CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT DISCUSSES ORGANIZATION OF UPCOMING FORUM WITH CIVIL SOCIETY TO BE HELD ON 19 MARCH
The Conference on Disarmament this morning heard the plans of its incoming President to hold formal plenary meetings on the four core issues, and an update from the acting Secretary-General of the Conference on preparations for the Conference on Disarmament/Civil Society Forum, which he was organizing and which would be held on 19 March.
Ambassador Vaanchig Purevdorj of Mongolia, incoming President of the Conference on Disarmament, said Mongolia recognized the Conference on Disarmament as the single multilateral negotiating body on disarmament and looked forward to an earnest solution to the ongoing stalemate in the Conference. As the President of the Conference for the coming weeks, Mongolia would spare no efforts to make progress in the work of the Conference and it was hopeful that all Members would demonstrate the necessary political will and flexibility in order to move forward. He intended to convene during Mongolia’s presidency formal plenary meetings to have focused debates and exchange views on the four core issues which were directly related to the programme of work, namely nuclear disarmament, fissile material (cut-off) treaty (FM(C)T), prevention of an arms race in outer space (PAROS) and negative security assurances (NSA).
Michael Møller, Acting Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament and Acting Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, said he would like to update the Conference on where they stood on the programme of the Conference on Disarmament/Civil Society Forum event, the panellists, the list of invited civil society representatives, and the funding. For the programme, there would be opening remarks by himself as Chair of the event, followed hopefully by a key-note statement by a high-level speaker, then there would be five panel discussions on nuclear disarmament, FM(C)T, negative security assurances, PAROS and the final one would wrap up and discuss the way forward. There would be a Chair’s summary at the end, an informal document, as the forum was an informal activity organized in his personal capacity as acting Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament.
Mr. Møller said all the panels would be moderated by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). Each panel would be composed of two State representatives and two civil society representatives. They were trying to ensure that the composition of the panels provided a diversity of views on the core issues that the conference was dealing with, and the composition was still a work in progress.
Speaking during the plenary were the United Kingdom, Russia, France, Australia, Algeria, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Ireland, Algeria, Netherlands, Spain and India.
The Deputy Secretary-General of the Conference also took the floor.
At the beginning of the meeting, the Conference approved a request from Lebanon to participate in the 2015 session of the Conference as an observer State.
The next public plenary of the Conference will be at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 24 February, when the Conference will hold a discussion on nuclear disarmament.
Opening Statement by the President of the Conference
Ambassador VAANCHIG PUREVDORJ of Mongolia, President of the Conference on Disarmament, said today’s meeting would be divided in two parts: the first would be devoted to general statements and the second would be devoted to a briefing by the acting Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament, Michael Møller, on the preparations for the Conference on Disarmament/Civil Society Forum.
In his opening remarks, the incoming President of the Conference said that Mongolia, within its broad commitment to the multilateral system, had always placed disarmament at the top of its priorities for the simple reason that it was fundamental for global peace and security. Mongolia reiterated its firm commitment and aspiration to contribute to strengthening international peace and security. The global security environment had been increasingly deteriorating, and these developments had had negative fallout on arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation. Regardless of the professed goal for a world without nuclear weapons, disarmament efforts remained stagnant. All Member States should do their utmost to build a consensus and promote greater global security through arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament. Mongolia recognized the Conference on Disarmament as the single multilateral negotiating body on disarmament and looked forward to an earnest solution to the ongoing stalemate in the Conference. As the President of the Conference for the coming weeks, Mongolia would spare no efforts to make progress in the work of the Conference and it was hopeful that all Members would demonstrate the necessary political will and flexibility in order to move forward.
Ambassador Purevdorj said he would share his delegation’s plan for the work of the Conference during Mongolia’s presidency, and started with thanking his predecessor, the Ambassador of Mexico, for all his efforts and initiatives to move the Conference forward. Deliberations on the previous President’s proposal on the programme of work and draft decisions on civil society participation and methods of work, and the interactive discussion on the membership expansion, had all clearly indicated that the Conference needed to do more. As to the view to following up on this proposal and these initiatives, he had been consulting with delegations and would continue to do so. Although there were differing views on these issues, the Conference should try its best to narrow the gaps and carry on substantive discussions. He intended to convene during Mongolia’s presidency formal plenary meetings to have focused debates and exchange views on the four core issues which were directly related to the programme of work, namely nuclear disarmament, fissile material (cut-off treaty) (FM©T), prevention of an arms race in outer space (PAROS) and negative security assurances (NSA). Mongolia believed that last year’s structured informal discussions on the issues had been valuable and could serve as a good basis for moving forward. Mongolia also considered that substantive and focused discussions could help in identifying common ground on those issues. As all were preparing for the 2015 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, which was very important to advance the Conference’s agenda of disarmament and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, he was confident that all Conference members would agree that to have substantive discussions on core issues such as nuclear disarmament was very timely and relevant.
