Statement under Agenda Item 81: United Nations programme of assistance in the teaching, study, dissemination and wider appreciation on international law at the Sixth Committee of the 72nd Session of the UN General Assembly
Delivered by: Mr. Tareq Md. Ariful Islam, Deputy Permanent Representative
Date and venue: Friday, 19 October 2018, Trusteeship Council Chamber
Mr. Chairman.
Bangladesh thanks the Secretary General for his comprehensive report on activities undertaken by the Codification Division under the Office of Legal Affairs in 2018. We thank the Secretariat for its briefing this morning.
Bangladesh aligns itself with the statement delivered by Egypt on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.
We consider the Programme of Assistance to be a useful, catalytic tool in enhancing developing countries’ capacity towards achieving the relevant goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The breadth of issues covered by the International Law Fellowship Programme is indeed useful and relevant. We would urge the Secretariat to continue reviewing the course design in order to give exposure to the participants to evolving issues in the context of international law. It would also be useful to learn about participants’ overall feedback and suggestions on the programme in the Secretary General’s subsequent reports. We reiterate the need for giving preference to participants from the Least Developed Countries, in particular.
Bangladesh looks forward to participating in the forthcoming Regional Course on International Law in the Asia Pacific in Bangkok. We thank ESCAP for providing significant in-kind support for the course. We can see from Secretary-General’s report that, out of 104 participants in the International Law Fellowship Programme and Regional Courses in 2018, 56 are female participants, which means more than 50% are female participants, which is a very good sign. We encourage continued enhanced participation of female participants, including among public officials.
Mr. Chairman, here we would like to flag our concern about the relatively poor number of applications from the Asia Pacific for International Law Fellowship Programme. This year, out of 260 applications, only 15 were from the Asia-Pacific. This number remained relatively low in previous years. We would like to request Codification Division for examining the possible reasons for this low number of applications from the Asia-Pacific and address those.
The Audio-visual Library of international law is emerging as a fairly resource platform. We strongly recommend enlisting the support of UN Country Teams, especially the Information Offices, where available, for dissemination of information on the Audio-visual Library among the target audience in developing countries.
It is positive that the desktop publishing activities resumed in 2017 has continued in 2018. Bangladesh appreciates the commitment of the Codification Division to continue to explore ways of sustaining such efforts in 2019 and beyond. We would support allocating necessary resources for this evidently useful initiative from the Regular Budget for 2018-19.
Bangladesh thanks Member States for their voluntary contributions to the various aspects of the Programme of Assistance, including for the Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe Memorial Fellowship on the Law of the Sea. We urge others to contribute generously, who are in a position to do so.
I thank you.