By Holy See Mission
Statement byH.E.
Archbishop Celestino MigliorePermanent Observer of the Holy See To The U.N.At
the general debate of the first committeeon
Agenda Item 74: General and Complete DisarmamentNew York, 8 October 2003Mr.
Chairman,
On
behalf of my delegation, I wish to join the previous Speakers in
expressing our
congratulations on your election and to assure you of our complete
cooperation
as you guide the Committee's work this year. I take this occasion also
to convey
the Holy See's continuing appreciation for the work for peace done year
after
year in this United Nations setting.
If it seems impossible to
have nations lay down their arms in the present set of international
relationships, perhaps the reason is because we have not done sufficient
preparation to give States and their leaders the assurance that security
can be
obtained without the never ending development and production of arms.
This means
that the conditions for peace must be built first before we can enjoy
the fruits
of peace. The soil must be nourished before the blossom appears.
That is why
the work done by the United Nations and its agencies in building a
culture of
peace is so important. If we are to aspire to general and complete
disarmament,
we must first of all show a respect for life and the dignity and human
rights of
individuals, reject violence, promote freedom, justice, solidarity,
tolerance
and the acceptance of differences, and develop better understanding and
harmony
between ethnic, religious, cultural and social groups. This agenda is
indeed
vast, but if the world community does not embrace it, we will continue
to suffer
the ravages of war.
The main purpose of the
United Nations to maintain international peace and security can be
realized in
many different ways, for it is a purpose threatened and challenged on
many
fronts. In his address at the opening of this session of the General
Assembly,
Secretary-General Kofi Annan spoke of the "hard" and "soft" threats to
peace
faced by the UN. Among the hard threats are terrorism and the
proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction, while the soft threats include the
persistence of
extreme poverty, the disparity of income between and within societies,
the
spread of infectious diseases, and environmental degradation. Both types
of
threats are real and must be recognized by all States.
Moreover, the
Secretary-General emphasized that the UN does not have to choose to
confront one
to the exclusion of the other; indeed the UN cannot do so. This need and
concern
for a comprehensive view of international peace and security are fully
shared by
the Holy See, as evidenced primarily by its teachings on the nature of
the human
person, human dignity and a just social order. It is from this
starting-point
that my Delegation has always addressed this Committee.
Mr.
Chairman,
The specific focus of the
First Committee is on disarmament matters, usually considered hard
threats to be
handled by a number of multilateral initiatives and agreements. The
importance
of dialogue, negotiation, diplomacy and reference to the rule of law in
these
proceedings cannot be over-estimated. Though we have mediation and
verification
techniques embodied in international law, they are not being
sufficiently
utilized, and thus nations lapse into war. The steady application of the
rule of
law must be supported as the means to peace rather than constant
recourse to
militarism. In this regard, this Committee has a prominent role to play
in
insisting on standards to curb the excesses of weaponry. Such work is a
direct
contribution to build the conditions of peace.
Small arms ought to occupy
our immediate attention, for small arms and light weapons kill more than
half a
million people each year - including 300,000 in armed conflict and
200,000 from
homicides and suicides, of which 90 percent are civilians. Throughout
the 1990s,
small arms were used in 47 of 49 major conflicts. To fully address the
small
arms problem, there must be greater recognition that domestic laws and
international policies are interdependent, and that the legal and
illegal
markets for small arms are inter-related. Many illicit transfers start
out as
legal ones. In this regard, my Delegation re-iterates its view that
attention
should be focused on two important issues: State responsibility for
illicit
transfers and a legally binding agreement on the international arms
trade.
The
proliferation of small arms augment armed conflicts and diminishes the
opportunities for human development. People in developing countries are
more
than twice as likely to die from small arms than their counterparts in
the
developed countries. Small arms impede the tasks of aid workers and
relief
agencies. The prevalence of such weapons discourages teachers and
children from
going to school and farmers from taking their goods to market. The
reconstruction of war-torn societies is made all the more difficult when
such
weapons are widely available. Governments should see this fact as not
just a
problem of national security but of human development. A human rights
approach
to small arms puts people at the centre of the analysis and highlights
that it
is up to governments to take action.
