Ministry Statements & Speeches:
Thank you, Chair.
I am taking the floor to explain New Zealand’s votes on L.53 entitled “Promoting international cooperation on peaceful uses in the context of international security”.
New Zealand has once again voted “no” on this resolution.
New Zealand strongly supports efforts to strengthen international cooperation with a view to advancing implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. We do not, however, support initiatives that would undermine efforts to prevent the proliferation of weapons and sensitive technologies. Despite the changes made to the text this year, L.53 remains one such initiative.
The resolution would undermine export control regimes established to uphold our shared non-proliferation objectives. New Zealand is a member and strong supporter of these regimes. The commitments of members of these regimes to screen their exports of weapons, sensitive technologies and dual use items make an important contribution to national, regional, and global non-proliferation efforts.
In fact, undermining these regimes would negatively impact peace and security for the global rules-based order. Nor have we seen evidence to suggest that the removal of these regimes would have any positive impact on sustainable development.
This resolution asserts that undue restrictions are placed on exports to member states and that unilateral coercive measures violate international law. Neither of these claims are true.
New Zealand believes UN resources could be more suitably focused on areas other than contusing dialogues on promoting peaceful uses.
These are among the reasons why New Zealand again opposes L.53 and accordingly voted against the resolution as a whole and against preambular paragraph 18 and operative paragraph 2.
Thank you.