Reaching Critical Will

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

Conference on Disarmament

General Assembly First Committee

UN Disarmament Commission

Special Session on Disarmament

Unofficial transcript
Italy, Ambassador Giovanni Manfredi
25 August 2009

Thank you, Mr. President.

First of all let me congratulate you most sincerely on the assumption of the presidency of the Conference on Disarmament, and let me assure you of the constant support of our Delegation in your work.

My country is extremely disappointed to see the Conference on Disarmament once again stalled. We deplore this situation in the strongest terms. Three months ago, by consensus, all of us agreed on a Programme of Work, thanks also to the instinctive efforts of the permanent representative of Algeria, ably supported by his other P6 Colleagues.

The Programme of Work was a document of substance. Since then we have been marking time unable to agree on minor logistics questions. Actually, I am sorely tempted to use a much stronger expression. In our opinion, this is not a proper use of the consensus rule that we all agree is the keystone of the Conference’s procedural work. It allows every member to avail itself of an indispensable tool, to safeguard its paramount national interest. But here now we are not faced with paramount national interests. When all is said and done, whatever adjectives we use to define our national security interests or whatever formula we use in the documents spelling out the calendar of meetings of the CD, the results of our work will be determined only in the negotiations of substance.

A satisfactory FMCT for example, will not depend on how we sort out these housekeeping issues that have distracted us since the end of last May. The situation we are witnessing, Mr. President, is demeaning to the prestige of the Conference and is in fact jeopardizing its very existence. It is undermining its relevance within the community of multilateral institutions.

Following the example of our distinguished colleague form the People’s Republic of China, who a few months ago shared with us some nuggets of wisdom from his country, I would like to recall a proverb in Latin from my home town: “de minimis non curat pretor”. We are the pretor and the minima are these issues that have monopolized our attention for three months, preventing us from doing serious work as our capitals rightly expect.

Thank you, Mr. President.