UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL

Small Arms

Statement by H.E. Mr John Dauth LVO
Ambassador and Permanent Representative
of Australia to the United Nations
(Check against delivery)

17 February 2005

Mr President

Australia welcomes the Council’s ongoing consideration of small arms and light weapons issues. The Secretary-General’s latest report (S/2005/69) is a solid assessment of the Council’s efforts over the past 12 months to address small arms issues within its mandate, highlighting achievements and gaps. Australia urges the Council to continue actively considering the security and humanitarian dimensions of the illicit small arms trade and their impact on stability in conflict and post-conflict situations. In particular, when imposing UN arms embargoes and establishing UN peacekeeping operations, the Council must be attuned to the impact of illicit small arms transfers. The Council’s continued attention to small arms issues, particularly in the regional context, will strengthen the international community’s resolve to increase pressure, through embargoes and monitoring mechanisms, on those responsible for illicit transfers.

Mr President

The Council cannot work on its own in addressing the small arms threat. It is incumbent on member states themselves to strictly enforce UN arms embargoes and to implement strong national export controls, including systems of end-user certification, to prevent the uncontrolled spread of small arms.

Australia has been active in promoting effective measures against the illicit small arms trade in our region, including by co-hosting in August 2004, with the Governments of Fiji and Japan and the UN Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific, the Third Pacific Islands Small Arms Workshop. The workshop’s practical focus on the implementation of model weapons control legislation endorsed by Pacific Island Forum Leaders in 2003 is helping to institute a common regional approach to weapon control. The workshop also promoted regional adherence to the UN Program of Action.

At UNGA 59, Australia led the adoption by consensus in the First Committee of a new resolution on preventing the illicit transfer and unauthorised access to and use of Man-Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS), creating the first international standard on MANPADS. Australia urges member states to implement the resolution by taking practical measures to control the production, stockpiling, transfer and brokering of MANPADS, and to enact or improve legislation to ban the transfer of MANPADS to non-state actors.

Mr President

Australia welcomes recent progress at the second session of the open-ended working group on the marking and tracing of small arms and light weapons and looks forward to the conclusion of an international instrument at the final session in July. A marking and tracing instrument will be a further concrete step in international efforts to better understand and control illicit transfers. Australia encourages member states to take a pragmatic approach to the final round of negotiations, to construct an instrument that is credible and implementable.

Thank you Mr President.