On 23 October 1991, in Paris, Cambodia and eighteen states signed the Agreements on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict. The Final Act, the settlement treaty, the sovereignty agreement and the reconstruction declaration closed the Paris Conference, held in two sessions: 30 July–30 August 1989 and 21–23 October 1991. The co-presidents were Roland Dumas and Ali Alatas.

At the opening of the final meeting François Mitterrand, Prince Norodom Sihanouk and Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar spoke. Cambodia was represented by the Supreme National Council, twelve persons, the unique legitimate authority during the transition. Sihanouk, elected president of the Council in Beijing on 17 July, signed with Hun Sen, Khieu Samphan, Son Sen and Son Sann.

The parties were Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, Canada, China, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, the USSR, the United Kingdom, the United States, Vietnam and Yugoslavia, as chair of the Non-Aligned. The authentic texts are Chinese, English, French, Khmer and Russian. Depositaries: France and Indonesia.

Article 2 invites the Security Council to establish UNTAC, with civilian and military components, under the Secretary-General. Article 6 delegates to the United Nations the powers required; foreign affairs, defence, finance, public security and information fall under UN control, for free elections. The annexes cover the UNTAC mandate, the cease-fire, elections, the repatriation of refugees and the principles of the constitution.

The second agreement guarantees sovereignty, integrity, inviolability, neutrality and national unity. The declaration calls for reconstruction. The Five’s framework of 28 August 1990, accepted by the four Khmer parties in Jakarta on 10 September, had been confirmed by resolution 668. The Cambodian–Vietnamese war and the Third Indochina War thus close on paper.

The Security Council created UNAMIC by resolution 717, on 16 October, and backed the agreements by 718, on 31 October. UNTAC was the first post-Cold War peacekeeping mission in which the UN temporarily took over the government of a state. The signatures are definitive; the agreement entered into force the same day.

The Cambodian Information Center keeps the Final Act, the treaty with annexes, the sovereignty agreement and the reconstruction declaration, in the archive of the page 1991 Paris Peace Agreements.

Image: Christian Lambiotte / European Communities, François Mitterrand and Roland Dumas at the Strasbourg European Council, 9 December 1989, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: 1991 Paris Peace Agreements. Treaty text: 1991 Paris Peace Agreements — Cambodian Information Center.