UNESCO. General Conference; 30th; Records ... - unesdoc - Unesco

DEBAT DE POLITIQUE GENERALE (suite)
GENERAL POLICY DEBATE (continued)
DEBATE DE POLÍTICA GENERAL (continuación)
ОБСУЖДЕНИЕ ВОПРОСОВ ОБЩЕЙ ПОЛИТИКИ (продолжение)
1.1 La PRESIDENTA:
Buenos días, quisiera pedir un poco de paciencia. En vista de que no tenemos el quórum previsto en el
Reglamento, suspendo la sesión que reanudaremos dentro de cinco minutos. Gracias.
1.2 Señoras y señores, declaro abierta la séptima sesión plenaria de la 30ª reunión de la Conferencia
General. La reunión de la Mesa de la Conferencia empezó con retraso en las primeras horas de la mañana y a fin
de no retrasar el debate de política general damos inicio a la sesión de intervención de oradores en plenaria. En
primer lugar, tenemos al Excmo. Sr. Louis Galea, Ministro de Educación y Cultura de Malta.
(1.1) The PRESIDENT (Translation from the Spanish):
Good morning, I should like to ask you to be patient. Since we do not have the quorum required under
the Rules of Procedure, I am suspending the meeting. It will resume in five minutes’ time. Thank you.
(1.2) Ladies and gentlemen, I declare open the seventh plenary meeting of the 30th session of the General
Conference. The meeting of the General Committee of the Conference began late, in the early hours of the
morning. In order not to delay the general policy debate we shall now embark on the list of plenary speakers. I first
give the floor to His Excellency Mr Louis Galea, the Minister of Education and Culture of Malta.
2.1 Mr GALEA (Malta):
Madam President, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to join previous speakers
in congratulating Ms Moserová on her election to preside over this General Conference. May I also pay tribute to
Mr Portella as our outgoing President; his intellectual input to this Organization has given new impetus to
UNESCO’s intellectual mission. Malta would also like to congratulate Ambassador Matsuura on his nomination
for election to the high office of Director-General. We are confident that under his direction UNESCO will start
the new millennium reinvigorated with a new sense of mission. As in the past Malta will do its best to play a
constructive and creative role.
2.2 Madam President, the major input which Malta wishes to make to this Conference will come, I hope,
when it discusses the item placed by the Director-General on our agenda concerning “Intellectual works of
universal value that have fallen into the public domain and are regarded as forming part of the common heritage
of humanity”. In fact this is the subject matter of a resolution which Malta has already tabled and which, I
understand, will be further considered by Commission IV in the coming days. The phrase “common heritage of
humanity” will immediately bring the name of Malta to the minds of many people, since it was Malta’s recently
deceased Ambassador to the United Nations, Dr Arvid Pardo, who gave a legal definition of the concept of the
common heritage, distinguishing it from other resources which could be appropriated or made subject to State
sovereignty. Today it has become an operative and fundamental principle of international law.
2.3 Here I would like to make just two points. First, I would like to express our admiration for all that
Federico Mayor has done for the enhancement of the common heritage of humanity throughout his lifetime and
especially during his years as Director-General. When it was being discussed in Malta what honorary doctorate
should be awarded to him, it was concluded that the most appropriate would have been Doctor of the
Imagination; but unfortunately the university does not grant such titles. My second point is that when Malta
proposed that the seabed be declared the first item to fall under the regime of the common heritage, this was not
because it was the most obvious item for such inclusion, but because it was very urgent to do something. The
most obvious candidate for inclusion in the common heritage is that proposed at this Conference by the outgoing
Director-General; to him I wish to pay a tribute, even though it is necessarily brief and inadequate in the present
context.
2.4 Madam President, at UNESCO, as in my own government structure, it has become traditional to
correlate and yet to separate, for practical organizational purposes, education and culture; but when UNESCO’s
Major Programme I is devoted to “Education for all throughout life” and its Major Programme III is called
“Cultural development: the heritage and creativity”, the overlap becomes obvious. Likewise, at the level of
national government, the development of life-wide as well as lifelong education has made it increasingly obvious
that the scope of education is much wider than mere schooling and that the task of education for people of all
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