28 June 2010 - With the Security Council visiting Kabul, media attention shifted to the call to de-list names from the so-called “1267 blacklist.” Chair of the 1267 committee, Austrian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Thomas Mayr-Harting, explained the procedures of reviewing the list at a closing press conference on 24 June.

Below are extracts of responses by Ambassador Thomas Mayr-Harting to media questions on the de-listing process, clearly setting out the procedures as well as the purpose of the list:

“I will briefly explain the procedures under which the Committee operates. The Committee is in the process of conducting a review of all the entries on the list, of all people and all entities linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. This is a process that is not linked to present-day developments. It is a process that the Security Council asked the Committee to conduct in a decision at the end of 2008, and this is the process that we are now going through. …

“It (the Committee) operates the review on a case-by-case basis. The Committee does not treat categories of people or groups of people. It deals with individual cases. And in this process, especially when it comes to the de-listing of people, the Committee bases itself on the following guiding principles: people who are to be delisted have to convincingly renounce violence; they have to lay down arms; have broken all links with al Qaeda; and fully accepted, in the cases of Taliban, the Afghan Constitution. …

“For any de-listing to happen this requires the censuses of all 15 members of the Security Council. And it is evidently very important to have exact information that these criteria have been fulfilled, and in this instance of course the information that can be provided by the Government of Afghanistan is of paramount importance. …

“There is no automaticity in this process. In every case in which a de-listing is demanded, by the Afghan Government or by another Member State of the United Nations, the Security Council committee has to evaluate the information before it. It is evident that in this process the information that the country of residence and nationality can provide in these cases, Afghanistan, is of very great importance. So the information we can get from the Afghan authorities is of great importance in this context. ...

“And at the end, of course, this information will be evaluated by each and every of the 15 members of the Security Council. So each of the 15 members has to be convinced by this information, because as I already explained the de-listing can only take place if there is consensus amongst the 15 members. …

“Let me explain the purpose of the list. It is not of a punitive nature. The purpose of the list is of a preventive nature. And the point of that kind of list is, and its nature, is that it has to be kept up to date. And it has to reflect the actual threat. That means that in cases where the need for this preventive action is no longer there, entities or people can be taken off the list. On the other hand where there is a new threat, new entries should be made to the list. It should always be seen in this balance. Names which are no longer necessary can be taken off and entries which are necessary but are not yet on the list should be put on.”