US embassy cable - 05ROME455

UNCLAS ROME 000455 
 
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CORRECTED COPY - SIGNATURE ADDED 
FROM THE U.S. MISSION TO THE UN AGENCIES IN ROME 
 
L/PIL FOR HAL BURMAN AND JEFF KOVAR 
IO/S FOR LISA SPRATT 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: AORC, UNIDROIT 
SUBJECT: INVITATION TO JOIN AD-HOC UNIDROIT ELECTION 
COMMITTEE 
 
1. Summary: Mission received a January 27 letter from the 
International Institute for the Unification of Private Law 
(UNIDROIT) to join an ad-hoc committee session on February 
28.  The session will examine possible changes to the 
organization's by-laws dealing with Governing Council 
elections, with a view toward a guarantee of regional 
geographic representation on the Council.  Mission proposes 
to be a part of the ad-hoc committee and requests guidance 
on issues laid out below (see para 6 for action request). 
End Summary. 
 
2. In the January 27 letter, UNIDROIT invited all member 
states to take part in the ad-hoc committee session 
scheduled for February 28 (Egypt, India, South Africa, 
Tunisia and the UK already declared their interest in 
serving).  The reason for the committee's existence stems 
from the November 2003 Governing Council elections, in 
which none of the three candidates submitted by African 
nations secured a seat.  Common sentiment among member 
states and the secretariat that this was not a desirable 
outcome led to the committee's creation by the November 
2004 General Assembly. 
 
3. The committee is tasked with preparing proposals for the 
amendment of Article 7 of the UNIDROIT regulations dealing 
with Governing Council elections.  Recommendations will be 
forwarded to the General Assembly for review at its next 
session, scheduled for April 18  20.  Copies of Article 7 
have been e-mailed to L/PIL and IO/S, and the current 
language is quite straightforward: whoever gets the most 
votes wins a seat.  The idea for change, then, is to assure 
that there is some guarantee of regional geographic 
representation on the Governing Council.  How that change 
is achieved and precisely which regions need to be 
represented will be left to the committee to recommend to 
the General Assembly. 
 
4. In addition to a draft agenda, the UNIDROIT secretariat 
also included a brief paper on points relevant to the 
committee's work (also e-mailed to L/PIL and IO/S).  One 
issue concerns the criteria used to determine how member 
nations might be divided into geographic regions.  The UN 
divides member states into five regions, for instance, 
while the FAO (also here in Rome) uses seven.  The 
secretariat makes the argument that because UNIDROIT is 
 
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specifically focused on private law and its membership is 
far from universal (75 percent from Europe and the 
Americas), representation should take into account the 
technical focus of its work as well as the relatively 
narrow constituency it serves. 
 
5. The second point deals with the number of members per 
geographic region that should be guaranteed representation 
on the Governing Council.  To this, the secretariat 
presents historical data indicating that from 1968 to 1989, 
when the Governing Council had 21 seats, an average of one 
seat went to Africa, three to the Americas, three to Asia- 
Pacific and 14 to Europe.  With the expansion of the 
Council to 25 seats in 1990, one seat continued to go to 
Africa, four to the Americas, five to Asia-Pacific and 15 
to Europe.  The secretariat makes no formal recommendations 
on either point. 
 
6. Comment and Action Request: while Mission has no 
particular heartburn with some form of guaranteed 
geographic representation, we see no reason to react too 
strongly to a single election peculiarity and therefore 
would not favor any guarantee for more than one nation from 
any one region, particularly given the historical data 
presented.  Mission proposes to consult with the 
secretariat and other like-minded member states in advance. 
 
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	2005ROME00455 - Classification: UNCLASSIFIED