DYB2011-Part-II-web

Disarmament resolutions and decisions listed by chapter
region should adhere to the NPT and subject their nuclear facilities to IAEA
inspection. However, the draft resolution referred only to Israel and was in their
view unbalanced.
• India believed that the focus of the draft resolution should be limited to the
region that it intended to address. India’s position on the NPT was well known,
citing the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties provision that States
were bound by a treaty based on the principle of free consent.
66/64. Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
Adopting this resolution annually, the
General Assembly this year urged all States that
had not yet signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-
Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), in particular those whose
ratification was needed for its entry into force, to
sign and ratify it as soon as possible. It welcomed
the ratification of the Treaty by Ghana and Guinea
as a significant step towards the early entry into
force of the Treaty.
Introduced by: Mexico (14 Oct.)
GA vote: 175-1-3; 174-1-3, p.p. 6 (2 Dec.)
1st Cttee vote: 170-1-3; 168-1-3,
p.p. 6 (28 Oct.)
For text, sponsors and voting pattern, see
Yearbook, Part I, pp. 187-191.
First Committee. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which intended
to vote against the draft resolution, delivered a general statement before the vote.
It stressed that it rejected the two Security Council resolutions against it that were
mentioned in the draft.
After having voted in favour of the draft resolution, four States took the floor:
• Cuba expressed its support for the draft resolution, but wished to indicate that
paragraph 5 lacked the needed technical character. It hoped that in the future the
sponsors of the draft resolution would avoid including controversial elements
that could be easily manipulated and focus on issues relevant to the CTBT.
• The Islamic Republic of Iran clarified that it dissociated itself from paragraph
5 due to the language of the text. In its view, there was no need to refer to
the work of other organs of the United Nations in a resolution of the General
Assembly, which had been done in a completely different context.
• Pakistan said that it had consistently supported the objectives of the CTBT and
the call in the draft resolution for promoting signatures and ratifications leading
to the entry into force of the CTBT, which would be facilitated when major
erstwhile proponents of the CTBT decided to ratify it. Reiterating that it did not
consider itself bound by the NPT, it was constrained to abstain in the voting on
the sixth preambular paragraph.
• Israel attached importance to the objectives of the CTBT, however, it could not
support the sixth preambular paragraph and operative paragraph 1. It believed
that the CTBT and the NPT were not linked, and forcing such a linkage would
jeopardize the CTBT, the global non-proliferation regime and the prospects
for better regional security in the Middle East. Israel’s signing of the CTBT
reflected its policy to bring itself closer to international norms on nuclear safety,
security and non-proliferation. It appreciated the significant progress made in
the development of the CTBT verification regime, however, the completion of
the verification regime still required additional efforts. For Israel, the regional
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