Page 118 - 100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International_V-Petrovsky_private special edition

100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International

tical means to increase openness and transparency pertaining to military hold-
ings and procurement through national production. In addition, the Conference
was asked to address the problems of weapons of mass destruction and the
transfer of high technology with military applications and to elaborate practical
means to increase openness and transparency in those fields, in accordance
with existing legal instruments. Thus, at its 1992 session, the Conference on
Disarmament added to its annual agenda an item "Transparency in Arma-
ments".

After two years of work, the Ad Нос Committee achieved а certain
convergence of views in some areas. There was а general view that the
establishment of the United Nations Register constituted а step forward in the
promotion of transparency in military matters and that it needed to be further
improved and developed to encourage universal participation. Also,
delegations saw а need to elaborate appropriate definitions of military holdings
and procurement through national production. There was broad agreement on
the importance of regional approaches to transparency questions; in this
context, many States felt that there was scope for the Committee to undertake
further work on this subject.

On the other hand, there were divergencies of views on а broad spectrum
of issues, including the interpretation of the Committee's mandate. The
Western and Eastern European Groups favoured а broad interpretation which,
in addition to issues related to the Register, would address issues such as
guidelines for international transfers of conventional arms (so called code of
conduct), or the size and organization of armed forces. They also believed that
transparency in armaments could shift the Cold War preoccupation with the
danger of nuclear war to other concerns such as the excessive and destabilizing
accumulation of conventional arms. The majority of the non-aligned Group
maintained, however, that the Committee should consider solely issues
specifically mentioned in its mandate and emphasized the necessity of applying
transparency to all armaments. They also considered that, according to
resolution 46/З6L, the current mandate of the Committee was to expire at the
end of 1994.

China believed that priority should be given to the issue of excessive and
destabilizing accumulation of arms, and it proposed the exchange of certain
indices representing relations between military expenditures, GNP, number of
armed forces and the territory of а State. An analysis of the indices could, in its
view, yield the general criteria of excessive and destabilizing accumulation of
arms.

96