Government statements

• President of the General Assembly, H.E. Ms. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcé
• UN Secretary-General, Mr. Antonio Guterres
• Cuba, H.E. Mr. Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez
• Brazil,  H.E. Mr. Aloysio Nunes Ferreira
• Palau, H.E. Mr. Thomas Remengesau Jr.
• Iran, H.E. Mr. Mohammed Javad Zarif
• Costa Rica, H.E. Ms. Epsy Campbell
• Samoa, H.E. Mr. Tuilaepa Sailele Mlielegaoi
• Honduras, Ms. María Dolores Aqüero Lara
• Fiji, H.E. Mr. Frank Bainimarama
• African Group, delivered by Madagascar, H.E. Mr. Rivo Rakotovao
• Bangladesh, H.E. Mr. Abdul Hassan Mahmood Ali
• Iraq, H.E. Mr. Ibrahim Al Jafarai
• New Zealand, H.E. Ms. Bernadette Cavanagh
• Turkey, H.E. Mr. Ismail Alper Coskun
• China (Mr.)
• Guatemala, H.E. Ms. Sandra Jovel Polanco
• Kazakhstan, H.E. Mr. Kairat Abdrakhmanov
• Non-Aligned Movement, delivered by Venezuela, H.E. Mr. Jorge Arreaza
• Guyana, H.E. Mr. Carl B. Greenidge
• Mexico, H.E. Mr. Luis Videgary Caso
• Algeria, H.E. Mr. Abdelkader Messahel
• Namibia (Ms.)
• Philippines, H.E. Mr. Enrique A. Manalo
• Cote d'Ivoire, H.E. Mr. Marcel Amon-Tanoh 
• India, H.E. Mr. Vijay Gokhale
• Tanzania, H.E. Mr. Phillip Mahiga 
• Malaysia (Mr.)
• Thailand, H.E. Mr. Virsakdi Futrakul
• Saudi Arabia, Mr.
• Austria, H.E. Mr. Sebastian Kurz
• Nepal, H.E. Mr. Pradeep Kumar Gyawali
• Indonesia, H.E. Mr. Febrian Alphyanto Ruddyard
• Uruguay, H.E. Mr. Rodolfo Nin Novoa
• Belarus, H.E. Mr. Andrei Dapkiunas
• El Salvador, H.E. Mr. Carlos Casteneda 
• Marshall Islands, H.E. Mr. John Silk
• Nicaragua, H.E. Mr. Paul Oqvist
• Sudan, H.E. Mr. Eldirdiri Mohamed Ahmed
• Kyrgyzstan, H.E. Mr. Erlan Abdyldaev
• Arab Group, delivered by Oman
• Peru, H.E. Mr. Marco Balarezo
• Morocco, H.E. Mr. Redouane Houssaini
• Egypt, H.E. Mr. Ehab Fawzy
• South Africa (Mr.)
• Liechtenstein, H.E. Mr. Albert Frick
• Libya, H.E. Mr. Mohamed T.H. Siala
• Jordan (Ms.)
• Angola, H.E. Ms. Teodolinda Coelho
• Pakistan, H.E. Ms. Tehmina Janjua
• Japan, H.E. Mr. Tomoyuki Yoshida
• Nigeria (Mr.)
• Ghana, Mr. Kwaku Sarpong, MP
• Ireland, H.E. Mr. Paul Kehoe
• Holy See, H.E. Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher
• International Committee of the Red Cross, Ms. Veronique Christory
• World Future Council, Ms. Kehkashan Basu
• International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Ms. Ray Acheson

The 73rd session of the UN General Assembly First Committee on Disarmament and International Security starts its work for 2018 in New York on Monday 8 October. 

You can follow along with our weekly newsletter, the First Committee Monitor and learn about the issues on the table with our First Committee briefing book. We also post statements, documents, and other information on our website as it becomes available, and provide live coverage when we can on Twitter.

Reaching Critical Will will monitor the following meetings of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) in 2018: 

• CCW Group of Governmental Experts on lethal autonomous weapon systems,  9-13 April and 27-31 August 2018
• CCW Meeting of the High Contracting Parties, 21-23 November 2018

To receive Reaching Critical Will's CCW Report with coverage of these meetings, please sign up here to our "conventional weapons / emerging technologies of violence" mailing list.

The 2018 CCW Group of Governmental Experts on lethal autonomous weapon systems will meet in Geneva from 9-13 April 2018. Click here to learn more about, and following the meeting.

The 2018 Biological Weapons Convention Meeting of Experts will be held in Room XVII at the Palais des Nations in Geneva from 7 to 16 August 2018. 

