Malaysia takes over the CD presidency
Gabriella Irsten | Reaching Critical Will
19 August 2014
The Conference on Disarmament (CD) met on Tuesday the 19th August 2014, for the first plenary under Malaysia’s presidency. Statements were delivered by CD President Ambassador Dato' Mazian Muhammad of Malaysia, Japan, Australia, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), United States, Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Indonesia and the United Kingdom.
- The CD President, Ambassador Dato' Mazian Muhammad of Malaysia laid out the plan for the Malaysian precedency. Where the focus will be to negotiate and finalise the report of the CD to the UN General Assembly in line with Rule 43 and 44 of the Rules of Procedure. He also informed that the first draft of the report shall be made available by Thursday, 21st of August and delegations will be able to comments on the draft during the plenary session next Tuesday.
- Ms. Masaki Koyanagi, youth communicator for a world without nuclear weapons, from Japan addressed the CD and presented "The 10,000 High School Students Signatures Campaign" with its 131,743 signatures, which seeks the abolition of nuclear weapons and for the realisation of a peaceful world.
- Australian ambassador Peter Woolcott emphasised how the Arms Trade Treaty was successfully concluded in 2013 through Operative Provision 7 of resolution 67/234, which allowed the text to go to the General Assembly when consensus could not be reached. He continued in emphasising that “[…] the lesson is that redundancies should be built into consensus processes, but they should be used sparingly.”
- ASEAN called upon the CD “to establish, as soon as possible and as the highest priority, an ad hoc committee on nuclear disarmament.”
- The Russian Federation drew attention to factual flaws in the report submitted by the UK coordinators Ambassador Rowland on the 15 August, which included disregard of the No First Placement of Weapons in Outer Space discussion, Russian-Chinese PPWT updated text was presented as subject to critical remarks and the primary placing of the EU Code of conduct in space. The Russian delegation emphasised that these reports should not represent personal views but must be balanced or objective. Kazakhstan joined Russia in these concerns.
- In a right of reply the UK delegation reiterated that the report was done in a personal capacity and a balance had tried to be reached.
Next plenary
The next plenary meeting will be held on Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 10:00 a.m. in the council chamber.