Page 164 - 100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International_V-Petrovsky_private special edition

100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International

International Law Commission, and the Commission on Human Rights. The
annual Substantive Session of the Economic and Social Council is held every
second year in Geneva, with New York serving as the other host. The
Secretary-General will attend this years’ conference in Geneva in July, I hope
that this meeting will mark the 50th Anniversary not only by words of support
for the UN, but by practical deeds that will strengthen multilateralilsm as a
major approach in dealing with international issues. The International Law
Commission, which will convene its annual 12-week meeting in May, has
recently completed drafting the Statute of International Criminal Law. The
Statute is presently before the General Assembly for adoption.

The Conference on Disarmament (CD) also meets here in Geneva
throughout the year. The CD was established in 1979 as the single multilateral
disarmament negotiating forum of the international community. Its terms of
reference include practically all multilateral arms regulation and disarmament
issues. The Conference conducts its work by consensus. The CD has a special
relationship with the United Nations; it adopts its own rules of procedure and
its own agenda, taking into account the recommendations of a General
Assembly, and the proposals of its members. It reports to the General
Assembly annually, or more frequently, as appropriate.

UN personnel service the meetings of the CD, which are convened at the
Palais des Nations. The Deputy Secretary-General of the Conference on
Disarmament is also the Chief of the Geneva Branch of the Centre for
Disarmament Affairs. The Branch supports the work of the CD and the
numerous workshops and conferences on all other disarmament-related issues
that are convened at the Palais throughout the year, and maintains a reference
collection of security, arms regulation and disarmament information and
documentation.

The CD and its predecessors have negotiated such multilateral arms regu-
lation and disarmament agreements as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons (also known as the NPT), the Convention on the Prohibi-
tion of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environment, the Seabed
Treaties, the Biological Weapons Convention, and the Chemical Weapons
Convention. Presently, the CD is concentrating its energies on drafting a
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that will complete the series of nuclear test
bans begun in 1963 with the Partial Test Ban Treaty and continued in the
1970s with the signing of both the Threshold Ten Ban Treaty and the Peaceful
Nuclear Explosions Treaty. The successful conclusion of a CTBT would be a
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