SUPPLEMENTARY MEMORANDUM SUBMITTED BY
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE
SMALL ARMS
1. The Committee requestested information
on the UN General Assembly's resolution on small arms adopted
on 15 December 1999 (54/54 V).
2. The central element of the resolution
was the decision to convene a UN Conference on the Illicit Trade
in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects in June/July
2001. The resolution also decided to establish a Preparatory Committee,
which would hold no less than three sessions and would make recommendations
to the Conference on all relevant matters.
3. The first Preparatory Committee meeting
(PrepCom) took place at UN Headquarters in New York on 28 Feburary
to 3 March. The official report has not yet issued. This will
be provided to the Committee as soon as it is received. The meeting:
— elected Ambassador Carlos Dos Santos,
the Permanent Representative of Mozambique to the United Nations,
as chairman of the Preparatory Committee;
— elected a Preparatory Committee Bureau
of 25 Vice-Chairmen, comprising 5 from each of the regional groups,
as follows:
— Western Europe and others: Portugal,
France, Norway, US, Canada.
— Eastern Europe: Belarus, Latvia, Poland,
Azerbaijan, Ukraine.
— Asia: Japan, China, Iran, Indonesia,
Philippines.
— Latin America/Caribbean: Brazil, Guyana,
Peru, Cost Rica, Jamaica.
— Africa: Gabon, Senegal, Kenya, Egypt,
(to be confirmed).
— decided to hold the second PrepCom
on 8-19 January 2001 in New York, and the third PrepCom on 19-30
March 2001 in a venue to be decided (the candidates are New York,
Nairobi and Geneva);
— decided to refer the question of
dates and venue of the Conference to the 55th General Assembly,
as the first PrepCom had not been able to reach consensus on this
point and therefore fulfil the mandate given to it by the 54th
General Assembly (the candidates for the venue are New York and
Geneva; the EU supports the latter);
— exchanged views on the modalities
for NGO participation in subsequent PrepComs and in the Conference
itself, and asked the Chairman to conduct further consultations
on this point intersessionally;
— requested the Chairman to conduct
broad-based intersessional consultations on an informal, open-ended
and transparent basis with representatives of governments and
intergovernmental organisations, with the option of also hearing
the views of civil society;
— held an initial exchange of views
on the scope, objectives, agenda and rules of procedure of the
Conference (the EU's and hence UK's views on these issues are
set out in the documents listed below).
4. The Committee asked about the Government's
attitude to the resolution (and hence to the Conference). The
UK voted for the resolution (but was one of 14 states to abstain
on preambular paragraph 8, referring to the right of self-determination
of all peoples, on the grounds that this was inappropriate to
the subject matter of the resolution). The Government regards
the Conference as a key milestone in international efforts to
tackle the scourge of small arms proliferation. The Conference
offers the opportunity to build on existing regional initiatives
by agreeing concerted global action to reduce levels of illicit
trade in small arms and light weapons. The UK therefore intends
to work hard for a successful Conference.
5. The main channel for such work will be
the EU. Member States tend to see eye-to-eye on small arms proliferation
and to express their views collectively through the Presidency.
The Government's attitude towards the Conference is therefore
described in detail by the following EU documents:
— EU common reply to UNGA resolutions
53/77 E (Annex A to this memorandum);
— the EU Presidency statement in the
first meeting of the Preparatory Committee (Annex B);
— the EU's food for thought paper,
entitled "Elements for consideration in the substantive preparation
for the 2001 Conference", circulated during the first meeting
of the Preparatory Committee (Annex C).
6. The Committee asked about the attitudes
of other members of the Security Council to the resolution. It
is too early to form a clear picture of the views of other Security
Council members on the Conference. The first PrepCom focussed
on procedural issues; in addition, not all members of the Security
Council spoke in the general debate, although the US, China and
Russia did. All speakers, including those three states, expressed
their desire for a successful Conference but more detailed debate
is likely to reveal differences on the scope, agenda and preferred
outcome of the Conference.
