UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY 54th SESSION

First Committee - Opening Session

Statement by H.E. Mr Les Luck, Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament, Geneva

15 October 1999

Mr Chairman

At the outset, may I express the Australian delegation's congratulations on your appointment as Chair of this Committee as well as our best wishes in your endeavours to guide us in our work.

Mr Chairman

We look forward to this annual opportunity to evaluate ideas and proposals about how, collectively, we might address the enduring task of enhancing peace and security in an evolving international security environment. Inevitably, much of our attention is centred on elements of the international security system, painstakingly constructed over many years, in the fields of non-proliferation, disarmament and arms control.

That system is part of the essential backdrop against which contemporary and immediate challenges are played out. These, of course, included efforts to resolve the East Timor issue, including the United Nations-mandated multinational force (INTERFET) which is restoring peace and security in East Timor. Australia for one is enormously appreciative of the diverse capacities shown by the United Nations in East Timor, not only in the restoration of peace and order, but in addressing pressing humanitarian need.

For Australia, the essential test of the value of multilateral instruments and proposals in the international security field is their capacity to enhance in tangible ways our own security, as well as global and regional security. Australia's security is determined in significant part through the strength of these multilateral arrangements as well as our defence capabilites, alliances and regional partnerships and our international diplomacy, together with the strength of our economy and its trade linkages.

This is perhaps little different from the approach of many countries represented here. While some emphasise the economic and developmental benefits to be gained through multilateral non-proliferation and disarmament instruments, the bottom line for most is a calculation about the respective security benefits.

The task of weighing and assessing these benefits has not been made any easier over the past year or so by a complex and challenging international security environment. The recent period has seen a marked easing of the pace of a number of key multilateral and bilateral negotiations in the wake of the "boom" period immediately following the end of the Cold War. The international environment has been clouded by renewed tensions within countries - as well as between countries - often with a strong ethnic or religious component, as well as disastrous humanitarian consequences to which the international community has been compelled to respond. This has presented fresh challenges to the United Nations itself in determining how the organisation should act in the face of humanitarian crises, knowing that to ignore them is simply untenable, not to say immoral.

The recent period has seen a number of challenges to international non-proliferation norms and disarmament aspirations. The immediate consequence has been a heightened risk to both the regional and international security environment and a fuelling of regional arms competition and proliferation pressures.

Mr Chairman

The conclusion Australia draws from this broad and troubling picture is that there is much still to be done to constrain proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and to prosecute long-standing disarmament goals including the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. For us, these challenges underscore and reinforce the value of the existing international security system designed, as it is, to allow countries to address their security needs with the lowest practical level of armaments and, most importantly, without acquiring weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery. But it is also a reminder of unfinished business; of the priorities identified in the 1995 statement of "Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament" at the time of the indefinite extension of the NPT.

Nuclear testing in South Asia last year underlines the continuing need to bring the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty into force. We urge all those who have yet to sign and ratify the Treaty to do so forthwith. Australia was deeply disappointed and concerned by the decision of the United States Senate to vote down United States' ratification of the Treaty. We urge the United States Administration to continue efforts to build support for the treaty in order to enable early United States' ratification of this important instrument and encourage other countries among the 44 required to ratify before the Treaty enters into force to do so quickly. The Article XIV Conference held in Vienna last week underscored the determination of States Ratifiers, Australia amongst them, and Signatories to work towards early entry into force.

Another clear priority, acknowledged as such repeatedly by the international community, is the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty. We will do all we can in the context of getting the Conference on Disarmament down to work to ensure the earliest possible commencement of those negotiations.

In the nuclear field these two treaties are crying out for attention. Both can bring early security benefits to all members of this Assembly and are practical steps towards disarmament.

We need to be realistic, however, in assessing what is worthwhile, what is achievable - in both the near term and the long term - and what benefits might be expected from particular measures or agreements. The CTBT will make a vital contribution to advancing nuclear disarmament by constraining the qualitative improvement in nuclear weapons. But it will not, of itself, bring about nuclear disarmament. An FMCT would provide valuable security benefits to both nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states alike. By capping the quantitative development of nuclear arsenals - a commitment which all of the Nuclear Weapon States are evidently prepared.

We welcome the important and positive steps that have been taken by States Parties and by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in implementing the Treaty and consolidating the verifiable, legally-binding norm it represents. Experience to date in implementing the Convention demonstrates the strength that verification machinery adds to disarmament and arms control, recognising that further action is needed to give full effect to the Treaty. It will be important, however, for the Convention to succeed in its goal of ridding the world of chemical weapons, that those countries which have not ratified or acceded to the Convention do so.

Australia places considerable store in effective export control measures to meet non-proliferation objectives and obligations. It is vital that exporting states meet their obligations to ensure that exports of sensitive equipment, materials and technologies are subject to an appropriate system of controls. There need be no contradiction between effective export controls and access to the benefits of relevant technology for exclusively peaceful purposes. Indeed export controls play an important part in creating the climate of assurance and security that underpins legitimate trade in sensitive goods and technology. At the same time exporters are obliged to be prudent about the lessons of history and the success of a small number of states in international procurement for WMD programs.

The entry into force over the past year of Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), and the Ottawa Convention, represent significant steps forward, and underlines the international community's commitment to eliminate the scourge of landmines. Australia is a State Party to both these instruments, and we are strongly committed to their effective implementation. They are an essential part of the framework aimed at addressing this problem. But Australia is also committed to strengthening this framework where it is possible to do so, and in our view, a transfer ban on anti-personnel landmines would complement, and reinforce, existing instruments. It would be an important incremental steps towards the much desired universalisation of obligations. Key producers and traders of these weapons stand ready and willing to negotiate a transfer ban, and we should capitalise on that willingness.

We should also capitalise on the increasing international attention paid to the issue of small arms. The proliferation, misuse and accumulation of these weapons have devastating effects. It is a reality that, as a practical problem of security, small arms and light weapons have a far more direct impact on the every-day lives of people and cause far more deaths, injury and economic loss than weapons of mass destruction. There is a range of highly commendable regional initiatives on this issue already and in our view, regional efforts will provide the essential foundation for the incremental but comprehensive approach that is required.

With regard to our own region, the Asia-Pacific, a number of current efforts are deserving of attention -The South Pacific Forum is developing a common regional approach to weapon control, focusing on the illicit manufacture of, and trafficking in, firearms, ammunition, explosives and other related materials. In addition, the ASEAN Regional Forum is expected to hold a regional experts meeting to discuss transnational crime, including small arms; and the working group on transnational crime established under the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific is considering issues related to the illicit trafficking in firearms. Australia has long been involved in a number of projects throughout the region and elsewhere aimed at addressing the humanitarian needs of conflict-affected communities. Again, these are incremental steps, but the issue of small arms is too serious and too complex to warrant quick-fixes.

The 2001 Conference on the illicit trade in small arms in all its aspects should build on regional efforts, as well as UN expertise in this area and the excellent work done by the Group of Experts, to develop practical suggestions for dealing with this problem. For our part, we aim to maintain our national and regional efforts, and contribute actively to the international deliberations on this important emerging concern.

Mr Chairman

My delegation looks forward to contributing more specific comments to subsequent debate of individual items and resolutions. I thank you.