Non Paper of the Chair of the Special Committee on Decolonization adopted by consensus
“The Members of the Special Committee on Decolonization C-24 express their full support to the Chair and to his faculty to conduct its business in accordance with Rules 106 and 107 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Assembly, which assign to the Chair control of the proceedings of any meeting.
In view of the regrettable incident in the morning Session of the Committee on June 14th 2016 when a State Member who is not a member of the Committee disrespected the procedure of the formal session of the Committee during the discussion of the question of Western Sahara, the Bureau called an extraordinary closed session of the Committee held in afternoon the same day.
In that extraordinary meeting, the Members recognized that operative paragraph 7 of General Assembly resolution 34/37 of 21 November 1979 states that Frente Popular para la Liberación de Saguia el Hamra y de Río de Oro (Frente POLISARIO) was the representative of the people of Western Sahara. Likewise, they acknowledge the operative paragraph 10 of General Assembly resolution 35/19 of 11 November 1980 ratifies Frente Polisario as representative of the people of Western Sahara.
Hence, the Committee was aware that as a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly it should not challenge a resolution decided by the highest instance of the United Nations.
The Committee heard that there have been divergent views by certain Members of the Committee with regard to the representation of Western Sahara in the meeting. At the extraordinary closed meeting it was stated that the practice of the Committee during the full meetings of its resumed sessions was to hear statements on specific issues of non-self-governing Territories from other Member States entities and UN system entities participating as observers and from the people of the non-self-governing Territories themselves, either as representatives or petitioners.
The main difference between representatives and petitioners is that in this regard (is that) representatives of non-self-governing Territories do not need to obtain the Committee permission to address it and through it to the United Nations as a whole. The representatives need only the Committee’s consent in order to speak.The Committee noted, on the one hand, that there have been different past practices and ways of mentioning the representation of Western Sahara in several previous meetings and Seminars of the Committee. On the one hand, the Committee was aware that in the absence of an official Committee decision and/or an established practice or mandate from the General Assembly, Committee Chairs are not obligated to guide the walk of (it) the Committee in the footsteps of its predecessors.
There was a proposal from several Members of the Committee to address the issue of the representation of Western Sahara in the 4th Committee.
Furthermore, it was acknowledged that it has been an established practice of the Special Committee on the situation with regard to the implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples (C-24) of hearing the representative of Frente Polisario at its sessions.
Therefore, on the basis of the above mentioned General Assembly resolutions and Rules of Procedure of the General Assembly, the Special Committee agrees to hear the representative of Frente Polisario as representative of Western Sahara, one non-self-governing Territory on the list of the United Nations”.
Special Committee on Decolonization: Frente Polisario is the only representative of the people of Western Sahara – wshrw.org
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Special Committee on Decolonization: Frente Polisario is the only representative of the people of Western Sahara – wshrw.org
