VZCZCXYZ0002
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUCNDT #0998/01 3132108
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 092108Z NOV 07
FM USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
TO SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3058

UNCLAS USUN NEW YORK 000998 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: UNGA UNGA
SUBJECT: ACTION REQUEST: SIXTH COMMITTEE DRAFT RESOLUTION 
ON THE REPORT OF UNCITRAL'S 40TH SESSION 
 
¶1. ACTION REQUEST: USUN requests instructions from the 
Department to join consensus on the Sixth Committee's draft 
resolution on the Report of the United Nations Commission on 
International Trade Law on the work of its fortieth session 
(agenda item 81) contained in para 3, or substantially 
similar text.  The texts of all draft resolutions must be 
tabled before the Sixth Committee by November 9.  USUN 
expects the Sixth Committee to take action on draft 
resolutions shortly thereafter.  USUN point of contact for 
this resolution is James Donovan, (212) 415-4300, 
DonovanJB@state.gov.  END ACTION REQUEST. 
 
¶2. BACKGROUND/COMMENT: Negotiations on this resolution 
included many revisions of operative paragraph 8 (OP8). 
France could not accept any reference to the use of 
nongovernmental organizations in OP8, nor could it accept the 
inclusion of the Commission's practice of reaching a decision 
by consensus without a formal vote.  Canada, Japan and the 
U.S. argued to include a reference to decision making by 
consensus.  Ultimately, Austria, as coordinator, and to 
achieve consensus on the resolution, deleted the two items 
from the text and added a footnote to OP8 that refers to 
prior resolutions that contain the items.  END 
BACKGROUND/COMMENT. 
 
¶3. Text of draft resolution on the Report of the United 
Nations Commission on International Trade Law on the work of 
its fortieth session: 
 
BEGIN TEXT: 
 
Sixty-second session 
Sixth Committee 
Agenda item 81 
 
Draft Resolution 
Report of the United Nations Commission on International 
Trade Law on the work of its fortieth session 
 
The General Assembly, 
 
Recalling its resolution 2205 (XXI) of 17 December 1966, by 
which it established the United Nations Commission on 
International Trade Law with a mandate to further the 
progressive harmonization and unification of the law of 
international trade and in that respect to 
bear in mind the interests of all peoples, in particular 
those of developing countries, in the extensive development 
of international trade, 
 
Reaffirming its belief that the progressive modernization and 
harmonization of international trade law, in reducing or 
removing legal obstacles to the flow of international trade, 
especially those affecting the developing countries, would 
contribute significantly to universal economic cooperation 
among all States on a basis of equality, equity, common 
interest and respect for the rule of law, to the elimination 
of discrimination in international trade and, thereby, to 
peace, stability and the well-being of all peoples, 
 
Having considered the report of the Commission on the work of 
the first part of its fortieth session, 
 
Reiterating its concern that activities undertaken by other 
bodies in the field of international trade law without 
adequate coordination with the Commission might lead to 
undesirable duplication of efforts and would not be in 
keeping with the aim of promoting efficiency, consistency and 
coherence in the unification and harmonization of 
international trade law, 
 
Reaffirming the mandate of the Commission, as the core legal 
body within the United Nations system in the field of 
international trade law, to coordinate legal activities in 
this field, in particular to avoid duplication of efforts, 
including among organizations formulating rules of 
international trade, and to promote efficiency, consistency 
and coherence in the modernization and harmonization of 
international trade law, and to continue, through its 
secretariat, to maintain close cooperation with other 
 
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international organs and organizations, including regional 
organizations, active in the field of international trade law, 
 
¶1. Takes note with appreciation of the report of the United 
Nations Commission on International Trade Law on the work of 
the first part of its fortieth session; 
 
¶2. Commends the Commission for its work on the preparation of 
a legislative guide on secured transactions, which has been 
designed to facilitate secured financing, thus promoting 
increased access to low-cost credit and enhancing national 
and international trade, and notes with satisfaction that the 
Commission expects to complete that work in the nearest 
 
 
future; 
 
¶3. Welcomes the progress made by the Commission in its work 
on a revision of its Model Law on Procurement of Goods, 
Construction and Services and of the UNCITRAL arbitration 
Rules, on the preparation of a draft instrument on transport 
law and on future developments in insolvency law, and 
endorses the decision of the Commission to undertake further 
work in the area of security interests; 
 
¶4. Endorses the efforts and initiatives of the Commission, as 
the core legal body within the United Nations system in the 
field of international trade law, aimed at increasing 
coordination of and cooperation on legal activities of 
international and regional organizations active in the field 
of international trade law, as well as promoting the rule of 
law at the national and international levels in this field, 
and in this regard appeals to relevant international and 
regional organizations to coordinate their legal activities 
with those of the Commission, to avoid duplication of efforts 
and to promote efficiency, consistency and coherence in the 
modernization and harmonization of international trade law; 
 
¶5. Reaffirms the importance, in particular for developing 
countries, of the work of the Commission concerned with 
technical assistance and cooperation in the field of 
international trade law reform and development, and in this 
connection: 
 
(a) Welcomes the initiatives of the Commission towards 
expanding, through its secretariat, its technical assistance 
and cooperation programme and, in that respect, encourages 
the Secretary-General to seek partnerships with State and 
non-State actors to increase awareness about the work of the 
Commission and facilitate the effective implementation of 
legal standards resulting from its work; 
 
