President Guido de Marco to preside over the Regional Hearing for the E.C.E. Region in preparation for the UN Millenium Assembly

H.E. Prof. Guido de Marco will be leaving Malta for Geneva tomorrow to preside over the Regional Hearing for the ECE Region in preparation for the Millennium Assembly of the United Nations. The 55^th Session of the General Assembly scheduled for September 2000, was designated by Member States of the United Nations as the Millennium Assembly entitled "The United Nations in the 21^stCentury" and will be convening a Millennium Summit of Heads of State and Government. During this time the General Assembly is expected to discuss a number of issues relating to the reform of the United Nations. In preparation for this session, the Secretary-General of the UN has requested the five Regional Commissions of the United Nations to hold regional hearings the results of which will be drawn upon in preparation for the report to the Millennium Assembly.

Mrs Mary Robinson, High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Vladimir Petrovsky, Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament and Personal Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Mr Yves Berthelot, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe, invited H.E. Prof. Guido de Marco to preside over the hearing for the European region. The said Hearing will be held over two days and will deal with the issues of Human Rights, Sustainable Development and Peace and Disarmament. The meeting is expected to agree on a number of concrete suggestions on how the United Nations can effectively meet major challenges and fulfil its role in these areas.

President de Marco has had a long association with the United Nations. He served as the President of the General Assembly during its 45^th Session between 1990 - 1991. He has also made a number of proposals on United Nations reform, namely those relating to the revitalization of the General Assembly, and most recently on the reform of the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations. He also authored a book on the United Nations entitled "A Second Generation United Nations" containing a number of reflections and proposals regarding the creation of a more relevant United Nations. In a prestigious review "Peace and Conflict : Journal of Peace Psychology" published recently, Prof. James M. Goldgeier, in commenting on the said book by H.E. Prof. de Marco, stated that the authors "represented a country that has produced diplomatic initiatives greatly disproportionate to its small size" and that the book "in attempting to be taken seriously … avoids any grand sweeping vision and puts forward a number of concrete proposals to make the UN more effective … It is well organized with a good discussion of the problems inherent in the League of Nations that the UN sought to overcome. It then addresses three sets of issues : first, the need to restructure the UN; second, the ways in which the authors envision a new role for the Trusteeship Council and the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC); and third, the funding problems". The said book was co-authored by Ambassador Michael Bartolo, Malta's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva.

H.E. Prof. de Marco is expected to return to Malta on Friday afternoon.