March 21, 2005

Prime Minister Paul Martin today issued the following statement concerning the release of the report of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All, which contains proposals for United Nations reform:

“In a phone conversation with the Secretary-General earlier this afternoon, I indicated Canada’s strong support for his report, which is a bold call to action and a blueprint to strengthen the capacity and effectiveness of the United Nations. It presents an integrated approach to fulfilling the objectives of the United Nations Charter and highlights the fact that security, development and human rights go hand in hand. It offers proposals that are achievable and that world leaders should endorse at their summit in September.

Canada is particularly pleased by the Secretary-General’s strong endorsement of The Responsibility to Protect and his call for Leaders to embrace the emerging norm that state sovereignty entails not only rights but also responsibilities - particularly for the protection of civilian populations. We urge members of the Security Council to adopt use-of-force guidelines to ensure that the international community has both the capacity and the will to respond to large-scale protection crises, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In this context, Canada also welcomes the attention given by Secretary-General Annan to the plight of internally displaced persons and the need for better responses to humanitarian emergencies. This is essential for making the United Nations more relevant and more effective.

Other Canadian priorities endorsed by the report include the Secretary-General’s call for a strong reaffirmation of the partnership for development elaborated in the Monterrey Consensus, as well as the creation of a peacebuilding commission as an effective tool for helping countries make the transition from war to peace.

Canada further supports the call for an agreed definition of terrorism and for member states to complete and adopt without delay the international convention on the suppression of nuclear terrorism.

Human rights are rightly identified as a necessary component of both sustainable development and security. Canada believes that human rights should be at the core of the UN’s preoccupations and has been promoting their mainstreaming in all aspects of the UN’s work. We welcome the proposal to turn the Commission on Human Rights into a Human Rights Council and thus elevate its status to the level of the organization’s other two councils, and we support strengthening the Office of the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Finally, Canada salutes the determination of Secretary-General Annan to strengthen the management and oversight functions of the organization and enhance coherence throughout the system. These measures are also essential to both the effectiveness and the credibility of the United Nations.

I assured the Secretary General that Canada will work energetically between now and September to build a global consensus on his report, to have it endorsed by Leaders at the summit commemorating the 60th anniversary of the United Nations to be held in September in New York, and to put it into action.”