DRAFT TEXT ON BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION INTRODUCED IN DISARMAMENT COMMITTEE
Press Release
GA/DIS/3151
DRAFT TEXT ON BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION INTRODUCED IN DISARMAMENT COMMITTEE
19991022According to a draft resolution introduced this morning in the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), the General Assembly would call upon all States parties to the Biological Weapons Convention to accelerate negotiations for a protocol, including possible verification measures, to strengthen the Convention.
The 37-Power draft resolution, which was introduced by the representative of Hungary, would have the Assembly call upon all States parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction (Biological Weapons Convention) to redouble their efforts to formulate an efficient, cost-effective and practical regime and seek early resolution of the outstanding issues through renewed flexibility in order to complete the protocol on the basis of consensus at the earliest possible date.
As the Committee continued the second phase of its work on a thematic discussion of all disarmament and security issues,and the introduction and consideration of all related draft resolutions, the representative of Hungary also provided a detailed update on the ad hoc group, conducting negotiations on the protocol, which are now in their fifth year. He said that although all of the elements were now in place for concluding the work of the ad hoc group, the most difficult topics still lay ahead, including the issue of compliance measures and questions concerning the scope of visits as part of the procedures to follow up the declarations of States parties.
The Committee also heard a statement by the United Nations Legal Counsel, Hans Corell, concerning a request made by the Director-General of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), to address the Committee from the podium instead of from the floor.
The OPCW is the complex verification mechanism of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (Chemical Weapons Convention). On 19 October, the Director-General of the OPCW circulated his statement in the Committee.
The Committee will meet again at 10 a.m. Monday, 25 October,to continue its thematic discussion, as well as introduction and consideration of draft texts.
Committee Work Programme
The First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) met this morning to continue its thematic discussion, as well as introduction and consideration of all disarmament and security-related draft resolutions.
The current phase will extend through Friday, 29 October. It combines the thematic discussion with consideration of drafts, as part of a reform to streamline the Committee's work. The third and final stage of its work, which is scheduled to begin on Monday, 1 November, will be action on all disarmament draft resolutions.
It had before it, as draft resolutions before the Committee, a 37-Power text on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction (Biological Weapons Convention) (not yet issued).
By its terms, the General Assembly would call upon all States parties to accelerate the negotiations for a protocol, including possible verification measures, to strengthen the Convention, and to redouble their efforts within the ad hoc group to formulate an efficient, cost-effective and practical regime and seek early resolution of the outstanding issues through renewed flexibility in order to complete the protocol on the basis of consensus at the earliest possible date.
In that context, the Assembly would welcome the progress achieved so far negotiating a protocol to strengthen the Convention and would reaffirm the decision of the fourth review conference, urging the conclusion of the negotiations by the ad hoc group as soon as possible before the commencement of the fifth review conference and to submit its report, which shall be adopted by consensus, to the States parties to be considered at a special conference.
The Assembly would also reaffirm the call on all signatory States that had not yet ratified the Convention to do so without delay. It would also call upon those States that had not yet signed the Convention to become parties to it at an early date, thus contributing to the achievement of universal adherence, duly noting the forthcoming anniversary of the twenty-fifth year of its entry into force.
The draft resolution is sponsored by Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Costa Rica, Côte dIvoire, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Moldova, Romania, San Marino, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States.
Statements
HANS CORELL, United Nations Legal Counsel, called attention to the action taken by the Secretariat regarding a request by the Director-General of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to deliver his statement to the First Committee from the podium, as opposed to the floor. In response to inquiries received by the Office of Legal Affairs, the Legal Counsel had provided advice both to the Secretary and to the Chairman of the First Committee.
In each case, he said, the Legal Counsel had confirmed that the participation of observers was governed by the practice of the Main Committees. Such practice applied also to those who had been invited by the Committee. Neither Member States nor observers spoke from the podium. The podium was reserved for the Chairman, the Secretary and the Rapporteur of the Committee, as well as the representative of the Secretary-General and other United Nations officials.
He added that it would be for the Member States of the First Committee to consider and take a decision on the request by the Director-General of the OPCW. If the OPCW wished to further pursue that request, it would be for the OPCW to raise the matter with interested Member Sates and/or the Chairman, not the Secretariat. This was not a matter to be decided by the Secretariat, nor, in the absence of a consensus, could it be decided by the Chairman, who remained under the authority of the Committee.
TIBOR TOTH (Hungary) said that negotiations for the protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention were now coming to the end of their fifth year. Those negotiations were the culmination of a process that had begun many years earlier. Both the 1986 and 1991 review conferences of the Convention had instituted procedures aimed at confidence building among States parties. At the third review conference in 1991 the States parties approved a study of possible verification measures by scientific experts, the VEREX process. That study resulted in the formation of the ad hoc group.
Since 1995 the work of the ad hoc group had moved through three stages. The preliminary work built upon the VEREX negotiations and final report to identify elements of a protocol. A rolling text of the draft protocol was followed by the inclusion of detailed provisions and then to negotiations moving to a final framework for the protocol and the details of key elements.
In the middle phase of negotiations, he said, delegations had fully debated many of the contentions issues with a view to developing language in the protocol that would serve the needs of all States parties. Nonetheless, alternative versions of the text proliferated. By the end of 1998 the text contained nearly 3,200 pairs of square brackets.
Negotiations in the last four months of this year, he went on, had made considerable progress towards the common goal of a protocol. Within the rolling text there had been a reduction in the alternative language, indicating that the necessary elements were already within the rolling text. Within this text there had been a marked improvement in the status of certain key articles. The investigation elements of the protocol were progressing at a good pace.
Many obstacles still confronted the ad hoc group, he said. Among those was the issue of compliance measures and the actual visits pack that was still subject to some fundamental differences over its scope. Also, with regard to the investigation procedures, the decision-making process had yet to be resolved. Some of those obstacles were more fundamental than others, but while all the elements necessary for completing the work of the ad hoc group were now in place, the most difficult topics lay ahead. The majority of those topics were political in nature and thus required the most serious engagement of all the parties.
Mr. TOTH (Hungary) then introduced the draft resolution on the Biological Weapons Convention. He said he hoped the draft text would be co-sponsored by a large number of States parties to the Convention and receive the traditional consensus support. * *** *