Explanation of Vote - UNSMIL
Statement
29 April 2022Thank you, Madam President.
Firstly, I wish to express our appreciation for the UK’s determined efforts as penholder on this mandate renewal.
Ireland voted in favour of Resolution 2629 today because we believe that an effective UNSMIL is vital to support the Libyan people and their legitimate expectations of a democratic and peaceful future.
With the adoption of this resolution today, the Security Council has finally come to agreement on the long-overdue implementation of the recommendations of the Mission’s Strategic Review. We believe this will equip UNSMIL to achieve optimum impact on the ground, including through the reform of the Mission’s leadership structure. We look forward to the swift appointment of a Special Representative of the Secretary General.
The sustained support from the UN and from this Council is also essential to overcome the current political impasse and to help Libyan stakeholders forge agreement on the way forward and on the holding of elections as soon as possible. The importance of free, fair and inclusive elections is emphasised in this text, as is the need for adherence to the October 2020 ceasefire agreement.
Despite our positive vote today, we sincerely regret that, owing to the objection and intransigence of one Council member, we have not been able to secure consensus on a substantive one-year mandate renewal as originally proposed by the penholder. Instead, we have unfortunately defaulted to another short, three-month renewal.
This is the fourth time we have resorted to a brief and essentially technical rollover on UNSMIL since joining the Council. We firmly believe that a longer renewal would provide much-needed stability and predictability to the Mission, at a critical and sensitive juncture in Libya’s transition.
Furthermore, there are many crucial elements absent from this text, including on human rights, the role of women, and the humanitarian situation, to name but a few. We wish to reiterate that the last substantive resolution renewing UNSMIL’s mandate, Resolution 2542 of September 2020, remains the guiding framework when it comes to the Mission’s role on the ground.
Thank you.