Subject: [fem-women2000 86] ESCAP Final Plenary discussions
From: lalamaziwa <lalamaziwa@jca.apc.org>
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 23:31:30 +0900
Seq: 86
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chair, Drafting Committee: Tonight I have the honor and pleasure of presenting this wonderful piece of paper which I would like to call labour of love. Since yesterday, we had a chance to look first at the preamble. It consists of a number of paragraphs, essentially four paragraphs. Let me go back at this time. This is the paper we had worked on since yesterday. At the start is the organization of the meeting; it has a background; lists the attendance; the opening of the meeting; election of the officers; and adoption of the agenda. I draw your attention to part F which is the overall review of the implementation of the Beijing Platform of Action. This consists of agenda item 4 which is enumeration of the events; the debate from the floor; of the vigorous interventions; and the statements made by panelists; and faithful as possible a representation of what was discussed in this hall. This is what we'll be calling Chairman's report and it will be annexed to the report. Being a Chairman's text, this was not subject to negotiation sinct it is merely emaration of what we took up in the sessions. Part II of the report is Agenda item 5 which is composed of three parts. The preamble which has the following aspects. In the first part of the preamble, we have the recalling of Beijing, followed by events that have transpired since Beijing, and the final paragraph is vision of futre, vision of 21st Century. This is followed by issues and concerns with emaration of the events that has transpired within the conference hall and most important of all are the recommendations. In view of the lack of time, they are not devided into various issues that are listed in the agenda. Ideally when given the time that is needed, secretary will eventually group them in the way that have been aranged chronologically in the agenda. which should be under item 5 issues for consideration: economic empowerment of women; rights-based approach to empowerment of women; political empowerment of women; and strategy for empowermentof women consisting of capacity building for gender mainstreaming, building partnerships, and finally accountability monitering and evaluation. I have the honer to present this to you and would like to state that the group worked very hard up to late last night and early this morning up to 4 o'clock this afternoon trying to meet the dead line. we had a very thick draft to start with which we were able to reduce to more manageable thickness. The work that we have we have done for the past few hours, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the members of this great body for thier cooperation and flexibility in particular which lead to the adoption by the drafting group of this paper. we had to work against great time constraints and it is most fortunate that with cooperation and the flexibility of everybody we were able to finish in time, of course not counting the few hours delay, this very important paper. without further due, I have the honor to submit this paper. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chair: Under your leadership, and thanks for the drafting committee, NGOs who were obserbers and helping, I invite the Rappoteur to introduce full paper for adoption. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rappoteur: It is indeed my pleasure as rappoteur to introduce this draft report for adoption. I would like to however beg indulgence of the distinguished delegates on the following proposal. (1) that the recommendations be adopted as recorded and presented in the draft report. (2) that as agreed in the drafting committee and as clearly explained by the Chairperson of the drafting committee, that text for agenda items 4 and 5 be Chairman's text. Since the rest of the report is procedual, I therefore would propose that the report be adopted. Thank you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Japan: Delegation of Japan would like to have some clarification. As indicated by Chair of the drafting committee, we understand taht agenda item 4,5 are going to be portion to be annexed to the agreed portion of the paper. however, we would like to have it clarified page to page. Seciton F on page 6, "F" is all part of Chairman's report to be annexed Agenda item 5 "A. Preamble" on page 21 is what we worked for agreements, however, section "B" on page 22 is also part of Chairman's report and it continues to be part of Chairman's report until page 29. Then "C. Recommendations" is the portion we have agreed on. We presume that the numbers of the paragraphs will be redone. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chair, Drafting Comittee: I certify the correctness of the intervention made by Japanese delegation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nepal: I have two remarks. It is appropriate now to stick on recommendation. Item 86 and 88 have been duplicated so probably we need to delete one as it indicates same points. Coming forward to 90. CEDAW point (vii), durign the discussion in drafting committee, the formulation was changed slightly and adopted by the body there. Instead of the words here, Nepal has suggested and it was adopted to say "Consider reinforcing enhanced support to UNIFEM and the Division for Advancement of Women ..." So what has been adopted should be endorsed here as it is. Lastly, going through all points, some sort of networking and enhanced cooperation between the women's organization would at national and regional level could be appropriate institutes and linkages. That's why I would suggest that if one more point could be added here that "networking and cooperation between the women's organizations both at national and regional level should be encouraged." I beleive this could go in line with what I had said been saying on all the points of the recommendations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chair, Drafting Committee: As you are aware, the drafting committtee was under alot of time constratints. There will be rearrangements of the paragraphs and your intervention will be duly noted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Singapore: At yesterday's meeting we agreed on paragraph 85 that the sentence should read as follows. "Governments shoud where appropriate should consider ratifying ILO Conventions" and the rest follows. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thelma Kay: I beg the indulgence of the floor. We were doing these corrections under great pressure. We will go back and double check the wording again. We're double checking it again with the people on the podium and with other note takers. So please bare with us since we were under severe time constraints, so you'll find mistakes here and there but let us know we're faithful to the record of the meeting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chair, Drafting Committee: If I may beg the indulgence of the distinguished delegations of this forum, if you have any corrections that may need to be made to the text, would you please submit this to the secretariat. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Iran: I asked for the floor to seek clarification on page 5 regarding section D election of officers. My delegation has noted that name of all vice Chairman has not been mentioned or rather have been ommitted from being mentioned. I'm seeking clarification of the reason of the ommission. Regarding paragraph 109bis on page 36, this is matter of procedure, not matter of subsstance but, we would appreciate if the secretariat could make correction and use proper name of the year 2001 as Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Philippines: I'm very much encouraged by comment of the secreatariat that they will go over the typographical errors because I notice alot of typographical errors, like "ingrated" instead of "integrated", and "self-cooperation" instead of "south-south", so those are some of the minor things but i'm glad that the secreteriat has assured us that to the extent possible, they shall represent exactly what was agreed at the drafting committee. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ United States of America: We're also pleased with typographical errors to be corrected. But we did have several questions of things that we thought that workings in small groups had actually been changed or deleted from the text that I would like to raise to the attention of Rappoteur and Secretariat. Number 88 on page 32, the phrase "under long term presence of foreign military bases" which I believe that Philippines and United States were the negotiating group on that item and I believe that there was an agreement to delete. And on 94 on page 34 which was to "Encourage the United Nations system, particulary UNIFEM and the trust funds on violence against women," again, I believe that this was agreed upon text. And I also noted that the intervention made by the Phillipines on number 113, that it would be "South-South cooperation" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ India: I will not go into the typographical errors, i'm sure these will be taken care of by the secretariat. There were just one or two points that needed clarificaiton. On page 32 para 87bis, in the drafting committee, these issues regarding the cultural diversity and moral conviction just did not come up. What had been agreed to during the debates yesterday also was that gender concerns and women in particular should be mainstreamed in to reproductive health policies, programmes and projects which must be made available, accessible and affordable to women of all ages including marginalized groups. So I don't know how this formulation has come up. Coming to page 35 para 99, I think originally in the drafting committee it was agreed to delete this. But even if it is not deleted, it's not worded in a very clear manner, you might want to have another look at this formulation. I think it could end at "considered" because I don't know how the rest of it fits in. "The right of self-determination of all peoples as enunciated in the Vienna Declaration nd Programme of Action should be considered" and it could end there because the rest of it looks a little bit clumsy formulation. Coming back to page 19 para 51, the formulation here is not also very clear especially when you talk of "A block of countries, and supported by the Cook Islands," we could suggest a different formulation to make it little clearer that it was the "Pacific Regional Governments supported by the Cook Islands that called upon the meeting to address these issues and support action to ratify" CTBT etc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rappoteur: May I again beg the indulgence of the distinguished delegates and reiterate that if there are corrections that you feel need to made, please submit them to the secretariat so that they will have them duly noted. May I also explain that your intervention on 87bis page 32, that was a reformulation that was read out by Indonsia and accepted in the drating committee. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fiji: We'd like to refer to paragraph 88 on page 32. Fiji would like to state that, in the drafting committee, there was an inclusion or reference made to those in the colonies and non-self governing territories. Philippines was heading the smaller working group and we would like to request the inclusion of the reference to women in the colonies and non-self governing territories. That was agreed to in the smaller working group. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rappoteur: May I request that this correction be made in writing and submitted to the secretary. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Japan: I would like to point paragraphs in page 34 that does not faithfully reflect the agreement we made at the drafting session. The first one is paragraph 94. The sentence says "particulary the trust funds on violence against women to strengthen knowledge base" However, for this trust fund, we agreed on a specific Trust Fund which was established in accordance with the General Assembly Resolution. So this would be a large "T" and large "F" and no "s" after fund. So this will be "Trust Fund for Eliminating Violence Against Women" and these are all capitals. And we also had after that "and UNIFEM". In order for the sentence to faithfully reflect the agreement we had, the sentence would read, "Encourage the United Nations system, particulary the Trust Fund for Eliminating Violence Against Women and UNIFEM to strengthen knowledge base oneffective stratefies to eliminate violence against women for countries to draw on." Secondly in paragraph 96, although there is paragraph 96 in this text, this text was actually deleted and replaced by sentence included in paragraph 97. Second sentence of paragraph 97 is the agreed version of this issue. In fact this was the first sentence of papragraph 97. Therefore paragraph 96 should be deleted and in the paragraph 97, the second sentence and first sentence revers in order so the second sentence "Efforts, including..." become the first sentence. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rappoteur: Your intervention on para 96 and 97 is duly noted by the secretariat. Paragraph 94 may I request that the correction be submitted to the secretariat. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Malaysia: My delegation would like to seek just a little bit of clarification on agenda item 5 [page 21] and I would apologize to my colleagues if I am wrong and please correct me if I am wrong. The first paragraph of the agenda item 5, is that the paragraph we have adopted this morning? because when we left last night, we started the sentence with perhaps the Beijing Platform for Action which was adopted at the Fourth World Conference. After the period of the first sentence the we use the word "It espoouses a human rights-based ... equality." Then we have agin the word "The platform.." The whole paragraph doesn't seem to be clear to me. The first "it" referes to the Forth World Conference and then we jump to the Platform as an agenda. I just would like to seek clarification whether this is the paragraph that we have adopted this morning as I was late. I'm sorry Madame Rappoteur. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rappoteur: As has been pointed out ealier, there are number of inaccuarcies and changes that need to be made to this text due to time pressure. So again we respectfully request that this issue you had raised be submitted to the secretariat. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tonga: I refer to comments made in relation to paragraph 99. I'm glad to inform you that inspite of the time constraints that secretariat had to work on, this paragraph reflects the accuracy of the decisions made in the drafting committee. So the paragraph 99 as it is, is the exact paragraph approved. So the earlier questions into correctness or the clumsiness of this paragraph, i'm trying to clarify it that in all in its perfection it was adopted this morning exactly as it is reflected here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rappoteur: Thank you for your clarification on that paragraph. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Azerbaijan Russian is the language of communicaiton for the people in Central Asia. We are limited with the knowledge of english, we wer not actively involved in the discussion of the draft report. Is it possible to ammend the report on behalf of the delegation from Azerbaijan in my presentation regarding the item of the agenda rights of refugee women and voluntary displaced persons. At this point I would like to add violation of the rights of women refugees as a violation not only from the aggressing countries but also violation of women's rights at the international level. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rappoteur: May I request what paragraph you are referring to in the preamble? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Azerbaijan: I am not able to translate the paragraph. I'm referring to the rights of refugee women and displaced persons. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rappoteur: It is addressed in the text but perhaps you could submit your intervention to the secretariat. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ United States of America: We would like to refer to paragraph number 56 in Preamble. United States has continued to consult with our Capital and we would like to remove our reservation on the sentences noted. (applauds) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ India: I come back to paragraph 87bis at page 32. As you clarified earlier, this was an item included by the Indonsian delegation but we still have reservation on the formulation and would urge that the formulation suggested by me ealier, may be substituted for this. Because these are issues which were not discussed earlier yesterday. And if it were discussed only at that drafting stage, I think we are in a position to discuss and debate this issue today before finallly accepting the recommendations. So I would like to repeat the formulation which I suggested earlier -- "Gender concerns and women in particular should be mainstreamed into reproductive health policies, programmes and projects which must be made available, accessible and affordable to women of all ages including marginalized groups." I would urge that this formulation be accepted by all present. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rappoteur: May we respectfully request that reformulation be submitted in writing to the secretariat. However, I would like to report that this formulation as recorded in the draft report has been agreed to in the drafting committee. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tonga: I just have small correction to paragraph 120 and 120ter. It's really procedual. In paragraph 120 last line. "Wider participation by NGOs in the 2000 Beijing+5 process in accordance with the UN regulations and practices, should be encouraged." The same sentence is repeated in 120ter but enlarged with the addition "in accordance with the UN regulations and practices such as the accreditation process of NGOs for the Social Summit+5." I believe this is one of inaccuracies of the recording or typing. 120 as it is was at the time we were trying to combine the issues in these paragraphs and we ended up splitting them. So my proposal is to delete the last sentence of 120 because it is taken care of in 120ter with the additional ammendments that was proposed by the USA. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rappoteur: The corrections are duly noted by the secretariat. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ China: Having made enough trouble to Madame Ruth Limjuco, Chairperson of the Drafting Committee, it's really not my intention to draw in the debating for sakes once again. However, having heard the interventions of the distinguished delegate of Tonga, I think there is a need for me to clarify the situation. I think what she has suggested is not the case we have discussed in the Drafting Committee. She might recommendation and ammendments to 120ter. Nonetheless 120 should remain unchanged. That is the conclusion we reached in the Drafting Committee. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tonga: The distingished delegate from China is so persuasive, I have no recourse but withdraw my proposal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ India: Sorry to come back to para 99 at page 35. I thought this was an issue which could be taken up in a plenary because our understanding was this was not put down in the Drafting Committee the way it has been formulated here. And I would once again urge that the formulation might be changed to stop at "considered" and deleting the remaining three words because at the preliminary stage I think we can take up issue wherever we feel we do not agree with the Drafting Committee, we can take up these issues. If you could consider our reformulation on this, and with the sentence such considered, we'll be happy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tonga: The proposal that just has been made by India in relation to paragraph 99 was the last of the milestones for us to climb at the Drafting Committe of which India had agreed to consensus of the Drafting Committee. At this 11th hour I certainly would appeal to the delegation >from India to reconsider thier objection to the wording as it is. As was explained at the Drafting Committee, these words were lifted from Beijing Platform for Action and the last three words added, clarified nevertheless, as appropriate. Because this is a review process to look at the gains and the gaps since Beijing and paragraph 99 is one of those gaps. So I would like to appeal to the delegation from India to allow the consensus reached at the Drafting Committee to get senior. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ India: I think we had agreed to at the Drafting Committee on another issue, not on this one. But, however, if the distinguised delegate from Tonga insists, we could compromise by removing the last word and keeping it at "appropriate" ending the sentence at "appropriate." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tonga: I seek the indulgence of this august body. I know everyone is tired and needs to take some rest. But I would like to again appeal to India to remove the last word and leave as "appropriate" would certainly be as dressing a child without the giving the child without the full clothing that it needs in a time of winter when it it cold. I appeal to India to allow this, again, negotiated and agreed upon text to which some members of distinguished delegation from India was participating to the group. Because the removal of proposed compromise is a situation that is not attractive at this late hour of the night. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rappoteur: As said, this is the 11th hour and people are very tired. However it is also understandable that as tired as we may be, we may not be compromising as we should be. So we would like to request, based on the fact that this is agreed upon text in the Drafting Committee, may we respectfully request Tonga and India to get together and agree on a reformulation of the last three words. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Indonesia: It is my understanding that paragraph 87bis was accepted in the Drafting Committee, so I do not understand when you request India to submit the reformulation, unless other members of the Drafting Committee thinks that this is not correctly reflected. I have checked again on my notes and this was exactly what was agreed in the Drafting Committee. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rappoteur: May I beg the indulgence of distinguished delegates of this forum. As is well known throughout this forum, this is agreed on text from which delegates from all delegation attended and negotiated. So if areed on, it should not be reopened and renegotiated in this Plenary. (applauds) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Japan: I fully support your suggestion that this is not a drafting group that this is a place merely to adopt the text. It would be easier for our work if the secretariat could clarify what exactly was the agreement made at the drafting group. Not clarification by each and every delegation's concerns. Secondly, we actually noted that paragraph 86 and paragraph 88 seems to be overlapping paragraph which require some kind of adjustment. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rappoteur: I would like to reiterate again for this distinguished forum that what is before you is agreed on text. If there are corrections that need to be made on that, please submit them to the secretariat. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ India: I would request the clarification of rules of procedure of this meeting. I think the distinguished colleague from Japan has already asked as to what was the understanding. It was our understanding that the Drafting Committee would put forward a set of recommendations to the Plenary for its consideration. It is certainly not our understanding that we are not allowed to discuss the recommendations. It is our understanding that this Plenary has been convened at this late hour to consider those recommendations before adopting them. And in case some delegations want a discussion on some of the recommendations, I think we are entitled of it, so may I request clarification on the rules of procedure from the Secretariat. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rappoteur: Secreatriat will respond after we hear from the distinguished delegate >from France. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ France: I would like to clarify that I don't have any objections as far as the Draft Report is concerned. I would like just to remind you the procedual rules and would like to join my voice to the statement that has been made by representative of India. I think that the drafting committee is a committee that has to prepare as good as possible, a draft report to be discussed at the Plenary assembly. But this is the plenary assembly session that has to adopt the draft report with all the ammendments that has been proposed by various delegations. As the representative of Azerbaijan pointed out, the Drafting Committee works in english exclusively which is one of the languages of the meeting. This is quite normal that all delegations have to have the time to think over the draft which is submitted to the delegations. I remind that the Drafting Committee is not a decision making committee. Decision lies with the Plenary session. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tonga: I would like to agree with what is being raised by india and france in terms of procedures. However I would like to make an addition to what is being proposed or pointed out by India and France. That is, one of the rules of the procedures is that, from the drafting committee, if the text comes bracketed, it is normally those brackets that we discuss here in plenary. For the text that are not bracketed it is usually the procedure that they are not discussed in Plenary. So whilst I agree with the distinguished delegates from India and France, I would like to suggest that the text from the drafting committee arrived here in Plenary without brackets with one reservation of which it was discussed at this Plenary and removed. So I'm adding on to what is being proposed because that is also normal procedure that if a bracketed text arrive here, we as the plenary discuss the bracket. So i'm just adding that information for the consideration of the Bureau. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Iran: I think it's technically correct because the Plenary has the right and decision making power. But I think at the same time I think we have to agree that we set up the Drafting Committee for cirtain purpose, that is to facilitate the discussion here at the Plneary. Now I think the distinguished delegate of Tonga rightly said that if you had square bracketed phrases and sentences, natuarlly that have to be taken up at the plenary. Now as for the others, especially if the delegate, although I understand it was an open ended drafting committee, for some reason the delegate from particular country was not there, they still have the right to raise the issue again. But especially if a representative from that country had already agreed to it, then I beg your deligence in not to reopen the discussions again because otherwise the drafting committee serve no purpose. That means that anybody can reopen everything. That means we should have done everythihng at the plenary. So I think certainly we respect the rights of the delegates to raise but if we would like to give justice to the work of the drafting committee, I think all the things that have been agreed particulary by the respective delegates of the drafting committee, I would appeal to you not to reopen the discussions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ India: Much as my delegation hates to prolong the proceedings, we are constrained to point out that in the drafting committee, there were groups formed of two to three countries that went to the side, and went into formulations that were quite completely different from what was circulated initially. And the reformulated drafts were niether circulated nor discussed in the drafting committee. So, para 87bis, I'm informed by my colleage who were there in the drafting committee that it is an entirely new paragraph which was discussed on the side. And similary, with para 99 we don't recall it was actually discussed with everybody present. We can square bracket it if we have a chance to know what was put into the draft but if it has been discussed by a group of countries and then it has been put into the draft that has been given to the plenary, we haven't had a chance to see it before, it was given to us at the plenary. This is a point that I would request you to bear in mind. We don't wish to reopen the issue ourselves but this is the time that we have had to react to it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chairperson, Drafting Committee: Yes we did have literal drafting group and items that are very contentious, and it is a usual experience in United Nations that during negotiations when two or three parties do not agree on cirtain points, then they are requested to negotiate among themselves after which the compromise solution is presented to the general body. I myself made it a point that every time a little group came up with the reformulation of the contentious item, I myself read it out to the general group and after reading it, then asked for adoption of that particular item. Never did it occur that a little group discuss something and was immediately adopted without general group have hearing of it and being asked whether or not there were any objections. Only when there were no objections, where those reformulated items adopted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chair Thank you Chairperson for clarification. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ USA I would like to support the memory of the Chairperson of the Drafting Committee specifically with regard to item 99 because the United States gave the verbal report of that working group. It was read exactly as it is here and the Chair repeated it to herself and then asked if there were any objections. I can not speak to the other paragraphs but I can cirtainly speak of 99. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rappoteur: I would like to thank all the distinguished delegates for your cooperation and active debate this evening. And I have great pleasure and declare it that Draft Report of the High Level Inter-Govenmental Meeting to Review the Regional Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action adopted. (applauds) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ closing statement by ESCAP Execitive Director followed.