Informal Consultative meeting – February 15^th, 2017 - Opening Remarks by Heidi Hulan, Chair of the High-level FMCT Expert Preparatory Group

Good morning to you all.  It is an honor for me to be here today, and a pleasure to welcome you to this second Informal Consultative Meeting in New York.

At the outset, I would like to highlight the excellent collaboration of the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs in organizing this meeting.

It is also a privilege to have Undersecretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu here with me at the podium. The High Representative has kindly agreed to make some introductory remarks to open up this session.

Before turning the podium over to her, I’ll briefly review the agenda for our work together over the next day and a half, which I’m confident will provide us ample opportunity to fulfil the mandate bestowed upon us by resolution 71/259.

That resolution requests that I, in my capacity as Chair of the High-level FMCT Expert Preparatory Group (Preparatory Group), organize these open-ended Informal Consultative Meetings so that all Member States can engage in interactive discussions and share their views, which I shall then convey to the Preparatory Group for consideration.

At our first meeting together, I sought your views on the report of the 2014-2015 Group of Governmental Experts, as contained in document A/70/81.

I am very grateful for the constructive contributions made by the more than one hundred delegations that attended that meeting.  I viewed that meeting as a mark of the continued and widespread interest in this treaty, and I was proud to present my summary of your views to the Preparatory Group when it first met last July and August.

I distributed that summary to all delegations here in New York, and it is available on the UNODA website for those who may wish to consult it.

This second Informal Consultative Meeting is specifically mandated in order for me to provide a Chair’s report on the work of the Preparatory Group at its first meeting.

I will provide that report later this morning and tomorrow.

In addition, you will see that the agenda we have structured for this meeting includes a mix of presentations and open debate.

In fact, I offered the opportunity to all Preparatory Group experts to make individual presentations at this meeting. I am extremely pleased that many of them, and others involved in the work of the Preparatory Group, accepted this invitation and agreed to present on working papers they submitted to the Group or on other perspectives they shared in the context of the Group’s work.

I opted for this format as part of my commitment to maximum transparency throughout the Preparatory Group process.  While I fully intend to convey to you my impressions on the substance of the meeting as Chair, I am also very much looking forward to these presentations, which will provide you an additional lens through which you can view the Group’s work.

I would note that there will not be a Q&A following these presentations.  I would instead encourage you to direct any comments or questions to the Chair during the agenda items dedicated to open debate and views of Member States which will occur this afternoon and tomorrow morning.

As I did last year, I propose dividing the available time between the four treaty aspects covered in the GGE report.

This morning and this afternoon we will examine how the Preparatory Group viewed the elements related to a treaty’s scope, definitions and verification.

Tomorrow morning we will review the Preparatory Group’s discussions on the legal and institutional arrangements of a future treaty, which is an area in which I felt the Preparatory Group made important progress.

I plan to end the meeting at the end of tomorrow’s morning session, but have kept the afternoon — and this room — free in case the debate runs over the allotted time.

As you know, the Preparatory Group is mandated to make recommendations on substantial elements of a future treaty.  Over the next two days, I would also encourage you to express your views on these potential elements.

To help guide you in your preparation, I also distributed a non-exhaustive list of potential discussion questions which reflect some, but not all, of the questions the Preparatory Group examined at its first meeting. 

I would be very interested in your views on the possible answers to these questions, which I would be pleased to relay to the Preparatory Group at its next meeting.

I am counting on your active and full participation.  I was very grateful for your engagement last year, and will rely on you once again this year to help me make the most out of the time we have.

Recognition of partners

Before turning it over to High Representative Nakamitsu, I wanted to thank all of you for attending this meeting.

The support that this FMCT Preparatory Group process has received, from all corners of the General Assembly, has surpassed my expectations.  It is a real privilege to Chair this process.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t recognize the significant contributions of Germany and the Netherlands in particular, who co-sponsored Canada’s FMCT resolution creating the Preparatory Group in 2016, and have been valuable and constructive partners in the planning of the Preparatory Group process.

I can’t thank them enough for all their support and contributions to this process, and for their steadfast commitment to the negotiation of this treaty.

Conclusion

In my capacity as Chair of this process, I will convey what I hear during this Informal Consultative Meeting to the Preparatory Group at its final meeting this summer, which will take place from May 28-June 8^th, 2018. 

I intend to once again capture your views through a Chair’s summary, which I will prepare at the end of this meeting.

We are all here in this room, in fact, to broaden a conversation that started in the Preparatory Group and to ensure that the views of all UN General Assembly member states are reflected in its outcomes.

I would therefore challenge those who consider the FMCT Preparatory Group to be an exclusive club.  As Chair, I am personally committed to ensuring that the views of the entire international community are taken into account in the Preparatory Group’s work at every step in the process. 

The inclusive character of this effort — and the iterative path it follows between the Preparatory Group and the General Assembly — is something I view as one of the greatest strengths of the Preparatory Group as it moves forward toward an outcome this summer.

Ultimately, of course, I am in your hands.  I can only report what I have heard in this room.

I was extremely grateful for the strong participation and the relevance of the interventions made during our first meeting here in New York last March.  It is my hope that we will engage in a similarly productive discussion over the next two days.

With that, I turn it over to you High Representative Nakamitsu.  Thanks again for being here with us today.