31 July 2007

The third session of the Conference on Disarmament opened today with a brief but succinct formal plenary meeting. As there were no speakers who wished to take the floor, CD President Ambassador Streuli made a short opening statement introducing the schedule of the third session and outlining the current situation in the Conference.

With very little time remaining in this year's sessions, the CD must accept the fact that the closer it comes to a consensus, the longer and more complex the decision making process may become, not necessarily here in Geneva, but in member states' capitals, Ambassador Streuli said.

During the month-long summer recess, some representatives were on holiday, while others held consultations in capitals and the CD presidents held consultations of their own. Ambassador Streuli explained that those consultations revealed that the positions of delegations, for the time being, have not changed, and that others are still awaiting instructions over the next few days. "I am sorry not to be able to tell you more and I can only repeat that time is short," he said.

Thus the CD will continue to wait with exhaustive patience for a decision to be made on the package of documents introduced in the previous sessions--L.1, CRP.5, and the Presidential Draft Decision--which would effectively constitute a program of work for the Conference and allow the CD to move forward out of its decade-long deadlock. Ambassador Streuli announced that these documents are being reissued by the Secretariat, with minor corrections to update language referring to the second session of the CD, to make them applicable to the third session. Ambassador Streuli carefully emphasized that no substantive changes were made to the documents. Previously, Pakistan had objected to updating the documents, as it claimed this would imply that the documents were open to amendment. Today, however, no objections were heard. The documents will now be referred to as CD/2007/L.1**, CD/2007/CRP.5*, and CD/2007/CRP.6.

With these three documents, the CD has never been so close to consensus, Ambassador Streuli stated. Now, each member of the CD must evaluate what serves its security interests better: a work program, even if imperfect (and each consensus by definition is imperfect); or a Conference which will go back into lethargy and immobility for many years.

Ambassador Streuli also announced the schedule for the remainder of the third session. For the next three weeks, the CD will work according to the flexible plan established at the beginning of the session. The week of 20 August will be spent evaluating the previous the weeks of the Conference and the following three weeks, from 27 August to 14 September, will focus on the adoption of the annual report from the CD to the General Assembly.

Ambassador Streuli also sent a message of congratulations to Ambassador Sergio Duarte of Brazil for his appointment as the High Representative for Disarmament at the Under-Secretary-General level during the plenary meeting.

The next formal plenary of the Conference on Disarmament will be Tuesday, 7 August at 10:00am. During this plenary, the Director General for the Organization of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons will make a statement to the Conference, and there will be an exhibition in front of the Council chambers commemorating the tenth anniversary of the entry into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

- Katherine Harrison, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom