permanent and

non-permanent seats at the Council. New permanent

members should have the same rights and obligations as

the current permanent members. The veto right should

be restricted and an obligation to state the reason for its

use should be established, including why a permanent

member considers a matter to be of vital importance.

Iceland has, for the first time, put forward its

candidacy for membership of the Security Council for

the years 2009 and 2010. We see participation in the

Security Council as a logical expression of our

determination to fulfil our responsibilities within the

United Nations and contribute as an active member of

the international community.

The promotion and protection of human rights must

be a central concern of all United Nations activities. In

this regard, much more needs to be done to implement

our commitment regarding the rights of women and the

rights of the child. Iceland has signed the United

Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish

Trafficking in Persons and has enacted legislation

against trafficking in human beings. Iceland is working

against the trafficking of women through a common

campaign with the other Nordic countries and the

Baltic States. The Icelandic campaign will focus on

informing and increasing awareness among the public

about this issue.

We should be especially aware of the implications

for human rights of new threats and new policies. In

particular, we must ensure that fundamental human

rights are not violated in our counter-terrorist effort, as

has been underlined by the Secretary-General.

In Iraq, the United Nations itself has recently

been the target of two terrorist attacks. I would like to

use this opportunity to express the most sincere

condolences on behalf of the Icelandic Government to

the United Nations and the families of the United

Nations officials who lost their lives. I would also like

to wish those who were wounded full recovery.

The United Nations and the Security Council in

particular must address the issue of Iraq. Iceland, along

with many other Member States, is contributing to

Iraq’s reconstruction and will continue to do so. The

situation will demand all our resourcefulness and a

concerted effort at cooperation by all parties in the

Security Council to ensure that the people of Iraq are

assured the destiny they deserve. This destiny should

encompass peace and democracy, affording equal rights

and justice to all Iraqi citizens.

On terrorists, renewed efforts must be made to

reach an agreement on a universal definition during

this General Assembly. Such a definition would make

the fight against terrorists more effective.

It is estimated that close to 90 per cent of victims

in today’s armed conflicts are civilians, the majority of

whom are women and children. Women and girls

experience conflicts differently than men because of

their status in society. Their rights must be protected in

situations of armed conflict and we must ensure that

women play a central role in conflict prevention,

peacekeeping and peace-building. United Nations

Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) lays the

ground rules for this to happen and must be

implemented in all of its aspects.

It is our role to ensure that globalization benefits

all countries, not least through targeted development

cooperation. Sub-Saharan Africa will continue to be the

focus of our bilateral development cooperation while we

will also increase our contribution and involvement in

multilateral development cooperation, especially through

the United Nations Development Programme, the United

Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children’s

Fund, the United Nations Development Fund for

Women and the World Food Programme.

I just returned, like many others, from Cancún,

where we had difficult discussions on correcting the trade

rules so that developing countries can operate on a more

level playing field in world trade. This work is vital and

we must push on with it. With determination we can

break through the impasse that we reached in Cancún.

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Iceland is one of the many island States in the

world whose well-being and development is crucially

affected by the state of the marine environment.

Sustainable harvesting of living marine resources is the

mainstay of our economy. Resolution 57/141, on

Oceans and the Law of the Sea, which was adopted

during our last session, provides for the establishment

of a regular process for the global reporting and

assessment of the state of the marine environment,

commonly referred to as Global Marine Assessment, a

concept that was initiated by Iceland in 1999.

An intergovernmental meeting should be

convened in 2004 to decide upon the modalities of this

process and negotiate an agreement between United

Nations agencies. It is our sincere hope that such a

meeting could turn out to be fruitful in the process of

the establishment of the Global Marine Assessment.

We must craft for ourselves a United Nations

which is task-oriented, representative, focused and

coordinated. I believe strongly that the United Nations

should not only be a place where we can talk about

what we want to do, it must also be the place and

instrument to get things done. We have taken note of

the Secretary-General’s call for changes in our

institution by 2005.

There are varying opinions on how the United

Nations should operate, but I believe there is a general

recognition that the United Nations is, and must

remain, the key forum in which we exercise our

collective responsibility. At the Millennium Summit,

heads of State and Government reaffirmed their faith in

the Organization and its Charter as indispensable

foundations of a more peaceful, prosperous and just

world. They defined our priorities for this century and

resolved to make the United Nations a more effective

instrument for pursuing all of these priorities. It is up

to us, the Member States, to make it possible for the

United Nations to realize these objectives.