General Assembly First Committee on Disarmament and International Security

United Nations First Committee Webpage

For all resolutions, speeches and voting records, see WILPF's Reaching Critical Will project page http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org

During the General Assembly session each year, the six committees of the General Assembly are assigned different tasks on which to focus throughout the coming session. For the 55th General Session (2000), the following issues were assigned to the First Committee:

1. Reduction of military budgets

2. Development of good-neighbourly relations among Balkan States

3. Maintenance of international security

(a) Prevention of the violent disintegration of States;
(b) Stability and development of South-Eastern Europe.

4. Developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the
context of international security

5. Role of science and technology in the context of international security and
disarmament

6. Establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the region of the Middle East

7. Conclusion of effective international arrangements to assure non-nuclear-weapon
States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons

8. Prevention of an arms race in outer space

9. General and complete disarmament

(a) Notification of nuclear tests;
(b) Establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia;
(c) Mongolia’s international security and nuclear-weapon-free status;
(d) Measures to uphold the authority of the 1925 Geneva Protocol;
(e) Preservation of and compliance with the Treaty on the Limitation of
Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems;
(f) Implementation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use,
Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on
Their Destruction;
(g) Implementation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the
Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and
on Their Destruction;
(h) Missiles;
(i) Towards a nuclear-weapon-free world: the need for a new agenda;
(j) Consolidation of peace through practical disarmament measures;
(k) Transparency in armaments;
(l) Assistance to States for curbing the illicit traffic in small arms and
collecting them;
(m) Reducing nuclear danger;
(n) Nuclear-weapon-free southern hemisphere and adjacent areas;
(o) Conventional arms control at the regional and subregional levels;
(p) Regional disarmament;
(q) Nuclear disarmament;
(r) Follow-up to the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on
the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons;
(s) Illicit traffic in small arms;
(t) Observance of environmental norms in the drafting and implementation
of agreements on disarmament and arms control;
(u) Relationship between disarmament and development;
(v) Convening of the fourth special session of the General Assembly devoted
to disarmament;
(w) Small arms.

10. Review and implementation of the Concluding Document of the Twelfth
Special Session of the General Assembly

(a) Regional confidence-building measures: activities of the United Nations
Standing Advisory Committee on Security Questions in Central Africa;
(b) United Nations Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa;
(c) United Nations Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and
the Pacific;
(d) Convention on the Prohibition of the Use of Nuclear Weapons;
(e) United Nations regional centres for peace and disarmament;
(f) United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and
Development in Latin America and the Caribbean;
(g) United Nations Disarmament Information Programme;
(h) United Nations disarmament fellowship, training and advisory services.

11. Review of the implementation of the recommendations and decisions adopted
by the General Assembly at its tenth special session

(a) Report of the Disarmament Commission;
(b) Report of the Conference on Disarmament;
(c) Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters;
(d) United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research;
(e) Disarmament Week.

12. The risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East

13. Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional
Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have
Indiscriminate Effects

14. Strengthening of security and cooperation in the Mediterranean region

15. Consolidation of the regime established by the Treaty for the Prohibition of
Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (Treaty of Tlatelolco)

16. Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling
of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction

17. Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

 

Ambassador Andre Erdos of Hungary, the permament representativeto the United Nations from Hungary will serve as Chairman of the First Committee for the 56th Session in 2001

Mya Than, the permanent representative to the United Nations from Myanmar, served as Chariman of the First Committee for the 55th General Session in 2000.

Secretariat Contacts for the First Committee
Disarmament and International Security

Mr. Kuo-Chung Lin (Secretary)
(Telephone : 212 963 5595; Telefax : 212 963 5305; e-mail : lin@un.org)
Assisted by Ms. Maria San Agustin

Mr. Timur Alasaniya (Acting Deputy Secretary)
(Telephone : 212 963 5143; Telefax: 212 963 5303; e-mail : alasaniya@un.org)
Assisted by Ms. Lidija Komatina

 

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