A proposal made in 1967 by then Maltese Prime Minister Giorgio Borg Olivier to the United Nations General Assembly created such a buzz that, according to a British study of the proposal 10 years later, it spilled over into the cocktail parties.
The speaker who followed Dr Borg Olivier, the UK representative Sir Leslie Glass, referred to Dr Borg Olivier’s speech as “wise and imaginative”. But the Maltese initiative also provoked a US Congressman into making a hostile speech in the US House of Representatives.
The Maltese proposal, subsequently outlined in great detail by Dr Arvid Pardo, Malta’s Permanent Representative to the UN, concerned the resources of the seabed.
The legal and political intricacies, both onstage and offstage, over the next four decades, were detailed this evening by Prof. David Attard in a lecture entitled, “Towards an Equitable International Order: Borg Olivier’s Contribution”.
Prof Attard is Professor of International Law at the University of Malta and director of the IMO-International Maritime Law Institute. He spoke about his study at the Giorgio Borg Olivier Memorial Lecture, organized by AZAD and hosted by the Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs at the Auberge D’Aragon, Dr Borg Olivier’s office as Prime Minister.
Prof Attard said that the then British Permanent Representative to the UN, Evan Luard, in his study on the Maltese proposal wrote: “There is no doubt that the Maltese initiative… made a profound impact on the Assembly. In the delegates’ lounge, the spacious bar and smoking room where the delegates congregate between meetings, conversation tended to centre on the Maltese initiative.”
Mr Luard continued: “In the innumerable and interminable cocktail parties, representatives would ask one another how their government would react to Dr Pardo’s proposals. There was a general feeling that the UN had here become involved in a new subject, of profound importance but great complexity and fascination, which would command the attention of delegates and officials for many years to come.”
Prof. Attard said that Dr Borg Olivier’s six speeches to the UN General Assembly made fascinating reading. A recurrent theme was the need to go beyond the termination of political decolonization and to decolonize the international economic order.
In his 1967 address, he reiterated an earlier proposal to register trade in arms. He also offered Malta’s participation in UN Peace Forces and the services of the University of Malta in the field of cultural exchanges.
However, the law of the sea initiative was the most seminal proposal. Its repercussions and wide applications were still discernible today. Indeed, it changed the international maritime order and paving the legal path for international collaboration on climate change.
Those present for the lecture included President Eddie Fenech Adami, the Speaker Dr Louis Galea, ministers, Presidents Emeriti Guido deMarco and Ugo Mifsud Bonnici and personalities from the fields of law, politics and culture.
A copy of the speech is available on request on telephone 21 247515 or info@azad-malta.com.