Unofficial Transcript
New Zealand
28 June 2007

Thank you very much Mr. President and could I share with the compliments of other colleagues for your Presidency on the Conference on Disarmament and also reiterate the appreciation that has been expressed to former Presidents for the work that they have done in bringing us very close to a point where we can begin work.  And I think that we are talking more than just revitalizations here as the sole negotiating body which has not, in fact, been negotiating for many years.  We are talking about getting the CD down to what it should be doing.  I would like to express appreciation to those colleagues who have spoken to clarify their positions with regard to L.1 and to thank the distinguished colleague Pakistan for her additional comments with regard to document L.1.  With regard to the issue of stocks and verification on a FMCT, we very much share Pakistan’s positions that an FMCT should include stocks and verification and that is the basis on which we will enter into negotiations on an FMCT because clearly it is open to any delegation to propose whatever it wishes to propose and to negotiate whatever it wishes to negotiate in terms of an FMCT negotiation here.   It seems to me that it is not an issue. 

If on the other hand Pakistan is obtaining to gain an advance or an outcome on negotiation before they have been negotiated then I think that we have a bigger problem.  As I say we share Pakistan’s position on the substance but we accept, and I think that all colleagues accept, that when one goes into a negotiation, one doesn’t predetermine in advance what the outcome will be.  And I hope that it will be possible to obtain clarification with regard to that from our distinguished colleague from Pakistan which may bring us hopefully towards resolving this particular issue. 

In terms of these issues that Pakistan has identified as issues of importance to Pakistan, it  also goes without saying issues of importance to New Zealand.  It is impossible to negotiate on all four of these ideas seriously at the same time.  So to talk about the need to have a quality of treatment and to run four contemporaneous negotiations on nuclear disarmament, FMCT, PAROS, and NSA is frankly not practical.  It is not practical for the larger Member States of the CD.  It is certainly not practical for those of us who are somewhat smaller but equally sovereign in the CD and those of us who are also a lot farther away and will need to have experts able to participate in negotiations on these four substantive issues and I think we need to accept the practicality of all of this. 

In term of the issues that were mentioned, as I have said they are all issues of importance to us just as they are of importance to other colleagues who have addressed them.  With regard to NSAs there is frankly I think a complication in negotiating—potential complications and negotiating NSAs in this forum—by their very nature, NSAs are commitments between those countries that have nuclear weapons and those that do not have nuclear weapons.  There is an issue with regard to the potential conferring of the status of Nuclear Weapons States on all of the States that possess nuclear weapons through entering negative security assurances of the NPT.  There is a potential complication in doing it in the CD that will require a lot of working through and I think that we should be quite frank in acknowledging it.  If countries that have nuclear weapons wish to give an assurance to countries that do not have nuclear weapons that they will not use nuclear weapons against them then it is open to those countries to give those assurances unilaterally.  And colleagues will be aware, as I am, that the International Court of Justice has determined that a unilateral assurance that is intended to have other States act on it is legally binding and that in fact comes from a case from the International Court of Justice, in which New Zealand was a party, that in fact related to nuclear weapons.  So it would certainly be very interesting to know from colleagues who from those States that possess nuclear weapons and that are arguing that NSAs should be actively in this context.  It would be interesting to know what they have done in terms of unilateral assurances between Non-Nuclear Weapons States that nuclear weapons will not be used against them.  That would actually take us some direction along the track that our distinguished colleague from Pakistan has suggested that we should be pursuing in the CD in regard to NSAs and I look forward to a future occasion and hearing more about that and about the action that has been taken unilaterally by those states that produce nuclear weapons to learn.

So again, Mr. President we express the same hope by other delegations that it would be possible to move our work forward to enable us to actually do what we should be doing.  There will be a balancing of the issues, all of which are of primary importance to New Zealand.  There will be a balancing of issues required, but it is simply not practical to negotiate at the same time these four issues and I think we need to be quite realistic about this and I think we need to be quite realistic about the level of resources that all members of the CD and all of us would like to participate energetically, thoroughly, and whole heartedly and I am sure that we would all like to participate in good faith in these negotiations.

Thank you very much Mr. President.