Ambassador Purevdorj said he would suggest the following dates for plenary meetings: 24 February to focus on nuclear disarmament; 26 February to focus on FMCT; 3 March to focus on PAROS; and 10 March to focus on NSA. These would not be pre-negotiations or negotiations on the issues, but his simple effort to generate a better understanding on where they stood on those issues. Mongolia would also continue consultations on the issue of a programme of work. Many delegations had suggested renewing the mandate of the informal working group on the programme of work, so he would make efforts to proceed further on re-establishing the informal working group and would share with the Conference the results of his consultations as soon as possible. Also, with a view to better organizing the work of the Conference for 2015, he would be working closely with all delegations on the draft schedule of activities of the current session. Mongolia welcomed all suggestions and proposals.
General Statement
United Kingdom said the United Kingdom was supportive of the President’s efforts to renew the mandate for the informal working group for the programme of work and on the schedule of activities. The United Kingdom wished to draw the attention of colleagues to the successful P-5 conference that was held in London on 4 and 5 February, where many issues of mutual concern were addressed in a collaborative and cordial atmosphere. The United Kingdom had requested that the P-5 statement at the end of the conference was circulated to the Conference on Disarmament.
Statement by the Acting Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament
MICHAEL MØLLER, Acting Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament and Acting Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, said as they were almost a month away from the Conference on Disarmament/Civil Society Forum, he would like to update the Conference on where they stood on the programme of the event, the panellists, the list of invited civil society representatives, and the funding. The programme had not changed: there would be opening remarks by himself as Chair of the event, followed by a key-note statement by a high-level speaker, then there would be five panel discussions on nuclear disarmament, FMCT, negative security assurances, PAROS and the final one would wrap up and discuss the way forward. There would be a Chair’s summary at the end, an informal document, as the forum was an informal activity organized in his personal capacity as acting Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament. All the panels would be moderated by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). Each panel would be composed of two State representatives and two civil society representatives. They were trying to ensure that the composition of the panels provided a diversity of views on the core issues that the conference was dealing with, and the composition was still a work in progress. As soon as the list was finalized, the secretariat would send out a list of all the names on each panel.
Mr. Møller said they had extended invitations to more than 100 civil society organizations and a list had been distributed. This was not an exhaustive list and there may be additions. The 121 invitees included non-governmental organizations (NGOs), research institutions and think tanks working in the field of international security, arms control and disarmament. An effort had been made to reach out to a diversity of organizations in all regions. The regional dimension effort may be challenged a little bit by lack of resources, and they would see where they stood in a few weeks, to cover the participation of those who could not sponsor their participation to Geneva. He hoped there would be a sizeable number of representatives to generate a good interactive debate.
On the funding, it was needed to cover costs related to the participation of civil society panellists and a modest sandwich lunch. The estimated budget required was around 40,000 Swiss francs. He had received contributions from the Netherlands and Switzerland, and they were thanked for their generous contributions. At this stage, confirmed funding only covered a fourth of the sum needed. Instead of a few paying a lot, it would be nicer if a lot paid less. Quite a few delegations had indicated the possibility of providing some financial support to the Forum, and he appealed to those who had come forward but had not finalized to do so as soon as possible. He also welcomed any new contributions. If the contributions exceeded the costs for the basics: paying for the trips of the panellists and paying for the lunch, the exceeding funds would cover the trips of NGOs that were based fare away and whose finances would not permit them to come.
Statements on the Upcoming Conference on Disarmament/Civil Society Forum
Russia thanked Mr. Møller for the detailed informative briefing on how he intended to organize and conduct the informal meeting of the Conference with civil society. Mr. Møller’s style was transparent and democratic, everyone could take the floor and make their own initiatives, and he hoped that the Conference could adopt such an approach. The Conference had last week energetically discussed the work of civil society in the Conference on Disarmament, based on a draft put forward by the Mexican presidency. There were many questions about the criteria for selecting the NGOs that would take part in the activities of the Conference. Related to that, Russia asked Mr. Møller to share with them the criteria which had been used to select those civil society organizations that would take part in the informal Conference on Disarmament meeting with civil society representatives.
MICHAEL MØLLER, Acting Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament and Acting Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, said the idea was to get as representative and as geographically diverse participation of civil society and NGOs who had expertise and worked in the field of disarmament. He would give the floor to the Acting Deputy Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament, whose office put the list together.
