April 17, 2000 (4:20 p.m. EDT) No. 78

UN SECURITY COUNCIL ESTABLISHES SANCTIONS WORKING GROUP; CANADIAN-SPONSORED SANCTIONS STUDY UNVEILED

Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy, as President of the UN Security Council, today announced the creation of a Security Council working group on sanctions policy, with a mandate to develop recommendations on how to improve the effectiveness of UN sanctions. The announcement followed the first-ever open discussion of the Security Council on the effectiveness of sanctions. The working group, which has a mandate to explore ways of targeting sanctions and avoiding negative humanitarian impacts, will report its findings to the Security Council in November.

"I welcome the establishment of the Council working group on sanctions policy. It will have Canada's full support and active participation in seeking ways to improve the design of sanctions and guide future practice," said Mr. Axworthy, who chaired the Council meeting. "Today's meeting was a concrete signal of the Council's determination to work towards more effective and humane sanctions."

A Canadian-sponsored study on sanctions by the International Peace Academy (IPA), The Sanctions Decade, was also launched today by Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Minister Axworthy. The study recommends concrete ways for making sanctions "smarter," more humane, and more capable of realizing their potential as a tool for multilateral diplomacy.

Minister Axworthy also announced Canadian initiatives in response to the IPA report. Canada will contribute $100 000 to commission a follow-up report to The Sanctions Decade, which will serve as a report card on reforms undertaken by the Security Council to make sanctions more humane and effective. Canada will also provide a further $100 000 to commission a strategic management study on ways of upgrading the UN Secretariat's capacity for administering sanctions. Finally, Canada announced it will convene a conference of experts to begin the development of an explicit legal regime to govern the use of sanctions, including standardized policy guidelines and operational principles.

Funding for these initiatives was provided for in the February 2000 federal budget and is therefore built into the existing fiscal framework.

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