We use Google Analytics to learn more about who is reading the resources on our website. Please read Google Analytics privacy policy for further information. Close

logo_reaching-critical-will

6 February 2004

Rhianna Tyson, Project Associate

This week, Spain, Romania and Italy delivered statements to the CD. 

All statements can be found at: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/speeches04/index.html

All press releases from UNOG can be found at: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/press04/pressindex.html

All CD Advisories are archived at: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/speeches04/advisories.html

Ambassador Costea of Romania discussed the results of the Reay Group Workshop that took place in Bucharest this week. This Romanian initiative addressed “Progress in meeting the aims of the Ottawa Convention in South Eastern Europe,” and discussed challenges to reaching the goals of the Convention, including victim assistance, stockpile destruction, psychological and social support, economic reintegration, and mobilization of resources. In addition to the Reay Group- Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro, and Slovenia, representatives of Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands Qatar Sweden, Thailand, the European Commission, UNDP, UNMAS, and several NGOs, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, also attended the workshop. 

Romania circulated the workshop Chair's summary as an official document of the Conference.

Italy’s Ambassador Carlo Trezza once again broached the “new threats and challenges faced by the international community,” as “out of box” items that he hopes will be addressed by the CD. While reaffirming the A5 proposal as “the basis for our deliberations,” he argued that the incorporation of these “new issues” into the agenda “would facilitate” a greater “acceptance of a program of work.” After all, he maintained, even the original sponsors of the A5 proposal believe that their draft agenda “has an evolutionary character” as demonstrated by “the flexibility shown on August 7 last year by China and Russia,” when they offered a revised PAROS mandate. 

(Read China’s Ambassador Hu Xiaodi’s statement on the revised PAROS mandate here:http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/speeches03/7Aug.pdf
Read Russia’s statement here: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd//speeches03/31JulRuss.PDF
Read the revised working paper on PAROS submitted by Russia and China here:http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/speeches03/PAROSwp.htm
Read the August 7, 2003 RCW CD Advisory here: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/alerts.html#third.)

Citing the words of the 2003 outgoing President Ambassador Inoguchi, the four “core issues” of the CD were FMCT, PAROS, Nuclear Disarmament and Negative Security Assurances (NSAs). He urged that the Conference prioritize them according to the varying “degree of support” given to each issue by different CD members. Ambassador Trezza also reminded the Conference to “consider the main developments outside the CD…in particular to the NPT review process which is entering its final stage,” and urged “avoiding duplications and contradictions” that would arise out of that process. 

Spain, too, stressed the evolutionary nature of the A5 proposal, which should reflect the CD’s ability to adapt to changes taking place in the world. New issues, according to Ambassador Miranda, should not replace “traditional” items on the CD’s agenda, which continue to be relevant in 2004. Like Ambassador Trezza, the Spanish representative underscored the intrinsic link between the CD and the NPT process.

Without doubt, any agenda set forth to an international body must assume a degree of flexibility in order to adapt to the changing environment. However, while terrorism and WMD proliferation in the hands of "non-state actors" is indeed a problem that must be addressed effectively, the "old" problems with which the world has grappled since 1945 have not lessened in their urgency. In fact, nuclear disarmament has probably never been a more pressing goal than it is today. Nuclear disarmament is now facing the "new" challenge of being eclipsed by an unbalanced prioritization of terrorism on the world's security agenda. To concur with the good ambassador from Spain, the "traditional" problem of nuclear arms has never been more relevant. 

With the Third NPT PrepCom fast approaching, and the stakes of the 2005 Review Conference rising each year, the members of the CD must act now in order to demonstrate the validity and dynamism of the international disarmament regime. For the sake of the NPT, the CD, and the international disarmament regime as a whole, CD members must re-assert the primacy of addressing, once and for all, the nuclear threat.