CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT TO HOLD FIRST PUBLIC PLENARY OF ITS 2020 SESSION ON TUESDAY, 21 JANUARY

The Conference on Disarmament, the world's single multilateral forum for disarmament negotiations, will hold the first public plenary of its 2020 session on Tuesday, 21 January at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

The session will open under the Presidency of Algeria. The Presidency of the Conference rotates among its Member States according to the English alphabetical order, with each President holding office for four working weeks. Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh and Belarus will also hold the Presidency of the Conference during 2020. The three parts of the 2020 session of the Conference will take place from 20 January to 27 March for the first part, from 25 May to 10 July for the second part, and from 3 August to 18 September for the third part.

The first plenary meeting will start at 10 a.m. on Tuesday in the Council Chamber.

In accordance with rule 27 of its Rules of Procedure, the Conference on Disarmament shall adopt its agenda for the year at the beginning of each annual session. “In doing so, the Conference shall take into account the recommendations made to it by the United Nations General Assembly, the proposals presented by Member States of the Conference, and the decisions of the Conference." The Rules of Procedure of the Conference also provide that, on the basis of its agenda, the Conference, “at the beginning of its annual session, shall establish its programme of work, which will include a schedule of its activities for that session, taking also into account the recommendations, proposals and decisions referred to in rule 27.”

The Conference on Disarmament and its predecessors have negotiated such major multilateral arms limitation and disarmament agreements as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, the Treaty on the Prohibition of the Emplacement of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction on the Sea-Bed and the Ocean Floor and in the Subsoil thereof, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

Negotiations have stalled in the past two decades due to disagreements among Member States on the programme of work. The agenda of the Conference has the following items on it: cessation of the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament; prevention of nuclear war, including all related matters; prevention of an arms race in outer space; effective international arrangements to assure non-nuclear-weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons; new types of weapons of mass destruction and new systems of such weapons, radiological weapons; comprehensive programme of disarmament; and transparency in armaments.

Member States of the Conference

The 65 members of the Conference are Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Cuba, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Senegal, Slovakia, Spain, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Viet Nam and Zimbabwe.


For use of the information media; not an official record


DC20/01E