Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 24 November 2004
82 Mr. J. O’Keeffe asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will propose an emergency meeting of the International Law Committee of the UN with a view to achieving the objective of a UN convention providing protected status for all aid workers who provide humanitarian, political or development assistance overseas. [30106/04]
View answer92 Mr. J. O’Keeffe asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will launch a campaign for a new UN convention to provide protected status for all aid workers who provide humanitarian, political or development assistance overseas. [30107/04]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 82 and 92 together.
As the Deputy will be aware, the Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel 1994 applies to UN personnel on defined UN operations and "associated personnel" who are personnel provided with the agreement of the UN by Governments, intergovernmental organisations or humanitarian non-governmental organisations to assist in the fulfilment of the mandate of such UN operations. The convention obliges states parties to take all appropriate measures to ensure the safety and security of UN and associated personnel and to protect them from murder, kidnapping or other attack. It also requires states parties to punish the perpetrators of such attacks and to co-operate with one another in any criminal proceedings.
There are two important points which arise in relation to the convention. First, to date only 77 states have become party to it while several states in which aid workers are present, including Afghanistan and Iraq, have not done so. Ireland and its EU partners have consistently called upon all states to become party to the convention. Second, a number of weaknesses have been identified in the legal regime created by the convention. In this regard, I refer the Deputy to my reply to a parliamentary question, reference 26752/04, of 28 October 2004 in which I informed him of the negotiations which have been ongoing in the sixth legal affairs committee of the United Nations General Assembly since 2001. The negotiations involve the strengthening of the legal protections offered under the convention. I am pleased to report that in a number of meetings of the sixth committee held last month significant progress was made. The basic text of a draft optional protocol to strengthen the convention was agreed. A further meeting will be held in April 2005 in which UN member states will discuss whether the term "United Nations operation" in Article 1 of the convention should be widened by the optional protocol to cover all UN operations established "for the purposes of delivering humanitarian, political or development assistance". It should be noted that while Ireland and its EU partners favour this proposal, several other delegations have proposed more restrictive wording.
On 17 November, the sixth committee recommended that the UN General Assembly adopt a draft resolution on the safety of UN and associated personnel. The resolution will urge states to take all necessary measures, in accordance with their international obligations, to prevent crimes against such persons and ensure that the offences do not go unpunished and that the perpetrators are brought to justice.
