Italy, Statement to the Conference on Disarmament, August 7th:

Unofficial Transcription

Thank you, Mr. President. I think it is the first time that I take the floor in a plenary meeting under your Presidency, therefore I wish to congratulate you first of all for your Presidency and assure you of my full support and the support of my delegation.

Mr. President, I would like to make some remarks of a general nature concerning both the issue of chemical and biological weapons, this it is not a prepared statement, so I hope you will bare with me, if it will not be so perfectly delivered as previous speakers.

First of all I believe that, indeed the 10th anniversary of the Chemical Weapons Convention deserves being celebrating in Geneva, and the same goes for the significant results in the field of biological weapons which were presented by Ambassador Khan.

During the ceremony which proceeded this meeting I believe Ambassador Pfirter mentioned the image of the chemical weapons as a baby coming back to its mother which is the CD. I sometimes wonder who is the mother—and who is the baby—in view of the results which have been achieved in the past years.

Indeed, I think the CD should be proud of its past records of which I believe the Chemical Weapons Convention, as well as Biological Weapons Convention, are among the most significant results. Although we should not ignore the NPT and the CTBT as other significant achievements of this Conference, but looking to the past is not sufficient and we, of course, also have to look into the future.

Indeed, both in the case of chemical weapons and biological weapons we can talk of success stories in both cases. There was a total prohibition of an entire category of weapons of mass destructions and this is no small achievement indeed. When we talk about the Chemical Weapons Convention it was a very complete and exhausted presentation by Ambassador Pfirter. One has to realize how far this Convention went, not only in a total prohibition trough a legally binding treaty, but also the thorough establishment of a full fledged organization , a review process, a sophisticated verification system, provisions for national legislation—I  mean all this makes the Chemical Weapons Conventions on of the most advanced instruments in the field of disarmament and weapons of mass destruction.

I believe from his presentation that some lessons can be drawn even for our future deliberations here. For instance concerning the debate  about how flexible one should be in establishing deadlines for the main provisions of a convention, isn’t it convenient to be rather flexible and  make sure that every state is comfortable in the deadlines—for instance in the destruction and elimination of weapons which is foreseen. The question of feasibility of a verification of modalities of on-sight inspections, the remark which was made that inspections are not the only means of verification, and then I note that an issue which we’re debating here—so called negative security assurances, both positive and negative, are an issue which does not only regard nuclear weapons, but also chemical weapons, the use of this weapons by terrorists, resolution 1540 and also a very large issue of assistance to countries in eliminating this weapon, of which the G8 global partnership program is one of the most significant expression. As a member of the European Union I wish to thank Ambassador Pfirter for mentioning the role of the EU both in the field assistance and cooperation in the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Now passing to biological weapons I really appreciated very much as I said the presentation of Ambassador Khan, who said that the Biological Weapons Convention is indeed a simple instrument, but which establishes the strong principle of a total prohibition. We all know that the instruments are not as sophisticated as once foreseen by the Chemical Weapons Convention. And we indeed appreciate the kind of resuscitation of this Conference of this Convention, which took place in the past years, and listening to Ambassador Khan saying that the Biological Weapons Convention is now in a good shape. But can we say the same thing about the Conference of Disarmament. Is the CD in a good shape? The CD—which is supposed to be the mother of all disarmament conventions.

I think that throughout this discussion this morning we have not mentioned the third pillar of weapons of mass destruction, which is the nuclear pillar. And our view is that the nuclear issue is the kind of different animal if you compare it to the other weapons of mass destructions.

The international community has followed a different path when it comes to nuclear weapons. Not a single treaty prohibiting the weapons, but step by step process of which of those who are party to the NPT, the so called 13 practical steps of the 2000 year Review Conference are an indication. Even in the CD itself, I would say that Nuclear Disarmament is the prime concern, if we think 3 of the 4 so called core issues, which has been foreseen by the 6 Presidents for the program of this year, are issues related to the nuclear field.

To conclude, we believe that success—there is a positive record in the Conference of Disarmament, especially in prohibiting in 2 of the 3 categories in the weapons of mass destruction. The unfinished field is the nuclear field, and we believe that this is one of the most important challenges ahead.