Disarmament

A United Nations workshop on implementing United Nations Security Council resolution 1540 (2004) will be held from 8 to 10 September 2009 in San José, Costa Rica.

The twenty-first United Nations Conference on Disarmament Issues will be held in Niigata, Japan, from 26 to 28 August. Hosted by the Government of Japan and the City of Niigata, the Conference is organized by the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs through its Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific.

To mark the start of the second half of the Secretary-General’s 100-day “WMD-We Must Disarm” countdown campaign to the International Day of Peace on 21 September, the United Nations has launched a competition to find the best short film on the issue of nuclear disarmament and/or non-proliferation.

A regional workshop on implementation of Security Council resolution 1540 (2004) will be held on 23-25 June in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The workshop is jointly organized by Sri Lanka and the United States, in cooperation with the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs.

A United Nations meeting on the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects for States of the Pacific region will be held on 22 and 23 June in Sydney, Australia.

The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, through its Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific, located in Nepal, is organizing a regional seminar entitled “Enhancing International and Regional Cooperation to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate Illicit Brokering in Small Arms and Light Weapons in South Asia and Central Asia”, to be held in Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, on 17-18 June.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today launched the “WMD-WeMustDisarm” multiplatform campaign, beginning the 100-day countdown to the International Day of Peace. The Day, commemorated annually on 21 September, this year focuses on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

A training course for experts available to the United Nations Secretary-General for investigations of the alleged use of chemical, biological and toxin weapons will be held in Umeå, Sweden, from 25 May to 5 June.

The Preparatory Committee for the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons held its third session from 4 to 15 May at United Nations Headquarters in New York. This was the last of three sessions of the Preparatory Committee that will be held prior to the 2010 Review Conference.

Although the Disarmament Commission had not been able to agree on elements of a draft declaration of the 2010s as the fourth disarmament decade -- the Commission’s main task this year -- a good basis for next year’s deliberations had been achieved, Commission Chairman Andrzej Towpik (Poland) told delegates today at the closing of its 2009 substantive session.