CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT HOLDS FIRST PUBLIC PLENARY OF 2014 SESSION ON 21 JANUARY

The Conference on Disarmament, the world's single multilateral forum for disarmament negotiations, will hold the first public plenary of its 2014 session on Tuesday, 21 January at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will address the plenary.

The session will open under the presidency of Israel. 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. Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya and Malaysia will also hold the presidency during 2014. The three parts of the 2014 session of the Conference will take place from 20 January to 28 March for the first part; 12 May to 27 June for the second part; and 28 July to 12 September for the third part.

Secretary-General Ban has appointed Michael Møller, Acting Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, as Acting Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament.

In accordance with the rules of procedure of the Conference on Disarmament, at its opening meeting, it 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 2014 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.

During its sixty-eighth session, the General Assembly on 5 December 2013 adopted resolution (A/RES/68/64) in which it called upon the Conference on Disarmament to further intensify consultations and to explore possibilities for overcoming its ongoing deadlock of well over a decade by adopting and implementing a balanced and comprehensive programme of work at the earliest possible date during its 2014 session.

The General Assembly also adopted resolution (A/RES/68/47) in which it called for the immediate commencement of negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament on a non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. It also urged the Conference on Disarmament to establish, as soon as possible and as the highest priority, an ad hoc committee on nuclear disarmament in 2014 and to commence negotiations on a phased programme of nuclear disarmament leading to the total elimination of nuclear weapons within a specified framework of time. The General Assembly also called for the convening of an international conference on nuclear
disarmament in all its aspects at an early date to identify and deal with concrete measures of nuclear disarmament.

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, Zimbabwe.


For use of the information media; not an official record

DC14/001E