Mr.
Chairman,
The vast majority of
Cold-War arms control thinking relied on the concept of Mutual Assured
Destruction (MAD). Everyone knows that this deterrence concept was based
on a
terrifying foundation: that one bloc's security can be defended by
threatening
the annihilation of the other bloc's population. The horrible prospect
of global
nuclear warfare was thought to be enough to ensure some form of peace
and
security, while over time both bilateral and multilateral agreements
sought to
reduce this possibility by encouraging and verifying the reduction of
nuclear
weapons in the world. This was made concrete in one particular case by
the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The end of the Cold War
should have seen the end of MAD policies that held the world in fear,
but events
over the past year have led to a certain resurgence in this thinking.
With it
have come a real weakening of the NPT regime and multilateral efforts
for
disarmament and non-proliferation. By exploiting certain loopholes in
the NPT
and engaging in covert proliferation activities, some States are once
again
banking their security on the possession and threatened use of nuclear
weapons.
These steps should be alarming to everyone. As my Delegation has
insisted on
many previous occasions, nuclear weapons are incompatible with peace in
the 21st
century.
As governments prepare for
the 2005 Review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the question of
proliferation
of nuclear weapons in all its aspects must be addressed. In the new age
of
terrorism the world has sadly entered, in which the fear of a terrorist
attack
with nuclear devices is present, the world community must give life to
the
following words, contained in the Final Document of the NPT 2000 Review,
which
all NPT States Parties agreed to: "the total elimination of nuclear
weapons is
the only absolute guarantee against the use or threat of use of nuclear
weapons."
The other weapons of mass
destruction, chemical and biological weapons, also present serious
problems.
Like the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, many chemical and biological
agents
are used for legitimate and even beneficial purposes, but some of these
can be
easily converted into weapons-grade material only to be bought, sold and
transported without detection. Multilateral inspection agencies, such as
the
IAEA for nuclear materials and the OPCW for chemicals, are vital to
ensuring
compliance and verification, and the lack of such an agency for the
Biological
Weapons Convention needs to be remedied quickly. Stringent export
controls on
the part of States who produce these materials would help stem illicit
transfers
and hold States more accountable for licit ones.
It is an unfortunate fact
that many arms control treaties contain loopholes and weak points in
terms of
compliance, verification and enforcement. None of these weaknesses
should,
however, divert our attention away from the seriousness of the threats
posed by
these weapons. Stronger enforcement measures, perhaps by developing
interdiction
agreements and policies among States, may be one way of making sure that
international law is upheld and vindicated. Making transparent,
verifiable and
irreversible reductions in offensive weapons is the most direct approach
to
disarmament. However, at the same time multilateral security assurances
in line
with changing geo-political realities among States and, perhaps most
importantly, internal political reforms have been shown to eliminate the
need
for such weapons in the first place. These assurances and reforms have
certainly
been effective in encouraging the nuclear disarmament already undertaken
by a
number of States under the NPT regime.
Mr.
Chairman,
All the steps that must be
taken in the disarmament process may seem at times overwhelming. But if
they are
seen in the context of building a culture of peace, they are not perhaps
so
daunting, with a view to combat both the hard and soft threats to our
collective
peace and security and guarantee the survival of humanity. What is
essential to
fulfill the peace agenda is to change the attitude of both States and
individuals. We must realize that violence is not the inevitable lot of
mankind.
We have already constructed the broad framework of international law and
have,
in the United Nations, the political instrument to implement that law.
The
knowledge of these gains already achieved by humanity should fill us
with hope
that recourse to violence and war can be overcome by renewing a
political
commitment to a multilateralism which is based upon the values of
responsibility, solidarity and dialogue. The steady application of
disarmament
steps can indeed light the way forward.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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