GROUP OF EXPERTS ON PROBLEM OF AMMUNITION AND EXPLOSIVES HOLDS THIRD AND LAST SESSION AT HEADQUARTERS
Press Release
DC/2648
GROUP OF EXPERTS ON PROBLEM OF AMMUNITION AND EXPLOSIVES HOLDS THIRD AND LAST SESSION AT HEADQUARTERS
19990611 NEW YORK, 9 June (Department for Disarmament Affairs) -- Established by the Secretary-General pursuant to operative paragraph 3 of General Assembly resolution 52/38 J on "Small Arms", the Group of Experts on the problem of Ammunition and Explosives held its third and last session from 1 to 5 June at United Nations Headquarters, at the end of which it adopted a draft report.The Group's main objective was to examine whether enhanced controls on ammunition and explosives could contribute to preventing and reducing the excessive and destabilizing accumulation and proliferation, as well as the abuse, of small arms and light weapons.
The Group consisted of eight experts participating in their personal capacities. Silvia Cucovaz de Arroche, Director of Foreign Intelligence (Argentina); Cristophe Carle, Deputy Director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research; Commandant John K. Coates of the Ordnance Directorate at the Defence Forces Headquarters (Ireland); Virginia Ezell, President of the Institute for Research on Small Arms in International Security (United States); Superintendent Stan Joubert, former Head of the Bomb Disposal Unit (South Africa); Lieutenant Colonel Peter Leskovsky from the United Nations Mine Action Assistance Programme in Croatia (Slovakia); Hansjörg Rytz, Senior Safety Scientist of Ministry of Defence (Switzerland); and Lieutenant Colonel Ilkka Tiihonen, research fellow (Finland).
The report, which will be submitted to the General Assembly at its fifty-fourth session, contains a series of recommendations on prevention measures, reduction measures and on the role and activities of the United Nations. The initiative for the establishment of the Study Group on Ammunition and Explosives emanated from the recommendations made by the 16-member Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms, which prepared the first United Nations report on the subject in 1997. The findings of the report will also be presented to the Group of Governmental Experts on Small Arms during its final session, which will be held in New York during the last week of July this year.
During its work, the Group noted the lack of clear, centralized and available information on the matter. Thirty-two countries responded to the questionnaire sent by the Group in an attempt to access first-hand information.
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