15 September 1999

According to the article below, the outgoing President of the General Assembly praised the adoption of the Rome Statute. The outgoing President of the GA is from Uruguay.

Monday, September 13, 1999;

General Assembly president says Kosovo hurt U.N. credibility

The General Assembly closed its 1998-99 session Monday with its president lamenting that the Kosovo conflict had hurt the credibility of the United Nations as the sole guarantor of peace in the world.

The inability of the Security Council to agree on a strategy to stop the Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanians enabled another organization NATO to intervene without U.N. authorization, Didier Opertti told the closing

assembly meeting.

''Perhaps the only positive element of this conflict is that it has made it obvious that any further postponement of reform in the United Nations is both inadmissible and unwarranted,'' said Opertti, Uruguay's foreign minister.

He was referring to the proposed expansion of the 15-member council and the more equitable distribution of the veto beyond the five permanent members to make the council more democratic and representative of the United Nations.

During the Kosovo conflict, threats by permanent members Russia and China to veto any resolution authorizing force against Yugoslavia propelled the United States and its allies to launch the NATO air campaign without explicit council approval.

Legal scholars have criticized the move, saying it undermined the norms of international law which dictate that the Security Council alone is responsible for maintaining world peace.

''The threat of the veto played a role, demonstrating that a mechanism that was ostensibly designed to prevent the use of force ultimately became a factor which took the decision regarding its use away from the council an the organization itself,'' Opertti said.

In summing up the work of the 185-member assembly for the past year, Opertti praised the adoption in December of the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court and resolutions on the U.N. role in promoting development in the increasingly interdependent global economy.

He reported that slim progress was achieved in 7-year-old negotiations to expand the Security Council, ''notwithstanding the persistence of profound difference on key aspects of the issue.''

The assembly is essentially the U.N. parliament, while the Security Council acts as the U.N. board of directors.

Unlike council resolutions, the 309 assembly resolutions adopted this session aren't legally enforceable. However, the majority of them 248 were adopted by consensus.

The assembly's 54th session opens Tuesday with the formal appointment of Namibia's foreign minister, Theo-Ben Gurirab, as the new president to preside over the 1999-2000 session.

Also Tuesday, the General Assembly is scheduled to admit its three newest members, Nauru, Kiribati and Tonga, bringing the total number of U.N. members to 188.

The General Assembly's annual debate kicks off next Monday with two weeks of speeches by heads of state on topics sure to touch on Kosovo, East Timor, globalization and the future of the United Nations in the new

millennium. This year's debate will also feature a special two-day conference, Sept. 27-28, on the plight of small island developing nations.