(b) Expresses its appreciation to the Commission for carrying 
out technical assistance and cooperation activities, 
including at the country, sub-regional and regional levels, 
and for providing assistance with legislative drafting in the 
field of international trade law; 
 
(c) Expresses its appreciation to the Governments whose 
contributions enabled the technical assistance and 
cooperation activities to take place, and appeals to 
Governments, the relevant 
bodies of the United Nations system, organizations, 
institutions and individuals to make voluntary contributions 
to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law 
Trust Fund for Symposia and, where appropriate, to the 
financing of special projects, and otherwise to assist the 
secretariat of the Commission in carrying out technical 
 
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assistance activities, in particular in developing countries; 
 
(d) Reiterates its appeal to the United Nations Development 
Programme and other bodies responsible for development 
assistance, such as the World Bank and regional development 
banks, as well as to Governments in their bilateral aid 
programmes, to support the technical assistance programme of 
the Commission and to cooperate and coordinate their 
activities with those of the Commission, in the light of the 
relevance and importance of the work and programmes of the 
Commission for the promotion of the rule of law at the 
national and international levels, as well as for the 
implementation of the United Nations development agenda, 
including the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals; 
 
¶6. Takes note with regret that, since the thirty-sixth 
session of the Commission, no contributions have been made to 
the trust fund established to provide travel assistance to 
developing countries that are members of the Commission, at 
their request and in 
consultation with the Secretary-General, 4 stresses the need 
for contributions to the trust fund in order to increase 
expert representation from developing countries at sessions 
of the 
Commission and its working groups, necessary to build local 
expertise and capacities in the field of international trade 
law in those countries to facilitate the development of 
international trade and the promotion of foreign investment, 
and reiterates its appeal 
to Governments, the relevant bodies of the United Nations 
system, organizations, institutions and individuals to make 
voluntary contributions to the trust fund; 
 
¶7. Decides, in order to ensure full participation by all 
Member States in the sessions of the Commission and its 
working groups, to continue, in the competent Main Committee 
during the sixty-second session of the General Assembly, its 
consideration of granting travel assistance to the least 
developed countries that are members of the Commission, at 
their request and in consultation with the Secretary-General; 
 
 
 
 
¶8. Welcomes the decision by the Commission to hold a 
comprehensive review of its working methods, in particular in 
light of the recent increase in membership of the Commission 
and the number of topics being dealt with by the Commission, 
which should ensure the high quality of the work of the 
Commission and international acceptability of its 
instruments, and in this regard recalls its previous 
resolutions related to this matter; 
 
¶9. Recalls its resolutions on partnerships between the United 
Nations and non-State actors, in particular the private 
sector, and its resolutions in which it encouraged the 
Commission to further explore different approaches to the use 
of partnerships with non-State actors in the implementation 
of its mandate, in particular in the area of technical 
assistance, in accordance with the applicable principles and 
guidelines and in cooperation and coordination with other 
relevant offices of the Secretariat, including the Global 
Compact Office; 
 
¶10. Reiterates its request to the Secretary-General, in 
conformity with the General Assembly resolutions on 
documentation-related matters, which, in particular, 
emphasize that any reduction in the length of documents 
should not adversely affect either the quality of the 
presentation or the substance of the documents, to bear in 
mind the particular characteristics of the mandate and work 
of the Commission in implementing page limits with respect to 
the documentation of the Commission; 
 
¶11. Requests the Secretary-General to continue providing 
summary records of the meetings of the Commission relating to 
the formulation of normative texts; 
 
¶12. Recalls its resolution approving the establishment of the 
Yearbook of the United Nations Commission on International 
Trade Law, with the aim of making the work of the Commission 
more widely known and readily available, expresses its 
concern regarding the timeliness of the 
publication of the Yearbook, and requests the 
Secretary-General to explore options to facilitate the timely 
 
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publication of the Yearbook; 
 
¶13. Stresses the importance of bringing into effect the 
conventions emanating from the work of the Commission for the 
global unification and harmonization of international trade 
law, and to this end urges States that have not yet done so 
to consider signing, ratifying or acceding to those 
conventions; 
 
¶14. Welcomes the preparation of digests of case law relating 
to the texts of the Commission, such as a digest of case law 
relating to the United Nations Convention on Contracts for 
the International Sale of Goods and a digest of case law 
relating to the Model Law on International Commercial 
Arbitration of the United Nations Commission on International 
Trade Law, with the aim of assisting in dissemination of 
information on those texts and promoting their use, 
enactment and uniform interpretation; 
 
¶15. Notes with satisfaction that the Congress Modern Law for 
Global Commerce was held in Vienna from 9 to 12 July 2007 in 
the context of the Commissions fortieth session, which 
reviewed the results of the past work of the Commission as 
well as related work of other organizations active in the 
field of international trade law, assessed current work 
programmes and considered topics and areas for future work, 
and, acknowledging the importance of the results of the 
Congress for the coordination and promotion of activities 
aimed at the modernization and harmonization of international 
trade law, requests the Secretary-General to ensure the 
publication of the proceedings of the Congress to the extent 
permitted by available resources; 
 
¶16. Recalls its resolutions affirming the importance of 
high-quality, user-friendly and cost-effective United Nations 
websites and the need for their multilingual development, 
maintenance and enrichment, commends the restructured website 
of the Commission in the six official languages of the United 
Nations, and welcomes the continuous efforts of the 
Commission to maintain and improve its website in accordance 
with the applicable guidelines. 
 
END TEXT. 
Khalilzad