Second Committee: challenges of global financial integration stressed.

• Position: UN General Assembly Second Committee - General Assembly 51

The General Assembly, acting on the recommendation of the Economic and Social Council, on 16 December adopted the United Nations Declaration against Corruption and Bribery in International Commercial Transactions (resolution 51/191). Under the Declaration, States pledge to deny the tax deductibility of bribes paid by any private or public corporation or individual of a Member State to any public official or elected representative of another country. They also pledge to criminalize bribery of foreign public officials, and agree that any action they take to establish jurisdiction over acts of bribery of foreign public officials in international commercial transactions should be consistent with the international legal principles regarding the extraterritorial application of a State's law.

On the recommendation of its Second Committee (Economic and Financial), the Assembly also endorsed the outcome of the ninth session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD IX), which took place in Midrand, South Africa, in May 1996 (51/167). In the three-part text, the Assembly stressed there was an "urgent need" to continue trade liberalization, including through a substantial reduction of tariff and other barriers to trade. In emphasizing the importance of strengthening the international trading system, it said the World Trade Organization provided the framework for an open, rule-based, equitable and non-discriminatory multilateral trading system.

In all, the General Assembly adopted 28 proposals of the Second Committee and the Economic and Social Council, acting on a wide-range of economic and financial issues, including the external debt problem of developing countries, global financial integration, international trade, environment and sustainable development, and follow-up to major world conferences.

On macroeconomic policy, the Assembly (51/166) expressed concern that some developing countries "have become more vulnerable, in the course of liberalizing their external economic and financial regimes, to the volatile fluctuations of private capital flows in international financial markets". Global financial integration should constitute an important element of the dialogue between the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions, and strengthened cooperation between them required an integrated approach. (The issue is expected to receive attention at the Economic and Social Council's high-level segment later this year when...