Acting Deputy Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament said they had looked at the NGOs that had participated in various fora across the whole spectrum of the work related to the Conference. The list also included a number of individuals proposed by various Members of the Conference. As the acting Secretary-General had pointed out, the list was not exclusive, and if there were any more suggestions from anybody provided that they had a known record of being involved in work related to the Conference on Disarmament, they could be included.
France said it understood that the list was not definitive, and France would look at it with more detail. France had always stressed the need to keep a good balance and to have open composition from civil society representation from all points of view, including the academic and strategic research world. It would be of use to have geographic balance as well. France was not sure it was really relevant or pertinent to restrict themselves to those organizations that were normally listened to in the Conference on Disarmament because they represented a particular point of view and might be densely concentrated geographically as well. Perhaps they could make an extra effort to see people from the university sector or from the academic world to strengthen participation and move away from the people they always saw in Geneva. Also, there seemed only to be English names here.
Australia said this was a worthy initiative that Australia agreed with and hoped Australia would be able to confirm some financial participation in the coming days. Australia wanted to raise an issue in relation to the schedule of activities noted by the President in his introductory comments. Was there a proposal to appoint special coordinators in relation to the schedule of activities, and had they been identified. One of the lessons from last year was that it had been a productive session when they had been able to have time to prepare and when they had had experts come to provided added value to the work.
Ambassador VAANCHIG PUREVDORJ of Mongolia, President of the Conference on Disarmament, said the idea was to hold formal plenaries focused on the four core issues and the schedule of activities that they would like to work on for the rest of 2015, like last year. They would consult and would be working in that direction. For the moment, with regard to coordinators, the consultations were open and they would consult on this and inform the Conference on the developments of the work in these two directions, with regard to the informal working group and the schedule of activities.
Algeria thanked Mr. Møller for his initiative to hold the informal meeting between members of the Conference and representatives of civil society. Algeria hoped it would lay the foundation for further steps to enable the Conference to be in touch with civil society in an appropriate manner on the items on the agenda, particularly nuclear disarmament. When he had joined the Conference, Morocco had been the President, and Morocco would soon become President of the Conference again, so the Conference had performed a whole session but despite all valuable efforts, had been unable to undertake fundamental work related to issues threatening international peace and security, particularly nuclear arsenals and ideology that were lethal. For political reasons known to everybody, the Conference had been unable to perform its mission. A consensus on a programme of work would enable the Conference to launch negotiations on matters that they could all agree upon.
Algeria had listened to the President’s proposal to re-establish the informal working group on a programme of work. Algeria doubted the ability of the informal working group to overcome what impeded it from its work last year. These impediments had been registered and recorded. This year, they were not starting their work through a vacuum but through the Mexican proposal on the programme of work that had many positive points, but unfortunately it did not have enough time for consultations in order for them to try to lessen the disagreement on one point, mainly FM(C)T. Algeria hoped that during the President’s consultations on the programme of work, this document could be taken into account in order to focus on the points that they did not agree upon. As for the schedule of activities, this was not the first time that the Conference was trying to reach consensus on matters included in the agenda in accordance with a schedule of activities. In the past, these consultations had been conducted in a formal setting with coordinators. If the President wanted to renew the experience this year, Algeria hoped that the schedule of activities would be adopted through a decision by the Conference so that it was held under a formal setting, and would be subject to a report prepared by the coordinator or President to be submitted to the Conference at the end. This way, they could take a step forward compared to previous years.
Cuba said the most important thing was for the Conference on Disarmament to come with a programme of work for this year. On the list of NGOs circulated, Cuba’s understanding was that it had been circulated as an information document. Cuba would like to react to the document, even if it was an informal word, regarding the criteria used in the selection of the NGOs on this list. It was important that the criterion for fair geographical representation was used, also a thematic criterion would be crucial, and priority should be given to nuclear disarmament. The list should remain open and, while they had not been consulted about it, the Conference should have information on the final consolidated list with enough notice. It would also be important to have information on the countries where these NGOs were registered. Cuba would like to see whether the principle of geographical distribution had been respected. This list was important for Cuba as it might set a precedent in the work of the Conference. Cuba wanted to know whether the NGOs had consultative status with ECOSOC. This did not need to be a precondition, as it was the NGOs of the south that did not have consultative status with ECOSOC because they did not have lots of resources.
Kazakhstan said regarding the list of NGOs to be invited, Kazakhstan wanted to examine the possibility to invite representatives of the Atom Project, which would demonstrate geographical distribution. Also, would the forum be held on 13 or 19 March?
Ireland asked Mr. Møller if he knew the percentage of the invitees who had accepted the invitation. The acceptance rate could vary enormously in terms of geographical balance.
Algeria asked Mr. Møller why UNIDIR was listed among the NGOs. While UNIDIR’s participation as moderator was welcome and provided added value, UNIDIR was not an NGO. Were all of those on the list NGOs, some of them seemed to belong to other categories and were supported by governments’ national budgets.
