United Nations First Committee
UN First Committee, Sombre and Divided, November 1, 2005
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By Rebecca Johnson
The 60th session of the UN First Committee (Disarmament and International
Security), chaired by Ambassador Choi Young-Jin of South Korea, closed
on November 1, 2005 after adopting some 60 resolutions and decisions (see
voting summary below).
Summary
Taking place soon after the failure of both the NPT Review Conference
and World Summit Outcome, at a time when the UN-related disarmament machinery
such as the Conference on Disarmament (CD) and Disarmament Commission
(UNDC) continue to be paralysed by the obstructive actions of a tiny minority
of the more heavily-armed states, the First Committee was serious and
subdued. A number of resolutions and one decision sent important signals
on small arms and light weapons (SALW) in advance of the 2006 conference
to review the Programme of Action, highlighting issues such as the marking
and tracing of SALW, ammunition stockpiles, and the humanitarian and development
impact of illicit manufacture, transfer and accumulation of such weapons.
Year by year the votes in favour of the 1997 Mine Ban (Ottawa) Treaty
are slowly climbing up, too, and MANPADS are now more firmly on the agenda,
with adoption of another consensus resolution.
Inevitably, perhaps, the growing importance and pressure to deal with
a range of issues relating to all kinds of conventional weapons have resulted
in more contested votes. Though there was some dismay when consensus was
broken for the first time on OP2 of the principal general SALW resolution,
which called on all states to "implement the International Instrument
to Enable States to Identify and Trace, in a Timely and Reliable Manner,
Illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons", the abstentions were intended to
register protest that this instrument had not been made legally binding.
The whole resolution, co-sponsored for some years by Japan, Colombia and
South Africa was again adopted without a vote.
By contrast, the major political struggle relating to nuclear disarmament
was not over the substance of any of the resolutions, but centred on the
politics of Iran's attempt to divert attention from international pressure
over its uranium enrichment programme and sponsor a new
resolution calling for implementation of the commitments undertaken by
the nuclear weapon states at the 1995 and 2000 NPT review conferences.
Despite persuasion from concerned friends (and foes) to withdraw this
resolution, Iran instead revised it three times to remove any excuse that
NAM states might have used to avoid supporting it. The revisions removed
the resolution's principal operative component, which would have had the
United Nations take responsibility for overseeing the implementation of
a treaty (the NPT) to which not all UN member states have chosen to accede,
and added much stronger language on the Middle East. Even with these revisions,
the high risk strategy nearly backfired. A separate vote on the 1995 Resolution
on the Middle East, understood to have been the price of a positive vote
(rather than an abstention) from a number of Arab states, only just squeaked
through by 58-54-22. The whole resolution was then adopted by 70-52-22,
closer than Iran had expected.
Perhaps because some states wanted to underscore that opposition to the
Iranian resolution should not be construed as any kind of vote against
nuclear disarmament, both the traditional Japanese and the New Agenda
nuclear disarmament resolutions augmented their support, receiving 166
and 144 votes in favour respectively. Japan and the NAC also buried their
differences by voting in favour of each other's resolutions, though with
some stated reservations.
Amidst a welter of necessary but not very exciting resolutions supporting
various regional and international agreements and bodies working on disarmament
and security issues, most of which were adopted without a vote (though
not necessarily without controversy), only a few resolutions stood out.
In addition to the traditional resolution sponsored by Egypt and Sri
Lanka on 'Prevention
of an Arms Race in Outer Space', which received 160 votes in favour,
a new resolution from Russia was also overwhelmingly adopted, by 158 votes.
Titled "Transparency
and confidence-building measures in outer space activities", Russia's
first-time resolution takes a first step towards consideration of further
developing transparency and confidence-building measures to enhance international
peace and security and promote international cooperation with regard to
outer space activities. In both cases, only the United States voted against,
while Israel abstained.
Whether the issue under consideration was nuclear or conventional weapons,
or radiological terrorism, environmental norms or the Hague Code of Conduct,
the First Committee approached its work with serious intent (for the most
part). Building on the carefully crafted reforms piloted through last
year by Mexico's Ambassador Luis Alfredo de Alba, Ambassador Choi Young-Jin
maximised the time and resources for work on resolutions and focussed
debates on a wide range of pertinent disarmament and security issues.
For the first time, representatives of NGOs were treated as partners
in building security, with the right to receive Committee documents and
follow the proceedings in full. Following de Alba's initiative of enabling
experts from UN-related organisations to make presentations on specific
subjects last year, Choi went a step further and invited civil society
to choose two experts - Dr Kathleen Sullivan, a New York high school educator,
anti-nuclear activist, and consultant for the UN on disarmament curricula;
and Peter Carey, a Columbia University professor of peace studies and
expert on small arms - to address an interactive session of the First
Committee on disarmament and non-proliferation education. And the sky
did not fall down! Quite the contrary: governments and civil society both
benefit when NGO work is facilitated. With regard to day to day engagement,
it has also made a refreshing change not to be treated like potential
troublemakers who have to be prevented by security guards from entering
rooms or picking up documents and statements that are vital for our work.
I would like to express my personal appreciation to Ambassador Choi and
his Bureau, the Secretary of the First Committee, Cheryl Stoute, and her
staff, and to those members of the First Committee and DDA who had the
courage to support them in pushing the envelope to take forward this welcome
openness and respect towards civil society. It has made a big difference
and greatly improved our working environment and effectiveness. We hope
it will be emulated in other fora and treaty meetings.
November 1 Update
Three resolutions were taken on the final day. A resolution from the
Netherlands on Transparency
in Armaments (L.50/Rev.1) was adopted by 122 votes, with 21 abstentions,
mostly the League of Arab States. The resolution, which endorsed the UN
Register of Conventional Arms, requests that a Group of Governmental Experts
(GGE) be convened in 2006. It was subjected to no fewer than 4 paragraph
votes, on which the League of Arab States also abstained. The United States
voted against a reference to the 2003 report of the Secretary General
and made a statement raising concerns that GGEs were requested with greater
and greater frequency, and without due regard for expense or usefulness.
Egypt made a statement on behalf of the Arab League, endorsed by individual
statements from additional countries, including Syria and Yemen. They
called for the Register to be broadened to include sophisticated weapons,
such as nuclear weapons, arguing regional security and referring to the
need for a "more balanced and non-discriminatory" transparency that would
cover all Israel's weapon systems. China abstained because it objected
to the US identifying Taiwan as a recipient of US arms sales. The Chinese
objection was not to the arms sales per se, but that "the Province of
Taiwan" should not be mentioned in a register devoted to arms trading
among states.
The report of the embattled UN
Disarmament Commission (L.59/rev.1) was finally adopted without a
vote, though the US stated that it would not participate in the consensus.
A Chair's resolution on "The
Question of Antarctica" (L.60) was also adopted without a vote, following
a short debate led by Sweden, on behalf of the 28-member Antarctic Treaty
Consultative Parties (ATCP), and Malaysia.
Resolutions Index
Including results of voting at the General Assembly on December 8,
2005.
Note: the name of the state that introduced the resolution is
in square brackets. Where separate votes were taken on parts of a resolution,
PP refers to preambular paragraph and OP refers to operative paragraph.
Votes are given as: for-against-abstention
The results of further votes will be added as we receive them.
Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear Weapon Free Zones
Other Weapons of Mass Destruction
Outer Space (Disarmament Aspects)
Conventional Weapons
Regional Disarmament & Security
Other Disarmament Measures and International Security
Disarmament Machinery
Sources:
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© 2005 The Acronym Institute.
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