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Improved negotiating climate marks work of Assembly's disarmament committee
2 November -- Key resolutions adopted by the General Assembly's Disarmament and International Security Committee - known as the "First Committee" - have attracted greater support this year thanks to an improved negotiating environment, a top United Nations official said today, summing up the Committee's work at the current session.

"There was a vastly better atmosphere this year in the First Committee than there was last year and this can be attributed to the fact that we had an afterglow following the adoption successfully of a final document at the NPT Review Conference," the Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament, Jayantha Dhanapala, told reporters at a press conference in New York.

Held in May, that Conference produced an historic consensus on issues related to the total elimination of nuclear weapons, halting the global spread of those arms, and strengthening standards governing the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Mr. Dhanapala noted that the Committee, which finished its four-and-a-half week session yesterday, voted on 21 of the 48 resolutions adopted, with the rest passing by consensus. He said the "burgeoning of support" for a number of resolutions was evidenced by the fact that many received more affirmative votes than they had in previous years.

Mr. Dhanapala attributed the more positive atmosphere to the "increasing role of civil society in various countries [and] the improved atmosphere in northeast Asia - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in particular - and in the Balkans following recent political developments there."

Nuclear issues - the subject of 11 recorded votes in the Committee - remained controversial, Mr. Dhanapala observed. He noted, however, that there had been increased support for many of the resolutions on nuclear matters. Chief among those, he said, was the resolution put forward by the New Agenda Coalition. Reflecting the results of the NPT Review Conference, that text contained provisions calling for all nuclear-weapon states to engage in a process leading to the total elimination of those arms. With 146 votes in favour, the resolution saw a "substantial improvement" over the level of support it had received last year, when it had earned only 90 affirmative votes.

With this "larger following," Mr. Dhanapala said, the New Agenda Coalition would now consider its next step in consolidating their success following the NPT Review Conference.