Nothing new from the CD

Beatrice Fihn | Reaching Critical Will of WILPF

The Conference on Disarmament (CD) met briefly on Tuesday morning. President of the CD, Ambassador Macedo Soares of Brazil, announced that he is still in the process of consulting all delegations individually on the possibility of adopting a programme of work. Such programme of work would preferably be adopted during his presidency but if not possible, during the subsequent one. While the President didn’t have any specific progress to report on, he stated that he was pleased with the conversations he had already carried out. No other delegation took the floor.

Informal meetings
While waiting for the bilateral consultations to produce results, the informal meetings on all agenda items are continuing. Tuesday and Wednesday will consist of discussions on agenda item 1 and 2, cessation of the nuclear arms race and prevention of nuclear war and will mainly involve talks about a fissile materials cut-off treaty (FMCT). The rest of the week will be devoted to agenda items 5, 6 and 7, which includes topics like new types of weapons of mass destruction, comprehensive programme of disarmament and transparency in armaments. However, as members of civil society are not allowed to participate in any of these meetings, Reaching Critical Will is unable to report and comment on the substantive discussions taken place.

Next plenary meeting
The next plenary meeting will be held on Tuesday, 29 June at 10.00.