Madam Chair,
I thank you for giving me the floor.
On behalf of the Bureau of the Sixth Committee, I have the honor to introduce the text of the draft Resolution entitled “Criminal Accountability of United Nations officials and experts on mission” contained in document A/C.6/78/L.6. The draft resolution contained in document A/C.6/78/L.6 largely reiterates and further strengthens Resolution 78/98 of 7 December 2022.
This year, a number of proposals were received on the zero draft of the Resolution. To conclude the negotiation on those proposals, as co-coordinators, we convened three rounds of informal consultations and facilitated several rounds bilateral consultations between interested delegates.
While consensus was not reached on some of them, a proposal to update and align the references to previous resolution in preambular paragraph 22 and operative paragraph 15 was accepted. In addition, a number of paragraphs have been amended with technical updates, by which the General Assembly would update the references to its resolutions and reports by the Secretary-General and reiterate its previous requests to the Secretary‑General. The text in those amended paragraphs replicates the text of previous resolutions on the item.
The Working Group on the agenda item is anticipated to meet at the 79th session of the General Assembly.
Now, it is my hope that the draft resolution A/C.6/78/L.6 will be adopted without a vote by the Committee. I am confident that the draft resolution, upon adoption, will contribute to enhanced efforts in order to ensure the criminal accountability of the United Nations officials and experts on mission.
Madam Chair
Before I conclude, on behalf my co-coordinator Azura Karim from the Permanent Mission of Malaysia and myself, please allow me to express our sincere thanks to all delegations of the Sixth Committee who engaged themselves very constructively in the informal and bilateral consultations of the resolution. Our deep gratitude goes to the Secretariat colleagues in particular to Trevor, Douglas and Raissa for their excellent support to our role as co-coordinators.
This concludes my introduction of the draft resolution.
I thank you all for your kind attention.