States agree to a Working Capital Fund to address financial difficulties but do not advance on substantial matters 

The latest Meeting of States Parties (MSP) of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), chaired by Ambassador Ljupco Jivan Gjorgjinski of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, took place from 4–7 December in Geneva. Shortly after midnight on Friday, states parties adopted a report that was stripped down to a bare minimum with respect to substantial agreements. It did, however, agree to address the Convention’s dire financial situation with the establishment of a Working Capital Fund based on voluntary contributions and as a source of short-term funding. This does not solve the core problem, which is the failure of few states parties to pay their assessed contributions on time and in full, but at least provides some short-term financial relief. States also agreed for the next Meetings of Experts to take place 29 July–9 August 2019, and for the 2019 MSP to be held 3–6 December in Geneva. Ambassador Yann Hwang of France will chair the MSP. The meeting approved Ambassador Adrian Vierita of Romania and Ambassador Andreano Erwin of Indonesia as Vice-Chairs.

During the MSP general debate, many states observed that rapid developments in the life sciences in the past years, especially in the area of microbiology, have dual-use dimensions. Brazil noted that this pushes the BWC to “spring back into the centre of disarmament discussions,” but also warned that the “institutional machinery does not match the breadth of prohibitions established therein.” This seems to be one of the core challenges of the BWC within the context of current rapid developments in science and technology. This concern is also shared by UN Secretary-General Guterres, who, in his recently published report Current developments in science and technology and their potential impact on international security and disarmament efforts cautions that these developments could undermine the norm against biological weapons.The Global Forum on Scientific Advances Important to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, organised by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security on 3 December, provided further in-depth insights into examples of current advancements in biology and biotechnology and their impact on bioweapons non-proliferation policy. 

Maintaining the international norm against the use of biological weapons and addressing these challenges should have been at the core of states parties’ discussions. The Meetings of Experts (MXs) held earlier this year in August offered substantive and rich discussions of measures that can ensure the Convention’s institutional strengthening. As many states argued during the MSP, the MXs should give impetus to the further fleshing out of potential areas of common understandings and to identifying concrete actions. Unfortunately, the reference to the MXs in the adopted report merely notes that “no consensus was reached on the deliberations including any possible outcomes.” As seen in other disarmament fora, a common trait in international consensus-based bodies seems to be that a handful of states treat consensus as requiring absolute unanimity. As with other treaties, this threatens to weaken multilateralism and the BWC’s mandate.

The largest portion of the discussions revolved around the Convention’s most pressing issue: the critical financial situation. The impact of the lack of funds became acutely obvious at this year’s MSP: the duration of the meeting was reduced from previously agreed four days to three days. The meeting on Thursday, 6 December, was held in an informal manner without the availability of interpreters. 
As observed in a joint NGO statement, delivered on 5 December and endorsed by WILPF, “it is only a handful of states parties—Brazil, Venezuela, Nigeria, Libya and Argentina— that account for more than three quarters of the overall debt.” Prior to the meeting, the Chair drafted an information paper to address the Convention’s financial sustainability, but as Germany observed, discussions occasionally became “absurd”. For instance, Venezuela and Brazil opposed language that singles out financial stability as a “prerequisite” for the sustainability of the Convention, arguing that financial contributions are one of many obligations that ensure the BWC’s functioning. The United States, France, the United Kingdom, and others expressed bewilderment and concern at such arguments. While Algeria stressed the “huge cost” of having discussed financial matters instead of substantive issues, the MSP found, at least, a short-term fix to ensure the BWC’s working with the establishment of a Working Capital Fund, to be reviewed at the Ninth Review Conference in 2021.

The joint NGO statement also expressed concern at the politicised statements taking away valuable time from BWC meetings. Unfortunately, this concern materialised yet again during this MSP. The Russian delegation kicked the meeting off with a lengthy and indignant account of Swiss authorities searching the Russian delegation at Geneva airport. It threatened that if this happened again, Russia would block any decisions, halt payments to the Convention, and call for the meeting to be moved to another country. Another contested and politicised point was the absence of Vice-Chairs to the meeting. Whilst the process for selecting Vice-Chairs is not clearly codified, recent practice has been for regional groups to nominate a Vice-Chair in a “silent procedure” that is accepted by all states parties unless an objection is raised. This year for the first time, the United States (US) opposed the Non-Aligned Movement’s nomination of Venezuela as Vice-Chair. The US argued that it did so due to Venezuela’s domestic political situation and it being in financial arrears to the Convention. The MSP’s extensive discussions prompted by this decision was to a large extent aligned with geo-political realities and they took the meeting further away from substantive discussions.

