PRESS CONFERENCE BY AUSTRALIA
Press Briefing
PRESS CONFERENCE BY AUSTRALIA
19960911
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
The international community has established an international norm guaranteeing that there would never again be nuclear explosions, the Permanent Representative of Australia to the United Nations, Richard Butler, told a Headquarters press conference yesterday.
Mr. Butler said the General Assembly's adoption yesterday afternoon, 10 September, by an overwhelming majority, of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, identical to the draft text negotiated recently in Geneva, demonstrated the commitment of States to the end of nuclear explosions, for all time and in all environs. "The Treaty", Ambassador Butler said, "will ensure the end of nuclear explosions and contribute to future work on the reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons."
A correspondent, stating that India's veto against the draft text negotiated by the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva had barred it from being transmitted directly to New York, asked if India's remaining objections to the Treaty meant that it was "dead in the water". Mr. Butler said that today's vote in the General Assembly demonstrated the international community's unwillingness to accept the veto cast in Geneva and its decision to refer it to the General Assembly.
Asked about the remaining differences between India and Pakistan, he said that there were clearly differences that needed to be resolved. However, those difference did not surface because of Treaty negotiations. They were underlying problems that remained to be settled. All hoped that the differences could be resolved so that India, Pakistan and other countries could join the Treaty before it entered into force.
A correspondent asked if the Treaty's provision that the 44 countries identified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as States having nuclear capabilities must ratify the Treaty before it could enter into force - - which included both India and Pakistan -- meant that the Treaty was doomed. Ambassador Butler said that on the contrary, today was the beginning of a process and not the end; a process of indisputable importance. Today, the international community established the international norm that there would be no nuclear explosions. Now, a structure of international law must be developed to support that norm. Political and diplomatic conversations must begin with the those who still had difficulties with that norm. But, indisputably, the international agreement of today made it much more difficult for any country to violate that norm.
Butler Press Conference - 2 - 11 September 1996
A correspondent asked whether India might challenge the Treaty at the International Court of Justice. Having stated that its provision listing States that must join before it could enter into force was contrary to international law, Mr. Butler said that, clearly, very many States did not agree that Treaty provisions were contrary to international law.
What was the mood in the room after the Assembly adopted the Treaty? a correspondent asked. "There was a mood of jubilation", Mr. Butler said. "There was a feeling in the room that history was being created."
Asked how the Treaty would support nuclear disarmament, he said that events over the past year, culminating into today's action, demonstrated that nuclear-weapon States could safely continue to reduce nuclear weapons to zero. When the fifty-first General Assembly session begins next week, nuclear disarmament would be a live issue at the centre of the agenda.
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