Pakistan calls for ending discrimination in global trade

UNITED NATIONS—Pakistan has called for eliminating discrimination in international trade and the removal of legal difficulties affecting developing countries. “The existing structural imbalances in the international trade regime also need to be addressed,” Pakistani delegate Sardar Jamal Khan told the General Assembly legal committee on Monday.
Speaking in a debate on report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), he said Pakistan believes progressive modernisation and harmonisation of the law would significantly contribute to the economic cooperation among all states. But that cooperation must be based on the principles of equality, equity, common interest and respect for the rule of law.
Sardar Jamal said Pakistan supported key objectives of the UNCITRAL draft legislative guide on secured transactions, including promotion of secured credit. However, it saw an inherent imbalance in promotion and enforcement of a creditor’s rights in a predictable and efficient manner as compared to the rights of other parties. UNCITRAL’s recommendations had adequately covered priority of a security right as against the rights of competing claims, the Pakistani delegate said. The recommendations would provide the basis for an efficient and predictable regime to determine the priority of a security right as against competing claims. They would facilitate transactions by which a grantor could create more than one security right.
He supported a contractual obligation as a basis for creation of a security right. He expressed appreciation for the progress the Commission had made in the area of insolvency law, and said the noteworthy agreement reached in its working group on the topic provided a sound basis for the unification of insolvency law.
He also commended the work done by the Commission in the preparation of the indicators of commercial fraud, as being of immense educational and preventative value. Pakistan Monday rejected an Indian claim that Kashmir is a part of India, saying United Nations resolutions have recognized the Himalayan state as disputed territory. “Jammu and Kashmir is not ‘an integral part’ of India, nor has it ever been,” Pakistani delegate Ahmad Raza Kasuri told the General Assembly’s Fourth Committee, which deals with decolonisation questions. Kasuri was exercising his right of reply to an earlier statement by Indian delegate Rameshwar Oraon claiming Kashmir to be a part of India, and insisting that Pakistan’s call for self-determination for the Kashmiri people was “unwarranted and completely irrelevant” to the Committee’s work. Pakistan, he asserted, would have been better served by focusing on giving the right of self-determination and democracy to its own people. Bilateral issues should be discussed bilaterally, not in multilateral forums, the Indian delegate added.
In his response, the Pakistani delegate said that the denial of self-determination of the people of Jammu and Kashmir was most relevant to the decolonization discussion. Ahmad Raza Kasuri pointed out that numerous UN Security Council and United Nations resolutions stated that the territory’s future would be determined by a referendum.—APP