NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT ISSUES DOMINATE FIRST COMMITTEE DEBATE, WITH DIFFERENCES OVER PACE, FORM, GOAL OF NEGOTIATIONS
Press Release
GA/DIS/3102*
NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT ISSUES DOMINATE FIRST COMMITTEE DEBATE, WITH DIFFERENCES OVER PACE, FORM, GOAL OF NEGOTIATIONS
19971211 Of 45 Disarmament Texts, 14 Concern Nuclear Weapons; Debate Multilateral, Bilateral Approaches to Nuclear DisarmamentIssues of nuclear disarmament once again dominated the debate in the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), as members sought to narrow differences over the pace, form and ultimate goal of those negotiations. Acting on the recommendations of the Committee, the General Assembly adopted 45 disarmament drafts and decisions, of which 14 concerned nuclear weapons.
The critical issue in that debate was whether to proceed on a multilateral or bilateral basis in negotiating nuclear disarmament. Many Committee members pressed for multilateral negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament, the sole multilateral negotiating forum on disarmament, with the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons within a specific time frame. Such negotiations, they said, could even be a precondition for specific progress in other disarmament areas. Others, however, including the United States and the Russian Federation, favoured a gradual, bilateral approach and, they said, any attempts to prematurely "multilateralize" that process could only complicate and retard it.
The representative of the United States told the Committee that the pace of nuclear disarmament was accelerating because the countries whose arms were directly involved had moved in "bold but practical increments". Linking all other disarmament progress to agreement on a timetable for the elimination of nuclear weapons had landed the Conference "in the grip of a linkage virus" and stalled the proven, step-by-step approach to nuclear disarmament, he added. The representative of the Russian Federation warned that insisting on such linkages would force the Conference into an approach to nuclear disarmament that was incapable of assessing the security interests of all countries.
* This press release will subsequently be incorporated into the overall Assembly highlights to be issued at the conclusion of the current segment of the fifty-second session.
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However, the representative of Myanmar, voicing the concerns expressed by a number of other speakers, said that the contention of nuclear-weapon States that a phased programme of nuclear disarmament was the exclusive domain of their bilateral negotiations was "fatally flawed and morally indefensible". The representative of India said that given the fragility of the bilateral process, nuclear disarmament efforts must be based in a framework that would lead to the ultimate goal of the elimination of those weapons.
Many members expressed concern that such divergent views had deadlocked deliberations in the 1997 substantive session of the Conference on Disarmament, and produced competing drafts in the Committee. In a statement to the Committee on 21 October, the President of the Conference attempted to allay concerns about the lack of progress by explaining that the Conference was experiencing a period of "pause and reflection" following hard-won agreements, such as the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996. Still, delegations continued to link the recent paralysis in the Conference with the impasse on the nuclear question.
By a related and controversial Committee text, the Assembly once again underlined the unanimous conclusion of the International Court of Justice in 1996 that there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control. The text elaborated on the Court's opinion by calling on all States to fulfil that obligation immediately by commencing multilateral negotiations in 1998 leading to an early conclusion of a nuclear weapons convention. In the Committee's debate, however, some members opposed the use of a selective portion of the Court's opinion in order to repeat calls for immediate multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations.
Concerning other weapons of mass destruction, the Committee approved two texts that were adopted by the Assembly. One calls for the ratification of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction. The other urges all States parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (Chemical Weapons Convention) to meet in full their Convention obligations and to support the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in its implementation activities.
In a forthright appeal to the Committee on 16 October, the Director- General of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the verification mechanism triggered by the entry into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention last April, said that unless the Russian Federation ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention by the end of October, it could be cut out of critical decisions on the inspection system. With 40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons, Russia was the largest declared possessor of those weapons, and, therefore, its presence in the Convention was essential,
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he said. The Russian Federation subsequently ratified the Convention on 5 November.
On the subject of anti-personnel landmines, the Committee's debate reflected the division over the recently concluded Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines. It was opened for signature on 3 December in Ottawa, Canada, and remains open at United Nations Headquarters. So far, 122 countries have signed. Despite overwhelming support for the Convention's humanitarian intent, critical countries, such as the United States, China, and the Russian Federation, remain outside the Convention, citing national security concerns, as well as shortcomings in the Convention itself.
Unable to strike an acceptable balance with a single landmines text, the Committee recommended and the Assembly adopted three texts, described by several speakers as "complementary" rather than "competing". One resolution dealt with support for the recently concluded Convention on a total ban, another with the 1981 Convention on the Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed To Be Excessively Injurious or To Have Indiscriminate Effects (Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons), and the third text urged the Conference on Disarmament to intensify efforts on landmines. Consensus eluded the Committee despite widespread and overlapping support by many countries for the objectives of each text.
Prior consensus on the issue of transparency in armaments dissolved during consideration of how to expand the scope of the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms, specifically whether to include weapons of mass destruction. The Register, established in 1992, is a voluntary yearly record by Member States of their weapon transactions. As a result, two transparency texts were approved by the Committee and adopted by the Assembly. By one text, Member States were asked to provide the Secretary-General with their views on the Register's further development and on transparency measures related to weapons of mass destruction. The other text reaffirmed the interrelationship between transparency in the fields of conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction.
The Committee achieved consensus on the call to convene a fourth special session of the General Assembly devoted to disarmament and the Assembly adopted the resulting resolution. During the Committee's debate, disagreement was expressed over the terms of convening the session, which the United States had said was yet one more way to focus multilateral debate on nuclear disarmament. However, once Colombia, on behalf of the draft's co-sponsors, revised the text so that the convening of the session was subject to the emergence of "consensus" on its objectives and agenda, rather than subject to "a general agreement", the United States joined in supporting the resolution.
The officers of the First Committee are: Chairman, Mothusi Nkgowe (Botswana); Vice-Chairman, Sudjadnana Parnohadiningrat (Indonesia) and Alejandro Verdier (Argentina); and Rapporteur, Milos Koterec (Slovakia).
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