Book Description

The texts of Ambassador Matjila's statements and speeches below are taken from official UN documents (Minutes of meetings) available in the Dag Hammarskjöld Library and are reproduced as they appear, without the Protocol references commonly used in such circumstances and instances. They were used with the permission of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation as sought by Ambassador Matjila. As is recognised in international law, the will of the State, an international legal entity, is expressed through its representatives, physical persons occupying special positions within the State and giving a face to its organs. Thus, these interventions made by the Ambassador to express the position of the Republic of South Africa on the issues under consideration. It is indeed in his capacity of Permanent Representative of South Africa that he was called upon to make these interventions. The work is devoid of any theoretical or doctrinal claim. It is intended to be more informative. This is why it is not accompanied by doctrinal commentaries, nor, consequently, by references to scientific references. The book aspires to be exhaustive, so there was no need to limit or choose the texts that should appear here. To make it a practical and easy-to-use tool, the chronological classification by organ has been preferred to the thematic classification. In the United Nations archiving system, interventions before the Main Committees other than the First Committee are not reproduced in full. only a simple summary is offered. these summaries are also contained in this work and are recognisable by the fact that the name of the Ambassador is quoted at the beginning of the summary. the same applies to interventions made before the Economic and Social Council. The work is divided into 4 parts: the first focuses on statements made before the General Assembly, the second concern the statements before the Economic and Social Council, the third, statements before the Security Council and the last part gathers the presidential statements made during the South African presidency of the Council and the resolutions adopted by the Council after South Africa's sponsorship. It is hoped that as a coffee table book, this collection will help enrich research and discussion about African contributions to the content of multilateralism at the United Nations. The photos inserted at the end of the work show a slice of life and activity of the Ambassador during his stay in New York. While they are also in the public domain, they come from Ambassador Matjila’s private collections, unless otherwise stated in the caption of each photo.