Explanation of vote by Archie Young, UK Ambassador to the
General Assembly at the UN Fourth Committee.
The UK would like to explain our position on this and our
vote.
This resolution deals with a number of important issues of
interest to all members, including the importance of the right of
self-determination, sovereign equality and territorial integrity
to which the UK's commitment is iron-clad.
The same cannot be said for the sponsors of this resolution.
Today's resolution put forward by Russia and Venezuela, amongst
others, is a disingenuous and opportunistic effort to appropriate
what is genuinely a serious and sensitive issue for their own
political purposes.
This is clear by the fact that Member States, as others have
said, have not been offered an opportunity to scrutinise this
resolution in detail, nor has there been any attempt by the
sponsors to engage widely and transparently with members before
such an important and complex issue is put before the Fourth
Committee, especially given the divergent views in the C24
committee.
We therefore cannot support today's resolution.
In doing so we reaffirm the UK's commitment to the principle of
equal rights and self-determination of peoples of the British
Overseas Territories, as enshrined in the United Nations Charter.
We are equally committed to supporting requests for the removal
from the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories
from those Territories whose permanent populations so wish. We
remind the delegations that each British Overseas Territory has a
large measure of internal self-governance, and all have chosen to
retain their link to the UK.
And if I can make one more point regarding specifically this
resolution, I wanted to underline the point that has already been
made about the significant PBI's (programme budget implications)
which we do not support, and that were circulated just this
morning which further underlines our practical and procedural
concerns about this resolution.
