Deputy Minister Kim Traavik

Opening Statement at Workshop on Reform of the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly

New York, 3 October 2004

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Good morning,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Reform of multilateral disarmament fora is of course not an end in, and of itself, it is a means to an end. In order to meet more efficiently present and future security challenges, we simply must explore the effectiveness and political relevance of multilateral instruments.

I am pleased that so many eminent members of the arms control community from all regions share this view and I am grateful to all of you for being here on a well deserved day off. But that too could perhaps be seen as an expression of your commitment.

I hope and trust that the present workshop will produce a constructive input to the process of 1 ^st> Committe reform and that it could serve as a useful curtain-raiser to the open-ended consultations that the distinguished Chair of the Committee intends to hold later this fall.

Let us take a closer look at some of the facts:

At present the First Committee does not allow for real, in-dept debates on global security concerns. The Committee fails to properly address global security threats such as international terrorism and proliferation of mass destruction. It does not function as an engine for disarmament. The Committee need to do much more to build consensus on how to meet our collective security challenges. The follow-up of resolutions and decisions is clearly not satisfactory.

And the Conference on Disarmament as well as the UN Disarmament Commission are in dire straits too. The CD has been in deadlock for years. The UNDC has not delivered results for a long time.

It is time to respond to these challenges. We must be ambitious, yet also realistic. And we should proceed in a step by step manner.

Norway’s agenda is quite simple: to restore the prominent role of the General Assembly in security and disarmament affairs and to help foster consensus on practical steps with a view to making the First Committee more effective and more relevant.

To that end, useful, albeit limited, progress has already been made. We are particularly appreciative of the commitment and leadership of ambassador de Alba and ambassador Sareva.

Our background paper for today’s workshop is intended to provide an overview of the suggestions that have been presented so far during the process. This morning I would like to emphasize the need to improve the format of the debates in the First Committee. We must strive for further improvements of the General Debate and we must strengthen the thematic discussion segments.

The thematic debates require more analytical background documentation to be provided by the UN secretariat. Moreover, Member States should be encouraged to circulate discussion papers in advance. The thematic debates should be interactive. and academic institutions and other sectors of civil society should be involved. Why not invite representatives of civil society to address the Committee at the beginning of each session? I am confident that it would improve the proceeding and generate more interest on the part of the public. Here, we have important lessons to learn from other parts of the UN system.

The First Committee could, and should benefit more from the work of the United Nations Disarmament Commission (UNDC). The Committee could agree on the agenda and the programme for the Commission at this session. That would enable the UNDC to exclusively concentrate on its substantial work.

In order to be relevant, the debates in the First Committee must also be operational. Hence, the Chair should prepare an analytical summing-up of the general debate. The Chair, or other members of the Bureau, could compile summaries of the thematic discussions. Such summaries could be helpful in defining where there is emerging consensus on how to handle important matters on security and disarmament.

The success of the work of the First Committee should be measured by the quality of it output, not by the number of resolutions. The present number of more than 50 resolutions per session clearly is excessive. Consultations on draft resolutions need to become more transparent. And since so many of the resolutions are repetitive, we would probably be better served by examining them with longer time intervals.

Improving the working methods of the First Committee must be a continuous effort, not a one shot exercise. We may agree on certain steps during this session, but we must be ready to continue seeking new improvements in the years to come. Our endeavours must also, of course, be closely linked to the broader, overall revitalization of the General Assembly.

We sincerely believe that improving the effectiveness of the First Committee will have a positive effect on other multilateral institutions dealing with disarmament and non-proliferation. For one thing the seemingly never-ending stalemate at the CD is preventing much-needed negotiations on a verifiable and non-discriminatory fissile material cut-off treaty. There is an urgent need to bring this dead-lock to an end.

But although improving working methods and changing meeting formats are important, such reforms provide no guarantee that we will be better equipped to tackle the security challenges we are facing.

At the end of the day the decisive factor will be whether we manage to uphold the principle that common challenges should be met by joint action. In other words we must prove ourselves able to mobilize the political will to make better use of our multilateral institutions. That is, of course, a much bigger challenge.