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implementation of the 2001 Program of
Action (PoA) to Prevent, Combat and
Erradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms
and Light Weapons. That Conference
reaffirmed the relevance of the PoA and
its continued implementation. In the cur-
rent year, States will meet for the second
time to review the implementation of the
Program. In addition to the work of the
groups of governmental experts on illicit
brokering and on the UN Register of
Conventional Arms, two other expert
groups will start work in 2008: one on
the improvement of cooperative efforts
to deal with excessive stocks of muni-
tions and the other on the feasibility and
possible guidelines for a treaty on illicit
trade in such arms. My office also coope-
confidence and enhance international provide assistance and support to these
rates with individual governments and
security. meetings and hope that early agreement
non-governmental organizations in the
can be found on the proposals currently field of small arms and light weapons.
Q: The Weapons of Mass discussed.
Destruction Commission, which Q: Finally, do you have a message
chaired by Hans Blix addressed Q: Post-conflict disarmament
that you would like to get out to
sixty recommendations back in mechanism in small arms and the international community here
May 2006, have you had taken on light weapons has been a fragile
in Geneva?
any of those recommendations? and long process, have there been
progress in this field?
Progress in disarmament and arms
The international WMD Commission,
control has been hard to achieve over the
widely known as the "Blix Through our regional centers we have
past few decades and setbacks have hap-
Commission", did indeed come up with been able to assist in the destruction of
pened side by side with some accom-
60 recommendations, and half of them small arms and light weapons in regions
plishments. There is today a solid corpus
dealt with nuclear weapons, which of post conflict. In this connection, we
of international positive law on these
remain the most deadly weapons on work as a team with several agencies of
questions and a set of political principles
earth. Many of the Commission's recom- the United Nations, such as UNDP,
and objectives generally agreed and
mendations have either echoed, or been ICRC, UNICEF, UINMAT and others. respected by the international communi-
incorporated into, General Assembly
ty. Compliance with commitments
resolutions, which in turn establish man- Q: What are the progresses in accepted under these instruments is
dates for the work of my office. We pro- regulation of the international
essential for the success of further
mote the elimination and non-prolifera- Small arms and light weapons
efforts, as well as the strengthening of the
tion of all types of WMD and try to trade?
common resolve to continue striving for
encourage more states to join or comply
new agreements that will enhance peace
with existing multilateral treaties, which In June and July 2006, a Conference was
and security. States and civil society
are among the most important recom- held to review progress made in the
must work together in this endeavor.
mendations of the Blix Commission.
Q: There has been quite a lot of
talk about the cluster munitions;
would you please tell us what you
are doing in this context? SUMMER PROGRAMMES 2008
Two intensive three-week programmes on key challenges
Through the Conventional Arms Branch
and the Geneva Branch my office fol- of world politics, diplomacy and multilateralism
lows very closely the work of the two
International Affairs and WTO, International
parallel processes in the field of cluster
Multilateral Governance, Trade and Development,
munitions. The Secretary-General has
June 16—July 4 July 7-25
made clear his support to the humanita-
rian objectives of these efforts. The
http :llgraduateinstitute.ch/executivelsummer
Secretary-General is the depositary of
the Convention on Certain Conventional Deadline for applications: THE GRADUATE INSTITUTE I GENEVA
Weapons, under which there is work in April 1, 2008 INSTITUT DE HAurEs ETUDES
progress regarding the possibility of a INTERNATIONALES ET DU DEVELOPPEMENT
GRADUATE INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL
Protocol on cluster munitions. We AND DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
1 2008 Diva 7
w w w d i v a into n a t i 0 n a