Statement by
H.E. MR. HARRI HOLKERI
President of the General Assembly
At the Open-Ended Informal
Consultations of the Plenary
on agenda item 179: Review of the problem of HIV/AIDS in all its aspects
HIV/AIDS/CRP.1
24 January 2001
The 2nd meeting of the Open-ended
Informal Consultations of the Plenary on the special session of the General
Assembly to review and address the problem of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome in all its aspects is called to order.
Members will recall that the General Assembly, by its resolution 54/283 of 5
September 2000, decided to convene a special session of the General Assembly.
Members will further recall that the General Assembly, by its resolution 55/13
of 3 November 2000, decided to convene, as a matter of urgency, a special session
of the General Assembly, from 25 to 27 June 2001, to review and address the
problem of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome,
HIV/AIDS, in all its aspects, as well as to secure a global commitment to enhancing
coordination and the intensification of national, regional and international
efforts to combat it in a comprehensive manner.
Resolution 55/13 invited the President of the General Assembly to make recommendations,
for consideration by Member States during the preparatory process, for final
decision by the Assembly, as to the form of the involvement of civil society
actors, in particular associations of people living with HIV/AIDS, non-governmental
organizations and the business sector, including pharmaceutical companies, in
the special session and, to the extent possible, in the preparatory process.
Members will recall that I convened the first meeting of the Open-ended Informal
Consultations of the Plenary to introduce to the Membership my suggestions for
the outline of the organizational aspects of the special session, and my recommendations
for the form of participation of civil society actors to the special session
and the preparatory process. My suggestions and recommendations were contained
in the HIV/AIDS.CRP.1 paper, made available to Member States and Observers,
in all official UN languages since Wednesday, 13 December 2000. The annex to
the CRP outlined also the schedule of major events and tentative dates of issuance
of documents during the preparatory process for the special session. (The HIV/AIDS/CRP.1
paper can also be found on the President's web site, under "Statements
and Messages".)
I should like to mention that I chose the CRP modality for introducing my suggestions
and recommendations for this special session and the preparatory process, in
order to make them available to the Membership in all the United Nations languages,
which I hope, will facilitate the process of negotiating the subsequent resolution
on these issues.
The purpose of this meeting of the Open-ended Informal of the Plenary, is to
introduce the elements of a draft resolution, which is based on my CRP.1 paper,
but which already now reflects the two rounds of informal/informal discussions
held under the leadership of one of the two facilitators to this process, Ambassador
Ka of Senegal. I note that the elements paper is available in English only.
It has been distributed yesterday by fax to all Permanent Missions and Observers,
and copies of it are available also in this room. With these brief remarks,
I should now like to call on Ambassador Wensley to introduce the elements of
a draft resolution on organizational matters and on the participation of the
civil society actors in the preparatory process and the special session on HIV/AIDS.
Statement by Ambassador Wensley, Permanent Representative of Australia
The elements of a draft resolution before us today, are based, as mentioned
by the President of the General Assembly, on the HIV/AIDS.CRP.1 paper, dated
8 December 2000, which relied on resolution 55/13, adopted last November.
I should like to point out that the proposals and suggestions of the President
of the General Assembly take into account procedures and practices of other
special sessions of the General Assembly. On the other hand, the format of this
special session is unique as for its preparatory process.
I should now like to point out that the paper is an elements paper which will
further evolve into a draft resolution.
I shall now introduce the elements of the draft resolution and point out some
changes which have occurred as compared with the HIV/AIDS.CRP.1 paper on the
basis of the two rounds of informal/informals held already on that paper:
1) The elements paper does not have the preambular paragraphs, which will be
added at the time of its development into a draft resolution.
2) In the elements paper paragraphs from 1 to13 are directly drawn from the
CRP.1 paper.
3) In paragraph 14 of the elements paper, which corresponds to paragraph 18.
of the CRP.1 paper, the notion of accreditation and equitable geographical representation
of civil society actors has been added.
4) In paragraph 16, which draws on paragraph 20 of the CRP.1 paper, there is
an addition, indicating how the deliberations of the round tables will be summarised,
and the summaries presented orally by the chairperson of the round tables during
the concluding plenary meeting of the special session.
5) Paragraph 17, which corresponds to paragraph 21 of the CRP.1, has been revised
so that it now contains the reference to AIDS being a global crisis, but with
full recognition that Africa is the most affected region, and therefore, will
be a cross-cutting theme in all four round tables.
6) During the informal/informal discussions consensus is emerging that the themes
of the round tables could indicate wider areas, instead of individual issues.
This is duly reflected in paragraph 17 of the elements paper.
7) Furthermore, resolution 55/13 already indicated the establishment of a trust
fund by the Secretary General to facilitate the participation of, in particular
least developed countries, to the preparatory process and the special session.
Therefore, there is no need to decide on this issue any more, and paragraphs
28 and 29 of the CRP.1 paper are not reflected in the elements paper.
8) The Programme of work in the elements paper is just a simplified version
of the CRP.1.
9) In paragraph 26 of the elements paper, the date of circulation of the first
draft outline of the issues paper, should read 13 of March, instead of 12 of
March. - The typo of the CRP.1 persists still in the elements paper.
10) As for the accreditation and participation of civil society actors, issues
which already are in resolution 55/13 have not been repeated. As for paragraph
47 of CRP.1, on the basis of the informal/informal discussions, a new formulation
is now being proposed in paragraph 29 of the elements paper.
11) Finally, paragraph 30 of the elements paper includes now also the group
of young people`s organizations and representatives of business, not only the
notion of private sector in general.
I should now like to invite possible questions or clarifications on the introductory
remarks and on the elements paper before us. At the same time, I should like
to remind Member States that we shall proceed with informal/informal discussions
on the basis of the introduced elements of a draft resolution on Friday, 26
January 2001.