The meeting’s dynamics were reminiscent of other disarmament fora attended by WILPF throughout 2018. The financial instability of international bodies such as the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) and the BWC is undeniable, and needs to be addressed in a comprehensive and sustainable way. Yet, long discussions around solutions to address financial difficulties distract from the core purposes of these Conventions. Being trapped in one of the many UN conference rooms for days on end without the sight of natural daylight, delegates may lose sight of why these Conventions were created in the first place: to promote and protect human security, and to advance humanitarian disarmament.

For day-by-day accounts of the Meeting, see Richard Guthrie’s reports here. 

The 2017 NPT Prepatory Committee will meet in Vienna, Austria from 2-12 May 2017. This webpage contains information for civil society participation, including accreditation and registration, side events, presentations, and more.

NGO accreditation and registration

Please see the information note from the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs on civil society participation for details on accreditation and registration.

The deadline for applications of accreditation of organisations is 10 March 2017. Such requests should be made through the United Nations Civil Society Network (CSO-Net) by completing an online accreditation form available at http://bit.ly/2020NPT_P1Acc.

Those non-governmental organizations that have requested accreditation as above will be informed by the Secretariat by e-mail by 17 March 2017 of the outcome of their request.

Online pre-registration will be available to organizations whose accreditation has been provisionally approved. Those organizations are to pre-register online their representatives who will attend the Review Conference by 14 April 2017. The link to the pre-registration page will be contained in the e-mail notifying organizations of the status of their accreditation. Please bear in mind that individuals requesting accreditation, as well as those planning to attend side events, must be at least 18 years of age. 

Upon completion of pre-registration, please download a personal registration form and the confirmation letter with the United Nations logo and bring them with you to the on-site registration counter, where access badges will be provided. Dates, times, and location of registration are provided in the information note.

For questions relating to accreditation, please contact Ms. Haruka Katarao, haruka.katarao[at]un.org.

Side events

NGOs have Conference Room M3 reserved for their use in the UN. It seats approximately 100 people. Please email info[at]reachingcriticalwill.org to book the room, giving your top three preferences of date and time. The calendar of events will be updated regularly. There is no interpretation available during side events. Any equipment and catering must be organised and paid for by the event organisers.

NGO materials

There will be a table at the Review Conference for NGO materials. Please be sure to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. a copy of your material before placing it on the table. Please bring your materials in boxes or other carrying containers that are small enough to be carried and to go through the airport-type screening facilities at the UN.

Exhibitions

Limited space is available for exhibits. Please contact Ms. Haruka Katarao (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Civil society presentations

Whether or not you are planning to attend the Review Conference, consider getting involved in drafting civil society presentations to the meeting. The tentative date for these presentations is Wednesday, 3 May 2017 from 15:00-18:00. You can subscribe to the listserv we use to draft presentations by going to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/npt_presentations. Email traffic on this list will be quite heavy between February and April.

NPT News in Review

The NPT News in Review is produced during NPT Preparatory Committee and Review Conferences. It features analysis, reports, feature articles from NGOs around the world, a calendar of events, and more. You can subscribe to receive in your inbox during the PrepCom.

We also encourage you to submit to the 2017 NPT News in Review. The guidelines are as follows:

Feature articles: In addition to the daily analysis of the proceedings of the PrepCom, the NPT News in Review also contains feature articles that cover a range of nuclear disarmament issues. We welcome submissions from NGO experts around the world, regardless of whether or not you will be in Geneva. Articles should be between 400-500 words. Please submit in .doc or .docx format and the body of the email. Articles will be attributed to the author and may be edited for length.

Advertising: You can use the NPT News in Review to publicize an important announcement, event, or project hosted by your organization. NIRs are hand-distributed to all of the delegates at the PrepCom, sent by email to more than 1000 subscribers, and are archived on our website.

• 1/4 page ad: $60
• 1/2 page ad: $80
• full page ad: $150

Please send all submissions to info[at]reachingcriticalwill.org.

The first Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will meet from 2-12 May 2017 in Vienna, Austria. The Chair-designate of the first session is Ambassador Henk Cor Van der Kwast of the Netherlands.

Reaching Critical Will resources

• NPT News in Review: subscribe now to receive during the PrepCom
• 2017 NPT Briefing Book
• Assuring destruction forever: 2017 edition

Conference resources

• Statements
• Documents
• National reports
• Calendar of events

Other resources

• Background information and previous NPT meetings
• UN official website

Published in advance of the 2017 Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee, this briefing book provides an overview of the current state of play and the critical issues ahead for this review cycle.

Editorial: The crumbling edifice of hypermilitarised power
6 November 2017