Briefing of United Nations Security Council by Ambassador Román Oyarzun Marchesi, Chair of 1540 Committee

On 22 December Ambassador Román Oyarzun Marchesi briefed the United Nations Security Council on the work of the 1540 Committee in its task of overseeing the implementation of resolution 1540 (2004).  The Ambassador emphasized that the resolution is the keystone in the architecture of the non-proliferation regime intended to prevent non-State actors from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, and their means of delivery.  The relentless increase in extreme violence being perpetrated by terrorists is of grave concern, and we must be ever more vigilant in preventing such violence, including the potentially catastrophic use of weapons of mass destruction.  (The full statement is available at www.un.org/en/sc/1540/reports-and-briefings/pdf/statement.chair.sc.22dec15.pdf.)

We should at all costs prevent an attack with a WMD.  Effective implementation everywhere of the obligations of this resolution will help to prevent this.  The cost of investment now to implement resolution 1540 (2004) effectively will without doubt save far higher costs later — in humanitarian, political, and social costs, as well as in financial and material terms.

There are welcome indications of a steady increase in implementation measures being put in place by States.  But more needs to be done, and progress is uneven.  Nonetheless there are gaps in effective implementation in, for example, export controls and of regulatory steps to prevent non-State actors from funding actions that fall under the scope of the resolution, such as illicit trafficking in WMD related materials.

The Committee has just started a Comprehensive Review of the past five years of experience of implementation.  Its goal is to help States to implement the resolution by improving the Committee’s operations; making the 1540 assistance system more effective; engaging, where appropriate, international organizations and civil society.

Resolution 1540 (2004) was adopted unanimously by the Security Council, under the United Nations Charter’s Chapter VII, on 28 April 2004.  It obliges all States to refrain from providing any form of support to non-State actors attempting to develop, acquire, manufacture, possess, transport, transfer or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their means of delivery.  The resolution requires all States to establish domestic controls to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, including by establishing appropriate controls over related materials.

The 1540 Committee, a subsidiary body of the Council, reports to it on implementation of the resolution.  On 20 April 2011, the Security Council adopted resolution 1977 (2011), by which it extended the Committee’s mandate until 2021.

Further information is available at the 1540 Committee’s web site at www.un.org/en/sc/1540/.