Farewell Intervention, CD 26 June 2003

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

Conference on Disarmament

General Assembly First Committee

UN Disarmament Commission

Special Session on Disarmament

Henrik Salander
Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sweden
to the Conference on Disarmament

Farewell intervention, CD 26 June 2003

Thank you, Mr. President,

Let me first assure you of all the support I may be able to extend to you during my last few days in Geneva. I believe that the chances are slim that you will preside over substantive work in the Conference on Disarmament before I leave Geneva, but if there is the slightest possibility for that, I will do my utmost to be of help to you. And you will certainly be a very distinguished president of the Conference, if this unused international body would suddenly start to live up to expectations and hope resting with many people all over the world.

I want to thank Ambassador Levy for his skilful work during the latest Presidency, and I extend my best wishes to Ambassador Inoguchi for her term.

Mr. President, when I leave my post as Permanent Representative of Sweden to the CD after four years, I am doing this with mixed feelings – or even strongly contradictory emotions. On a personal level, I am extremely grateful – and I really mean that – to have gotten to know such a wonderful group of colleagues, whom I now regard as very good friends, and whom I sincerely hope to meet often again and to continue to be in contact with. So in that sense, these four years have not been wasted – on the contrary, they have in many ways been some of the most rewarding and enjoyable years of my life so far.

But professionally, I cannot but feel that my time here has been partly wasted. Within the Conference, no substantive work has been done during my time here. We have tried hard, and it sometimes takes a lot of work to do nothing, as the saying goes. But the sinister truth is that this international institution, created with an enormous investment of ingenuity and constructivity, has achieved nothing in about seven years now. And worse, its membership, as an indivisible collective, has not even given itself the possibility to achieve anything.

Personally, again, outside of the CD, I have managed to get involved in some serious substantive work in other processes and institutional arrangements. But not within the CD, and that hurts me, I must say, when I look back at these years.

When I refer to the membership collectively, I am of course aware that you all know that the blame for the standstill of the Conference can not be shared equally between members. A large majority, a very large majority, of members would be able to start work tomorrow. A small minority perceive their interests to be at such risk if work is started, that those interests cannot even be guarded by the consensus rule of the Conference or by the many other checks and balances that are built into an institutions like this. This is a remarkably rigid position, which is extending damage to international cooperation and multilateral diplomacy.

The inactivity, the passivity, is staggering. No ideas are forwarded. No solutions are proposed. Some delegations are even starting to suspect that this inactivity suits some few member countries quite well. I hope this impression is incorrect.

My authorities, on their side, do however not see much evidence on the part of some of the P5 countries – just to mention the most obvious sub-group in this context – that they truly are anxious to start substantive work in the Conference.

Many successive CD Presidents, culminating with Ambassador Celso Amorim three years ago, have devoted enormous effort to trying to solve the deadlock. Together with my friends Salah Dembri, Camilo Reyes, Juan Enrique Vega and Jean Lint, I also tried to find some way forward. Our contribution is now regarded by most CD delegations, I believe, as the closest we have come to a pragmatic starting point for CD work – and hopefully this will be reinforced by the small but important changes we just introduced, as presented by Ambassador Lint. To the delegations that think our contribution is not worthwhile, and these are in fact very few, I say simply: come up with something better. If this or that part is unacceptable to you, then reformulate it. To characterize the A5 proposal as "no improvement", "opaque", unclear" or similarly, as has been done informally to us from some members who can not support our proposed Programme of Work – and then at the same time not come up with any alternative – that strikes us as a rather unconstructive way of conducting multilateral discussions.

Mr. President, all in all – regrettable as the individual frustration is, that many of us feel, it is still of little significance compared to the non-utilization of an institution that was created by our Governments for a common purpose.

This said, there is always a glimmer of hope somewhere. One day, the CD will probably be back in action again, and then I will ask my Government to send me or somebody else back here to do full-time substantive work within the Conference. Until then, I extend my thanks and best wishes to the Secretary-General Mr. Ordzhonikidze and to the Deputy Secretary-General Mr. Roman-Morey, as well as to Mr. Bogomolov, Mr. Zaleski, Mr. Mantels and all my other friends in the secretariat, to the interpreters, and to Mrs. Lewis and Mr. Carle with UNIDIR, demonstrating that important work can be done even in an unproductive environment. And to all my counterparts and friends in the CD delegations, I extend my heartfelt thanks for these years and express my strong hope that we will continue to work together in some format, some day.

Thank you, Mr. President.