Right of peoples to self-determination – SecGen report (excerpts)

Fifty-third session

Item 112 of the provisional agenda*

Right of peoples to self-determination

Report of the Secretary-General

I. Introduction

1. In its resolution 52/113 of 12 December 1997, the General Assembly, inter alia, requested the Commission on Human Rights to continue to give special attention to the violation of human rights, especially the right to self-determination, resulting from foreign military intervention, aggression and occupation, and requested the Secretary-General to report on this question to the Assembly at its fifty-third session under the item entitled Right of peoples to self-determination.

2. At its fifty-fourth session, the Commission on Human Rights considered agenda item 7, entitled The right of peoples to self-determination and its application to peoples under colonial or alien domination or foreign occupation, together with item 4, entitled The question of the violation of human rights in the occupied Arab territories, including Palestine. 1/ An account of the Commissions consideration of the items is contained in the relevant section of the Commission's report. 1/

3. Under agenda item 7, the Commission, on 27 March 1998, adopted three resolutions: resolution 1998/4, on the situation in occupied Palestine; resolution 1998/5, on the question of Western Sahara; and resolution 1998/6, on the use of mercenaries as means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the rights of peoples to self-determination.

4. On 27 May 1998, the Secretary-General addressed a note verbale to all Governments drawing their attention to General Assembly resolution 52/113 and requesting them to submit any pertinent information relating to that resolution.

5. To date, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has received two replies in response to the above note of the Secretary-General; the text of the replies is confirmed in section II below. Subsequent replies will appear in addenda to the present report.

II. Replies received from Governments

  Jordan

[Original: Arabic]

[25 June 1998]

1. Jordan is one of the States that believe in the right of peoples to self-determination. It has reflected its attitude to the legitimacy of the right of peoples to self-determination in its expressions of support for the Palestinian people in their struggle for the right to self-determination on their national soil and for the establishment of an independent State of their own. This belief has also been embodied in the Jordanian attitude in support of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the attempt to remove the injustice that befell those people and to establish their national identity, and in Jordans condemnation and denunciation of policies of ethnic discrimination. Jordan supported the draft resolution introduced by Egypt (A/C.3/51/L.25) at the fifty-second session of the General Assembly in 1996 on the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. Jordan also supported the draft resolution introduced by Pakistan at the same session, concerning the right of peoples to self-determination (A/C.3/51/L.28).

2. Through the policies it pursues in this field, Jordan has consistently stressed the need to condemn all forms of imperialism, racial discrimination and segregation, to recognize the right to self-determination and to grant independence to colonized peoples, in order to guarantee human rights and promote their realization in the most effective manner.

3. As to the Jordanian approach to the right to self-determination, Jordan supports the idea of dealing with this issue through a single criterion for all peoples in a way conducive to the independence of all peoples under imperialism or foreign occupation, in order to enable them to establish their entities and independent, sovereign States. This right should be granted to all States and peoples; they should not be dealt with in a selective manner. This should ultimately lead to the rise of independent and stable States and entities.

/…

Notes

1/ To be issued as Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 1998, Supplement No. 3 (E/1998/23).