Ministry Statements & Speeches:
Chair,
I take the floor to explain New Zealand’s vote on resolution L.18, entitled “Steps to building a common roadmap towards a world without nuclear weapons”. After careful reflection, New Zealand once again abstained on this resolution.
We commend Japan on its decision to overhaul and streamline last year’s text, and we recognise some improvements. But we remain disappointed with several aspects. I will outline a couple of our concerns.
PP5 casts the recent Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in a rosy light. Yet, for a third successive time, the NPT’s five-yearly review meetings have failed to achieve an agreed outcome. This shortcoming, in our view, is of greater significance than its “intensive and substantive deliberations” and should be reflected with greater concern when the global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime is under massive strain.
PP6 and OP5 both feature the supposed principle of “increased and undiminished security for all”. We don’t recognise this principle as formulated, as it is a corruption of the concept of “undiminished security for all” in the report of the first UN Special Session on Disarmament. As drafted, it might be used as a rationalisation for perpetual possession of nuclear weapons – a notion we reject.
In OP4, rather than the formulation and distinctions used, we would have strongly preferred the paragraph simply to have noted the lack of progress on nuclear disarmament and called on the nuclear weapon states to fulfil their obligations.
In closing, in reference to Brazil and Mexico’s resolution L.61 I would like to commend the work of the group of experts set up two years ago to produce a comprehensive study on enhancing cooperation between nuclear weapon-free zones.
Thank you.