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Special Correspondent

Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister, Ambassador Frederick Shava, has bemoaned the growing polarisation that is evident within the United Nations Conference on Disarmament (CD) and the ever-intensifying politicisation of issues on its agenda. 

In his address yesterday during the High-Level Segment of the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland, Ambassador Shava said politicisation of the work of the Conference on Disarmament had continued to undermine the credibility and even the functioning of the conference, “further entrenching mistrust and division, at a time when we should all be taking decisive steps to address the institutional drift and mandate-creep which has caused our work to stall”.

“Bringing the conference back on track from a deliberative to a negotiating forum should be our major priority; but this will require both leadership and political will. The choices we make or fail to make during this 2023 session can result in breakthrough or further breakdown in our quest to maintain international peace and security,” said Ambassador Shava.

Lamenting the fact that the last successful negotiation concluded by the Conference on Disarmament was the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty more than two decades ago, Ambassador Shava said against a backdrop of heightened geo-political tensions and insecurity, there appeared to be little likelihood of the body being able to effectively fulfil its mandate, that is, the negotiation of binding international agreements on disarmament, arms-control and nuclear non-proliferation. 

He cited the failure to reach consensus at the 10th NPT Review Conference of 2022 or even to agree on the Conference on Disarmament’s 2022 annual report to the UN General Assembly, as empirical evidence of the breakdown in confidence and trust between and among member States.

As the Conference on Disarmament’s work has stagnated, Ambassador Shava said the world has witnessed a significant increase in global military expenditure and the development of more advanced weapons and more powerful weapons systems.

“Indeed, the weapons landscape has become increasingly complicated, with nuclear weapons, and the means of delivering them, becoming more sophisticated. A new and risky arms-race is already underway,” he said.

Zimbabwe, said Ambassador Shava, is an advocate of the total elimination of all nuclear weapons, as the only absolute guarantee against their use or even the threat of their use.

“Accordingly, and pending the achievement of the complete elimination of such weapons, we align ourselves with calls for the conclusion of a universal, unconditional and legally-binding instrument to effectively assure non-nuclear weapons states, like Zimbabwe, against the use, or threat of use of nuclear weapons.

“As one of the pioneering signatories to the Pelindaba Treaty (the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty), Zimbabwe fully supports the establishment of such nuclear weapon-free zones in all regions of the world,” said Ambassador Shava. The Conference on Disarmament, which started on February 27, ends tomorrow.