Last August 5 the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization (“C-24”) adopted by consensus a new resolution that reiterates the call to the United Kingdom and Argentina to resume negotiations to find, as soon as possible, a peaceful and definitive solution to the sovereignty controversy over the Malvinas, South Georgia, and South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime spaces.
The resolution was co-sponsored by all the Latin American countries that are members of the Special Committee: Chile, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Year after year, since 1983, the Special Committee calls on Argentina and the United Kingdom to resume negotiations in accordance with General Assembly resolution 2065 (XX) and subsequent resolutions on the Question of the Malvinas Islands.
Upon learning of the decision of the international organization, Foreign Minister Felipe Solá assured that “the recovery of the full exercise of sovereignty over the Malvinas constitutes a State policy and a national sentiment of the Argentine people”.
“The UN Committee on Decolonization clearly recognizes that there is a sovereignty dispute and calls for the United Kingdom and Argentina to dialogue, and our country reiterates once again its permanent willingness to negotiate”, said Solá.
For his part, the Secretary of the Malvinas, Antarctica and the South Atlantic of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Daniel Filmus, highlighted the “need to resume a substantive dialogue on the sovereignty dispute” and urged the United Kingdom “to comply with the duty imposed by the International Law to peacefully resolve this dispute and put an end to a colonial situation, anachronistic in the 21st century”.
In addition, he pointed out that “the definitive approval, unanimously, in the National Congress of the bill creating the National Council of Affairs relative to the Malvinas represents a historic step towards the consolidation of Argentine sovereignty over the Islands. It was conceived as a plural instance with the objective of developing and sustaining State policies in the medium and long term”.
The Special Committee on Decolonization, created in 1961 as a subsidiary organ of the United Nations General Assembly, has the function of ensuring the application of resolution 1514 (XV) of the United Nations General Assembly and, in this framework, annually examines the seventeen colonial situations that are still pending decolonization, adopting resolutions that allow progress towards the end of colonialism.
The call of the United Nations for the resumption of negotiations between Argentina and the United Kingdom as a way to resolve the dispute is shared by various multilateral forums, such as the Organization of American States (OAS), MERCOSUR, the Group of 77 plus China, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC in the Spanish acronym) and the Ibero-American Summits, among others. However, the United Kingdom persists in its refusal to resume negotiations on this matter.
