ANTARCTIC TREATY: ITALY REQUESTS DIPLOMATIC NOTE CONFIRMING

UNCLAS ROME 001052

SIPDIS

OES/OA - Rob Hughes

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: TPHY SENV AORC KSCA IT
SUBJECT: ANTARCTIC TREATY: ITALY REQUESTS DIPLOMATIC NOTE CONFIRMING
OFFICIAL STATUS OF MADRID ATCM REPORT

Ref: State 74080


1. Summary and action request. Italian Foreign Ministry officials
working on Antarctic issues are pushing for the measure creating the
Antarctic Treaty Secretariat (Measure 1) to be approved, which can
be done without Parliamentary review. Progress has been blocked by
their need for an official "original" copy of Measure 1. They
request a U.S. diplomatic note explaining that the Final Report for
the relevant meeting should be considered the certified copy. End
summary. Action request: Post seeks the Department's approval to
transmit a diplomatic note to Italy containing the operative text
included in paragraph 6 below (or alternate text provided by the
Department).


2. On July 17, SCICOUNS delivered reftel points to Counselor
Francesco Capponi, Ambassador Arduino Fornara, and Counselor Adriano
Tedeschi of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). Capponi follows
Antarctic issues for the MFA's Asia, Oceania, Pacific, and Antarctic
Affairs Directorate. Fornara represents Italy in Antarctic Treaty
Consultative Meetings (ATCMs). Tedeschi is an expert in the MFA's
legal office.


3. Amb. Fornara expressed hope that ATCM Measure 1 (2003) would be
approved in time for the April 2009 ATCM in Baltimore. Couns.
Capponi explained that Measure 1 does not need to be approved by the
Italian Parliament. Instead, it can be approved by a legislative
decree, which is signed by President Napolitano. He also noted that
Italy already is paying its treaty contributions regularly, and so
the approval will not entail additional funding.


4. Capponi and Tedeschi explained that Italian legal experts had
been concerned about the immunity provisions of ATCM Measure 1.
They had obtained clarification from the Argentine Government (which
has been pushing the MFA to obtain Italy's approval of Measure 1)
that the immunity provisions are only with relation to the
Secretariat's status in Argentina, and do not apply to other
countries. That freed the issue to move forward in the MFA's review
process, but the process then foundered on the MFA's need for an
"original" copy of Measure 1.


5. Capponi had obtained from the Argentine Embassy in Rome a
diplomatic note containing an excerpt from a diplomatic note which
the Argentine Embassy in Washington had received from the State
Department, explaining that the U.S. could not provide a certified
copy of Measure 1, and that the Final Reports of ATCM meetings would
be considered the certified copies of the measures. Tedeschi said
that the text of that note would be sufficient to allow the MFA to
consider the Final Report the original copy, if the MFA received
that information via diplomatic note directly from the U.S.
(Capponi said he had provided to Tedeschi earlier the original copy
of the report, which he had located in the MFA's archives.)


6. If the Department approves, Post proposes to send to the MFA a
diplomatic note containing the following operative text. It is
drawn verbatim from the Argentine diplomatic note quoting the U.S.
diplomatic note, with a few changes in the final sentence (e.g., the
substitution of "Italy" for "Argentina," and "Italian" for
"Argentine"). Begin proposed text:

"Unfortunately, the U.S. is not in a position to provide a certified
copy of the measure requested (Measure 1 adopted at the 26th
Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting held at Madrid June 9-20,
2003). This is so because the countries which host each Antarctic
treaty Consultative Meeting (in the case of the 26th meeting, it was
Spain),being the custodians of the official documents of those
meetings, are the only entities that can create certified copies of
the documents produced at the meeting. These documents are usually
printed in a "Final Report" of each meeting, copies of which are
issued to each Antarctic treaty party. The Final Reports would be
considered the certified copies of the measures and decisions that
were adopted at the meetings. Presumably such a Final Report
already was issued to Italy, but it should be possible for the
Government of Italy to obtain another copy of the Final Report for
the 26th meeting if the original cannot be located."


7. Please advise if Post is authorized to send a diplomatic note to
Italy containing this or other text addressing this issue.

Crawford