Dan Fogarty
Advisor for Economic and Social Affairs
New York, New York
April 23, 2021
AS DELIVERED
The United States thanks the Chair, our facilitator, and our member state colleagues for our collective efforts to successfully reach consensus on this resolution. Achieving consensus is critical to the work and purpose of the Commission on Population and Development.
We must remain focused on the Commission’s duty to review the implementation of the 1994 ICPD Program of Action. The United States will continue to celebrate that Cairo was historic for the consensus achieved on so many intersections between population issues and human dignity, rights and development, including sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, which was foundational to the collective strides taken through the Beijing Platform of Action, the Millennium Development Goals, and the health-related Sustainable Development Goals, including specifically Target 5.6. There have truly been remarkable gains, but there is still so much work to do. With an evidence-based understanding of how to truly achieve concrete progress, the United States firmly recognizes and affirms that leaving no one behind ultimately depends on advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights.
With regard to the 2030 Agenda, we underscore that the 2030 Agenda is non-binding and does not create or affect rights or obligations under international law, and that its implementation is without prejudice to the independent mandates of other processes and institutions.
Further, the term “illicit financial flows” has no agreed-upon international meaning. We prefer to focus on the underlying illegal activities that produce these financial streams. Technical experts with the appropriate expertise and mandate should lead on how best to identify and combat revenue streams from illegal activities. It is not appropriate to consider illicit financial flows generically in the Commission’s work.
On the “right to development,” our views about the “right to development” are long-standing and well known. The term lacks an internationally accepted definition.
On the “right to food,” the United States supports the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living, including food, as recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In joining consensus on this resolution, the United does not recognize any change in the current state of conventional or customary international law.
In closing, thank you again, Mr. Chairman for the outstanding way in which you conducted our business this week. Thank you also to the facilitators, Ms. Cristina Popescu of Romania and Mr. Nizar Kaddouh of Lebanon, for your steady leadership and hard work through negotiations. We look forward to our full and collaborative engagement in next year’s Commission session.
Thank you.
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