In its plenary session on Thursday, 12 February 2004, the Conference on Disarmament made the following decision “engagement of civil society in the work of the CD”:

1. NGOs shall continue to be allowed to attend formal Plenary Meetings of
the Conference and to be seated in the public gallery;

2. NGOs shall be entitled, upon request, to receive official documents of
the Plenary Meetings of the Conference;

3. NGOs shall be entitled, at their own expense, twice per annual session,
to make written material available to the Members of the Conference outside
the Conference Hall;

4. After the CD adopts a programme of work, it would allocate one informal
Plenary Meeting per annual session to NGOs to address the Conference;

5. Only NGOs whose activities are relevant to the work of the Conference
will be able to address the CD. Therefore, a formal selection process will
be put in place to consider requests from NGOs to address the CD: the
requests from NGOs will be made to the President through the CD
secretariat. These requests will be considered at Presidential
Consultations and thereafter at a formal Plenary Meeting of the Conference.

Comments from the NGO Committee on Disarmament, Geneva:

This will seem to many a very modest development indeed. However, it is important to recognize that even this, in the present atmosphere of the CD, is something of a victory. It also the first time, since the adoption of the Rules of Procedure of the CD, that there has been a formal decision on the relationship of civil society to the CD. There has been increased discussion over the past two years, under the leadership of a number of Ambassadors who felt that it was time some progress was made on this issue. This is a first step on which further engagement can be built.

Of principal significance are parts 3 and 4, the submission of documents and the opportunity to speak at one informal Plenary Meeting per annual session. On the latter, it is important to take note that this will only come into effect “after the CD adopts a programme of work”, which is precisely the issue it has been struggling with unsuccessfully for the past six years. It is impossible to know when this breakthrough might happen, but no one is betting much money on it happening soon.

All of the parts of this decision will require the working out of clear modalities with the Secretariat to the CD and the incumbent President. The NGO Committee for Disarmament will undertake this task over the coming weeks and will issue fuller information on just how this all will best be able to work. It is recommended that organisations wait for these further explanations before undertaking any steps in relation to any of the elements of the new arrangements.

In the meantime, we have been reminded by the Secretariat that very few (last year only one) NGOs take advantage of the existing mechanism under the Rules of Procedure for written statements to be submitted to the Conference on Disarmament. Rule 42 of the rules of Procedure reads as follows: All communications from non-governmental organizations to the Conference, to the President or to the Secretariat, shall be retained by the Secretariat and be made available to delegations upon request. A list of such communications shall be circulated to the Conference.” We have been assured by the Secretariat that lists of incoming publications are circulated to the membership of the CD (via notices to the President and the Regional Group chairs) at the time of their arrival, rather than simply appearing in the end-of-year report of the CD, as we had previously thought. Therefore, if you have documents which you feel would be of relevance to the Conference on Disarmament, please do send them in to the Secretariat. Let’s let the members of the CD know that we are watching them and that we really do wish them to get to work. You can do this by sending your documents on issues relevant to the CD to:

Mr. Enrique Roman-Morey

Deputy Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament

Palais des Nations

Avenue de la Paix 8 – 14

1211 Geneva 10

Switzerland

777 UN Plaza - 6th Floor - New York, NY - 10017 - Ph: 212.682.1265 - Fax: 212.286.8211 - info@reachingcriticalwill.org
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