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Negotiations of draft report

Beatrice Fihn | Reaching Critical Will of WILPF

The Conference on Disarmament (CD) met twice on Thursday, 1 September to discuss the draft annual report of the CD to the UN General Assembly. During the morning session, statements were delivered by Cuba, the United States, India, South Africa, Australia,Canada, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Group of 21 (G21), Algeria, Tunisia, Mongolia, Iran, Republic of Korea, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). During the afternoon session, a concrete debate took place on each paragraph of the draft report.

Highlights

  • CD President, Ambassador Reyes Rodriguez of Cuba, carried out a paragraph-by-paragraph discussion on the draft annual reportof the CD to the UN General Assembly and announced he would circulate a second draft by Tuesday, 6 September.
  • The delegations of Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile argued that the draft report should include a more accurate description of the discussions on revitalization of the CD that took place during the year.
  • US Ambassador Laura Kennedy read out a brief statement by the P5 on their meeting in Geneva on renewed efforts for negotiating a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT).
  • Ms. Anderson of Canada announced that her delegation had resumed its participation in the CD following the boycott during the presidency of the DPRK.
  • The representative of DPRK highlighted that his delegation assumed the Presidency in line with the rules of procedure and called Canada’s action “ill-minded” and “bent on destroying the CD”. 
  • The CD bid farewell to Ambassador Rao of India and welcomed Ambassador Minty of South Africa.

The Canadian boycott during the presidency of DPRK
Ms. Kelly Anderson announced that the Canadian delegation had resumed its participation in the CD following the boycott during the presidency of the DPRK. She argued that her “government felt strongly, that a known proliferator of weapons of mass destruction that was in violation of its nonproliferation obligation, could not credibly preside over the world’s single multilateral disarmament negotiation forum.” She also raised concerns about the failure of the DPRK to meet its non-proliferation commitments and resume the six-party talks. Since the presidency of the DPRK was now over, Ms. Anderson stated that Canada was ready to resume its work in the CD.

The delegation of DPRK did not appreciate the comments made by Canada, and stated that it had assumed the presidency in line with the existing rules of procedure. Mr. Ri Jang Gon called Canada’s action “ill-minded” and pointed out that no other delegation had joined the boycott. He argued that CD members had seemed comfortable with the presidency of the DPRK and that the boycott was not regarded as an action towards one country, but towards all CD member states. He stated that Canada’s boycott had been “bent on destroying the CD” and said, “Civilized nations with dedication towards disarmament and furthermore the nuclear free world, cannot act like that, like Canada.” Mr. Gon also took the opportunity to point out that during its presidency, the DPRK had discussed membership expansion and argued that perhaps the CD should exchange Canada’s place in the CD for one of those countries patiently waiting to become members, as “the Conference would be very comfortable without Canada.”

Negotiating the draft final report
Despite attempts by CD President Ambassador Reyes Rodriguez to keep the discussion focused on the language of the draft report, a large part of the morning session was devoted to general statements on core issues, statements by new and departing ambassadors, and continued comments on the reason for the deadlock in the CD. However, the delegations of Colombia, Chile, Mexico, and Argentina made some concrete suggestions with regards to the language in paragraphs concerning the debate on revitalization of the CD.

Ambassador Arrango of Colombia argued that it was important to include the exercises carried out to reflect on the CD, such as the questionnaire during her presidency. Ambassador Oyarce of Chile agreed and wanted the report to include a reflection of the messages and suggestions for revitalizing of the CD that had been raised throughout the year. Ms. Fogante of Argentina and Ms. Jaquez of Mexico both believed that section II.G of the draft report should include more substantive elements, such as the plenary meetings on revitalization convened during the presidency of Chile and the similar meetings carried out during the presidency of Colombia.

The delegation of Iran argued that the report should be factual, procedural, and only consist of a reflection of the activities within the CD.

After the initial general debate, Ambassador Reyes Rodriguez asked delegations to focus on a paragraph-by-paragraph discussion, consisting of only concrete proposals to add, amend, or delete elements of the language in the report. The whole afternoon session was devoted to this exercise. While many paragraphs seemed to have the approval of all delegations, certain sections of the report initiated a debate that showed significant differences between delegations.

For example, the delegation of Morocco asked paragraph 5 to be amended to only include a reference to the verbatim records of the UN Secretary-General’s statement to the CD, rather than including a selective part on his support for a programme of work in line withCD/1864. The delegations of India, Germany, and Ireland voiced support for the original drafting but attempted to come up with a compromise that would still allow the paragraph to highlight the procedural relevance of adopting a programme of work.

The US delegation drew attention to paragraph 7, which attempts to summarize the statements made by dignitaries to the CD during the year. The US delegation raised concerns that some of the summarized points did not apply to Ms. Hillary Clinton’s statement and asked for modifications to be made to reflect this. Several proposals on how to modify the language were made by the delegations of Mexico, Australia, Japan, Pakistan, and the CD President.

Another section of the draft report that caused debate was paragraphs 8-11, which include several references to the high-level meeting on 24 September 2010 and subsequent work around the issue of revitalization of the CD. Several delegations, such as Iran, Algeria, Morocco, and Pakistan, wanted these paragraphs to only deal with activities in the CD, rather than highlighting activities outside the CD.  Many delegations also wished for these paragraphs, or parts of the paragraphs to be moved to section II.G of the report, which deals with “Improved and effective functioning of the Conference”, rather than remain in section II.A on “Organization of the work of the Conference”.  The delegations of Colombia, Mexico, Algeria, Poland, and Iran made suggestions for amendments of these paragraphs.

There was certain disagreement on paragraph 19, which read “No drafts on the establishment of a programme of work were circulated in the 2011 session.” The Algerian delegation wished for it to simply say that the CD was not able to adopt a programme of work during its 2011 session, and the Mexican representative suggested that it could be amended to reflect the fact that since no drafts were circulated, the CD was not able to adopt or implement a programme of work. While proposing that the entire paragraph should be deleted, the Pakistani delegation stated it could go along with the Algerian suggestion. The Moroccan delegation also wished for it to be deleted, while the representative of Nigeria wanted it to be retained, whilst reflecting more accurately the efforts that had taken place during the year.

Under section III of the report, “Substantive work of the Conference”, the Mexican delegation stated that paragraph 28-30 were a repetition of previous paragraphs in section II, “Organization of the work of the Conference”. Ms. Jaquez said that it was of importance that the report avoided giving the impression that the CD is carrying out substantive work when it is actually not doing any work at all.

Ambassador Reyes Rodriguez asked all delegations to submit its amendments in writing and announced that he would circulate a new draft for discussion on Tuesday at the next plenary meeting.

Next plenary meeting
The next meeting will be held in on Tuesday, 6 September at 10:00 am.