Mideast situation/Conventional arms control – SecGen report (excerpt)

Conventional arms control at the regional and

subregional levels

    Report of the Secretary-General

*   A/59/50 and Corr.1.

I.  Introduction 

1.   In its resolution 58/39 of 8 December 2003 entitled “Conventional arms control at the regional and subregional levels”, the General Assembly, convinced that conventional arms control needs to be pursued primarily in the regional and subregional contexts since most threats to peace and security in the post-cold-war era arise mainly among States located in the same region or subregion, decided to give urgent consideration to the issues involved in conventional arms control at the regional and subregional levels and requested the Secretary-General to seek the views of Member States on the subject and to submit a report to it at its fifty-ninth session.

2.   Pursuant to that request, a note verbale, dated 14 January 2004, was sent to Member States requesting their views on the subject. To date, replies have been received from the following States: Argentina, El Salvador, Honduras, Lebanon, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, the Philippines, Qatar, the Russian Federation and Venezuela, as well as the Holy See. These replies are reproduced in section II below. Any further replies received will be issued as addenda to the present report.

 II.   Replies received from Member States

…  

Lebanon

[Original Arabic]

[1 April 2004]

The Government of Lebanon has already affirmed the proposal to delay accession to the Convention on Conventional Weapons, as Lebanon is still suffering the results of the use of such weapons on its territory by Israel. The main principles that could serve as a framework for regional agreements to limit conventional weapons are:

•  Full compliance with United Nations resolutions on the subject

•   Permanent border monitoring and control of smuggling at home and abroad 

•   The combating of terrorism and measures to ensure that such weapons do not fall into the hands of terrorists

•   The promulgation of national, regional and international legislation to limit such weapons

•   Occasions which allow for the individual or collective use of such weapons in order to resist occupation or to defend territory

•   The assurance of compliance with the agreement from each regional State concerned with implementation in order to prevent any repetition of double standards, as occurred in the case of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

…

—–