New York - With its many years of experience and its entrenched neutrality, the United
Nations is ideally placed to help countries establish the rule of law, a vital
factor in post-conflict reconstruction, overall development and enforcing
fundamental rights, a top UN official said.

“Newly-constituted governments are looking to the United Nations for advice and
assistance in constitution-making processes, reforming justice and security
institutions and dealing with legacies of atrocities,” Deputy Secretary-General
Jan Eliasson told the General Assembly committee that deals with international
legal matters, also known as the Sixth Committee.

“The United Nations has a comparative advantage in providing this assistance,”
Mr. Eliasson stressed, noting that it is currently helping 150 Member States on
various aspects of the rule of law. “We have a broad range of experience dating
back many years. The UN brings neutrality and the weight of the international
community to the work. We are also using out convening power to advance the
issues and the debate.”

The committee is following up on the Assembly’s High-Level Meeting on the Rule
of Law that was held last month, when world leaders stressed the universality of
humanitarian law and the importance of the system of international courts in
enforcing fundamental human rights.

Mr. Eliasson highlighted the crucial role played by the network of international
tribunals such as the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ), the
principal UN judicial organ set up in 1945 to settle legal disputes submitted by
States, and the more recent Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), an
independent international body that is not part of the UN and tries those
accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Other UN-backed country-specific international courts deal or have dealt with
such crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and
Cambodia. Mr. Eliasson reiterated the call Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made at
last month’s meeting for all States to accept the jurisdiction of the (ICJ).

“The International Court of Justice plays a particularly important role,” he
said. “It is the only judicial forum to which Member States can bring virtually
any legal dispute concerning international law. No other forum’s jurisdiction is
as far-reaching. Yet the court is only competent to hear a case if the States
concerned have accepted its jurisdiction.”

Only 67 of the UN’s 193 Member States, or 34 per cent, including only one
permanent member of the Security Council, currently accept the ICJ’s compulsory
jurisdiction. That compares with 59 per cent in 1948, when 34 of the then 58 UN
Member States, including four of the five permanent members of the Security
Council, recognized its jurisdiction.

Mr. Eliasson highlighted the crucial role played by the UN-backed international
criminal tribunals, noting that the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) last
year sentenced former Liberian President Charles Taylor to 50 years in prison
for planning and abetting crimes committed by Sierra Leonean rebel forces during
that country’s civil war, finding him guilty of acts of terrorism, murder, rape,
sexual slavery and enlisting child soldiers.

Meanwhile, the ICC earlier this year found Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga
Dyilo guilty of conscripting child soldiers under the age of 15 into his militia
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and jailed him for 14 years.

Looking forward, Mr. Eliasson called for strengthening the linkages between the
rule of law and all three pillars of the UN’s mission – peace and security;
development; and human rights. This includes strengthening peace and security in
post-conflict countries; establishing the necessary framework for commerce and
international trade, including the sanctity of contracts and labour safeguards;
and the need for governments to ratify international rights treaties and
promulgate national laws that uphold these obligations.