CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT HOLDS FIRST PUBLIC PLENARY OF 2013 SESSION ON 22 JANUARY

The Conference on Disarmament, the world's single multilateral forum for disarmament negotiations, will hold the first public plenary of its 2013 session on Tuesday, 22 January at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

The session will open under the presidency of Hungary. 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. India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq and Ireland will also hold the presidency during 2013. The three parts of the 2013 session of the Conference will be held from 21 January to 29 March for the first part; 13 May to 28 June for the second part; and 29 July to 13 September for the third part.

In accordance with its rules of procedure, at its opening meeting, the Conference 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.”

As in previous years, the items on the agenda of the Conference in 2013 will be the 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; transparency in armaments; and consideration and adoption of the annual report and any other report, as appropriate, to the General Assembly of the United Nations.

The General Assembly, during its sixty-seventh session on 3 December 2012, adopted resolution A/RES/67/53 requesting the Secretary-General to establish a group of governmental experts which will make recommendations on possible aspects that could contribute to but not negotiate a treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, and resolution A/RES/67/56 establishing an open-ended working group to develop proposals to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the achievement and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons. The group of governmental experts will meet in Geneva for two sessions of two weeks each in 2014 and in 2015, while the working group will convene in Geneva in 2013 for up to 15 working days. Also during its sixty-seventh session, the General Assembly decided to hold on 26 September 2013 a High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on Nuclear Disarmament as a one day plenary meeting during the high-level segment of the sixty-eighth session of the General Assembly.

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, Vietnam, Zimbabwe.


For use of the information media; not an official record

DC13/001E