7. In addition, Resolution 54/54 V endorsed
the Secretary General's report on small arms (A/54/258) (Annex
D) and called upon all Member States to implement the relevant
recommendations in section IV of the report. The UK was represented
on the Group of Governmental Experts who assisted the Secretary
General in preparing the report by Sir Michael Weston, the UK's
former Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament.
The UK is already in compliance with the majority of the recommendations
for actions by states in Section IV of the Report and will continue
to give full consideration to the rest in developing and implementing
its policy on small arms.
ANTI-PERSONNEL
LANDMINES
8. The Committee asked about the Government's
efforts to encourage other countries to sign and ratify the Ottawa
Convention. The United Kingdom was one of the first States to
sign the Ottawa Convention, and was one of the first forty to
ratify it, thus being instrumental in bringing it into force.
(A list of countries that have signed, ratified or acceded to
the Ottawa Convention as of 2 March is at Annex E.) We have played
a leading role in providing funding for mine action projects,
increasing our annual funding for such activity from £5 million
in 1997 to £10 million in 2000. We have now destroyed all
of our anti-personnel mine stocks, ahead of schedule, except for
the small quantity retained in accordance with the Convention
for demining training purposes.
9. The UK conducted an extensive lobbying
exercise in 1998 to encourage all non-signatories to sign the
Ottawa Convention. Since then, we have continued to take all appropriate
opportunites to raise this issue with non-signatories (list of
all non-signatories at Annex F).
10. While the Government would prefer all
to join the UK in the total ban, we would welcome global participation
in a ban on transfers as a key first step on this path. The Government
is actively pressing for negotiation of such an agreement in all
appropriate fora, including the Conference on Disarmament and
the UN Weaponry Convention review process.
11. The Committee asked in particular about
the position of the United States. The US has not signed the Ottawa
Convention, arguing that it continues to need anti-personnel mines
for security reasons, in particular for the defence of the Republic
of Korea. However, the US is no longer producing or exporting
anti-personnel mines and has said that it is committed to identifying
alternatives to anti-personnel mines which would, if successful,
enable it to sign the Ottawa Convention by 2006. The US is aware
of our wish to see it and other non-signatories sign the Convention
as soon as possible.
BEGINS
1. The excessive and uncontrolled accumulation
and spread of small and light weapons (hereinafter small arms)
poses a threat to peace and security and reduces the prospects
for sustainable development in many regions of the world. The
international community has recognised the scale of this problem
the solution of which requires a concerted approach to the task
of both drastically reducing the huge stocks of uncontrolled small
arms in crisis areas and of effectively preventing the continued
influx of such weapons. The problems associated with small arms
have many root causes which call for effective action. A differentiated
approach that includes preventative as well as reactive measures
and which takes account of the complexity of the problem is therefore
called for.
2. In its Resolution 53/77 E the General
Assembly decided "to convene an international conference
on the illicit arms trade in all its aspects no later than 2001".
The context of this Resolution suggests that the conference should
focus on small arms manufactured to military specifications. Furthermore,
it requires that "all aspects" of the illicit circulation
of those weapons should be tackled. These aspects were dealt with
comprehensively in the 1997 Report of the UN Secretary-General
on small arms and light weapons which was prepared with the assistance
of a Panel of Governmental Experts (A/52/298, dated 27 August
1997). The two sets of reduction and prevention measures contained
therein were endorsed by the General Assembly in its Resolution
52/38 J and are fully supported by the European Union.
3. The 1997 Report, stating that accumulations
of small arms and light weapons become excessive and destabilising
when a State, whether supplier or recipient, does not exercise
restraint in the production, transfer, acquisition and holding
of such weapons beyond those needed for legitimate national or
collective defence and internal security, notes that there is
no single cause for accumulation of small arms and their subsequent
transformation into instability and conflict. The report observes
that the variety of different causes are unusefully categorised
by demand and supply factors although the distinction between
both is not always clear-cut, and that the predominance of demand
or supply factors varies by sub-region and states, as well as
by time period. The EU notes that weapons which have originally
been legally transferred, in many cases through subsequent illegal
transactions form the stockpiles from which the illicit flows
of weapons are fed. The EU looks forward to the report of the
Group of Governmental Experts on Small Arms, due to be published
later in 1999, and their views on the scope and objectives of
the international conference.
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