Netherlands found it remarkable that when they did such a normal thing at the United Nations as talking to NGOs, the Conference was only looking for problems and not solutions and possibilities. The Netherlands would contribute to this meeting. It was a good initiative. It would be good if more States spent their expensive diplomatic salaries not in trying to find problems in lists of whatever nature but in trying to find possibilities to move forward on important issues such as disarmament.
MICHAEL MØLLER, Acting Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament and Acting Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, reminded all that this was an informal meeting of the Conference with civil society, convened by himself in his personal capacity, so a number of questions and comments on formality were not that relevant. On France and Cuba, he was 100 per cent in agreement on the need to have as rich geographical distribution as possible. He had repeated requests to States to suggest what NGOs could participate. However, not all regions had the same number of civil society organizations at their disposal to send. They had endeavoured to come up with a list as rich as possible. They were open to suggestions. Kazakhstan had just made a suggestion and it would be useful for Kazakhstan to provide them with the contacts for that organization to be invited if they fulfilled the criteria for selection. On Cuba’s comments, the list was not final. They were still consulting and were open to recommendations. The list of themes was similar to those on the agenda of the Conference. As for where the NGOs came from, there was a limit to their human resources and how much background work that they could do for this informal meeting. On financial support, he reiterated that he welcomed if more were able to contribute to holding this meeting with modest sums and he hoped that Cuba could join those countries. He also reiterated that part of the preparations was not just consultations with Member States but also extensive discussions with representatives of NGOs and civil society, who also came with suggestions. All this was put into the mix, and the result was still a work in progress. He would come back to the Conference with a further update as soon as they had more clarity on acceptance. To answer Ireland, they had had some responses, but they were still coming in. To Algeria, UNIDIR was simply put on the list by mistake. To the Netherlands, he thanked him for his comment and agreed with it.
Acting Deputy Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament said the acting Secretary-General had answered most of the questions. With regard to Algeria and UNIDIR, this had been a technical mistake. Kazakhstan was asked to provide the secretariat with details of Atom Project. He appreciated the point being made by Cuba about having full geographic distribution and trying to involve as many countries from the developing world as well as looking at the thematic and regional mix in this. Generally most of the NGOs were those who came to most of the disarmament meetings across the broad spectrum of issues, particularly those related to the work of the Conference. Usually the NGOs had to have a constitution, a website, and a history of participation. As the acting Secretary-General pointed out, a number of countries had suggested a number of individuals and they had also been included on the list and they had a history of participation. The list was not final and they were happy to look at more proposals.
Spain asked for clarification on the date of the forum, was it 13 or 19 March? Reference had been made on the number of English speaking NGOs. NGO 51 on the list was a Spanish NGO dealing with international affairs and foreign policy. Maybe its name could be included in Spanish, rather than English.
MICHAEL MØLLER, Acting Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament and Acting Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, confirmed the forum would be on 19 March for the whole day. There would be interpretation in the meeting. They would respond to changing the name of the NGO to Spanish.
India said India would participate in this one-day informal event to see how it went, against the background of proposals that they had discussed in the first month of the session. India would like further clarity to come about as a result of this one-day event on what was it to the Conference on Disarmament, a Member State driven body with a mandate to negotiate, in this new age of growing insecurity and instant communication. India felt that the issues on what the Conference expected from the outside world could be amended or corrected as a result of this 19 March event. There were physical and logistical problems in the contribution of NGOs to the Conference, but there was also a problem of expectations. Some of the entities on the list had direct financial support from governments, the idea that NGOs made up the list, maybe the title should be expanded to add academic institutions and research bodies and think tanks. India would be participating in this event. It would form no precedent and would have no formal impact on the Conference.
MICHAEL MØLLER, Acting Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament and Acting Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, pointed out that the original title remained the Informal Conference on Disarmament/Civil Society Forum. It was not just NGOs, it also included academic institutions and individuals. The original purpose for suggesting this Forum was his personal conviction that in this day and age, any United Nations body that did not in some form or another speak to civil society was an anomaly and an anachronism. He hoped that if they had a useful and substantive conversation, this may lead the Conference to rethink the way that in engaged with civil society in the future. The Conference was the master of its own working methods. This was just a facilitating suggestion to bring the Conference into the mainstream of how the United Nations, as a family, conducted its business. He could not think of any other United Nations body that had such rules that limited interaction with civil society to one day a year. For him, this made no sense whatsoever.
Ambassador VAANCHIG PUREVDORJ of Mongolia, President of the Conference on Disarmament, thanked the acting Secretary-General and his Deputy for this update. The next plenary would be at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 24 February, on nuclear disarmament.
For use of the information media; not an official record
DC15/010E