Cyprus joins other Member States in expressing serious concerns as to the registration of instruments that fail to satisfy the necessary criteria for registration under Article 102 of the UN Charter, Cyprus` representative at the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, Charis Chrysostomou has said.
During his speech on Monday entitled “Strengthening and promoting the international treaty framework”, he said that
Cyprus joins other Member States in expressing our serious concerns as to the registration of instruments that fail to satisfy the necessary criteria for registration under Article 102 of the UN Charter.
“This is evident”, he said, “in the recent case of a registration of a bilateral MoU that does not meet even the rudimentary prima facie criteria for registration, and is clearly ultra vires. Furthermore, it also blatantly contravenes both international legality and well-established rules of international law, including the international law of the sea”. He was referring, without making a clear reference, to the recent MoU between Turkey and GNA in Libya.
“This is clearly an undesirable result. Such regrettable development solely contributes to further creating tensions and spreading regional instability, in direct contrast to the rationale of Article 102. Similar misgivings might stem from the question of compatibility of the registered instrument with peremptory norms of international law. Hence, we believe that all of us need to find a way to facilitate the work of the Secretariat and to better clarify the framework and the criteria for registration of instruments under Article 102 and we should ideally also associate the ILC in this important task” he noted.
Chrystostomou said that Cyprus has welcomed the update of the Regulations on Article 102 of the UN Charter by GA Resolution 73/210,of 1 February 2019, aiming at adapting them to the latest developments in treaty registration practice and advances in information technology, and ensuring consistency with regard to treaty-making practice.
He noted that Cyprus complies with the duty of submitting its bilateral treaties for registration through electronic communication. In this context, we believe that the development of an on-line tool for the registration of treaties should be further discussed as a means of facilitating the process, but also of ensuring easier accessibility and more transparency.
Furthermore, he said that Cyprus complies with the obligation of providing courtesy translation of the submitted treaties, in English or French, pursuant to article 12, paragraph 1, of the regulations and we believe that this practice should be continued.
