The Permanent Representation to the United Nations was Malta’s first embassy after it gained independence from the British. That independence in 1964 meant that Malta was recognised by the UN and began to participate in its activities.

Fast forward to the present day, Malta is currently holding the presidency of the UN’s Security Council – the institution’s most powerful organ – for a second time in its history, with subjects like rising sea-levels and the war in Ukraine on the agenda.

Career diplomat Vanessa Frazier leads the team of delegates representing Malta at the United Nations in New York City.

She has been in New York City for just over three years, having been appointed as Malta’s permanent representative to the UN in January 2020.  It was she who was tasked with putting together the team for Malta to be on the Security Council, expanding the country’s representation from being a team of four to a team of 40.

The Security Council is just one part of the work of Malta’s Permanent Representation to the United Nations, Frazier says, sitting on a sofa in her President’s office overlooking New York’s East River, as she begins to detail the inner workings of the UN.

“The UN has been in existence for 77 years. It started with 53 countries and is now made up of 193 member states.  Each of them has their own priorities and topics they wish to put forward, like Malta itself has done,” she says.

Malta’s history within the UN is noteworthy despite the country’s size: Frazier mentions the work of Malta’s first Permanent Representative Arvid Pardo who presented a proposal to the UN General Assembly which in 1982 led to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, as one example.

Since then, she continues, there are other areas, such as LGBTQ rights, education, and the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), where Malta has leapt to the fore front.

The SDGs are especially important: everything the UN does must fall under the cap of an SDG, she explains.

“There are some which are more important and closer to our hearts and which are more in our interests than others.  We have to be very careful to follow the various processes, see what countries are proposing, look at what emerges from the UN committees, study the resolutions, and then see how we will vote,” she says.

Frazier likens the working period at the UN to being something akin to a scholastic year.

“Our year starts in September when the General Assembly is held.  Summits are usually held around this period as well because many heads of government and foreign ministers will be here, and a high-level debate week will follow,” she explains.

Throughout December and into the Christmas period, the committee work follows.  The UN has six major committees, which handle an average of around 40 resolutions each.  Frazier uses a committee – the second committee which focuses on the Financing of Sustainable Development – which she chaired last year as an illustrative example.  That committee handled 37 resolutions in that year.

“We have to make sure that we hold our national priorities in [these committees] and our work revolves around that.  Our organogram in the mission is divided by committee – our main pillars follow each committee and our experts are split by thematic subject,” she says.

This means that – unlike some other, larger missions work – there is no separation between work related to the Security Council and the General Assembly, for instance.  It’s a system which was set out by design: Frazier says she wanted to give everybody the opportunity to partake in the Security Council while Malta is on it in 2023 and 2024.

“This is a huge responsibility for Malta.  We are a small team and this is a once in a lifetime experience for a career diplomat and it’s important that we share the fun.  So I was adamant that everyone should have that experience.  This is why we are thematically organised,” she says.

The nature of these resolutions can vary.  Some may be annual or bi-annual ones which are presented for updates, others can be new ones.  Malta for instance tabled a resolution eight years ago requesting that 11 February would be recognised as the International Day for Women and Girls in Science, while last year Malta’s resolution for 24 June to be designated as the International Day for Women in Diplomacy was passed unanimously.

Then there are other resolutions which are altogether more sensitive.  Frazier cites a recent example, where Nicaragua filed a resolution on Palestine’s behalf for the UN to seek advice from the International Court of Justice on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

“Some of these are politically very sensitive, and for the EU they can potentially be very divisive as well… we don’t see eye-to-eye on Palestine anymore, for instance,” she explains. Malta in fact was one of 87 countries to vote in favour of the resolution at the General Assembly.  A number of EU countries chose to abstain, while others such as Germany and Italy voted against.

“Malta has to see where it stands – some of the resolutions require a lot of work and attention, and the devil is then in the detail.  Whilst you may be in principle in favour of a particular issue, the resolution might have a different meaning in it so one must be very careful,” Frazier says.

She cites another example: “Sometimes you have to look at the language which is inserted.  There is an annual resolution on the glorification of Nazism, a subject we are all against – but Russia put in some wording wherein the EU was going to have to vote against it, therefore giving the impression that the EU is in favour of the glorification of Nazism.”

Russia’s resolution – no doubt prompted by its justification of its war in Ukraine being to “de-nazify” the country – was ultimately adopted by the UN’s Committee on Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Issues.  Malta, like the rest of the EU, voted against it.

Frazier explains that the matters start at expert level before going up the chain to the Permanent Representatives.  “We have to have a birds-eye view of everything.  I have regular – sometimes daily – meetings with my staff so I know what’s going on.  I know our principles and our red lines… and how far then can go,” she says of her work.

In January, each committee must finalise its resolutions, after which they go to the plenary and must be re-voted by the whole UN membership. Then, enacting each resolution comes next.

“Every day is constant running around from one room to the other.  We go to the mission really to plug into the actual servers and get our updates, but we mostly work here [at the UN] where all the delegates are.  It’s very important because of the network here – you need to feel people, you can’t just do a meeting and go back.  The UN suffered a lot during Covid-19 because the system became virtual… it became very transactional, whereas you really need to feel genuineness in the person in order to ascertain whether you can, for example, reach a compromise,” Frazier says.

“It’s about feeling people and knowing where they stand and understanding the nuances different countries have.  We have some of our own nuances as well: we have issues on sexual reproductive rights because of the way our laws are.  It’s not a personal position – we cannot have certain language in certain resolutions or declarations because it’s anti-constitutional for us.  People have to understand that and how far we can go, and what language is acceptable,” she continues. 

“You don’t want to stop any funding of the World Health Organisation in underdeveloped countries just because it mentions Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in it, there has to be a way around it, and we have to make them understand us and likewise we have to do the same with other countries.  We really do live here,” she says.

There is an added layer to working on the Security Council, as Malta currently is.  This is because anything which is decided on the Security Council is immediately law, and all countries must abide by it. There isn’t any process such as from the General Assembly where a law has to then be transposed.

“We could have had a meeting at the Council of Europe for instance with the same countries around the table and what they say at the Security Council will be different, because every word has weight in there. Any decision or outcome is immediately imposed as law on everybody,” she explains.

Besides representing one of the UN’s smallest countries, Frazier is also something of a minority in the sense that she is one of less than 50 female Permanent Representatives out of the 193 at the UN.

Asked whether she hopes that her post and the prominence that it has brought can inspire more girls to take up a career in diplomacy, Frazier says that it’s a topic close to her heart and that she has been working at the UN to make it more family-friendly and easier for women to stay in the career.

“We are a very close knit group – I was the person who organised [the female Permanent Representatives] here. We set up a WhatsApp group to support each other during Covid-19, and now we’ve become even more organised and hold regular meetings together and support each other’s initiatives when our national interests allow it,” she says.

She says that they also hold frequent meetings with the leadership at the UN for the creation of a more family-friendly environment.  Permanent Representatives, she says, do have quite a lot of support but it is younger diplomats who are lost along the way.

“At any intake, we have a 50-50 split between men and women but along the way we lose more women due to family issues, having to travel from posting to posting, and so on… it’s becoming less difficult, but it’s still tough” she says.

“It’s a very important subject to me though and whenever I’m asked to speak at schools, I always do as if I feel like I can inspire young girls then that’s something I want to do,” she concludes.