UN Disarmament Conference Delayed

A UN high-level conference on nuclear disarmament, originally scheduled for May 14-16, was indefinitely postponed following an April 26 UN General Assembly vote. The postponement reportedly is due to the failure to select a representative to preside over the meetings.

The 2017 UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for a high-level conference in 2018 to review progress on negotiations on effective nuclear disarmament measures. All nuclear-weapon states except China voted against the resolution in the General Assembly’s First Committee. Although the United States considers the meeting to be “redundant” and a “waste of resources,” it is still continuing to evaluate whether it will attend the meeting, a State Department official told Arms Control Today in an April 17 email. The conference follows a similar 2013 meeting. That meeting was divided between those, including nuclear-weapon states, that advocated for an incremental approach to disarmament and other countries, including those in the Non-Aligned Movement, which pushed for a treaty banning nuclear weapons.—ALICIA SANDERS-ZAKRE