Statements Delivered by Sri Lanka at the Meeting of the Group of Governmental Experts (GCE) on Emerging Technologies in the areas of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS) held in Geneva on from 21-25 September 2020.
Agenda Item : 5(a) An exploration of the potential challenges posed by emerging technologies in the area of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems to International Humanitarian Law;
Mr. Chair,
Excellencies, Distinguished participants,
At the outset, Sri Lanka would like to congratulate you on your assumption of the Chair of the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on Emerging Technologies in the Field of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS). We also take this opportunity to appreciate the former Chair of the GGE on LAWS Ambassador Kārkliņš, for his commitment and efforts to continue the momentum. Let me assure you Mr. Chair, of the support of our delegation to the continuation of substantive deliberations in the GGE on LAWS during this year and in 2021.
It is unfortunate that the unexpected circumstances during this year as well as the difficulty to reach consensus on key aspects of the GGE have led to a lack of substantive progress that many of us would have expected to achieve.
Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva Ambassador A.L.A. Azeez takes over the Chairmanship of the 2020 States Parties' Meeting from Ambassador Yann Hwang of France, the outgoing Chair.
Sri Lanka's chairmanship, as the Convention marks 45 years of its entry into force next year and as the State Parties convene throughout 2020 a series of expert meetings and preparatory meetings building up towards the Ninth Review Conference in 2021, is highly significant for strengthening international cooperation and assistance to fully realise its objectives alongside universalisation and sustained focus on national implementation.
The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, popularly known as Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) prohibits biological and toxin weapons through their entire cycle, and is a key element in the international community’s efforts to address the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and States Parties’ endeavours to improve national security in an increasingly volatile global environment.
Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka
6th December 2019
Geneva
Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (CCW)
Meeting of High Contracting Parties
General Exchange of Views – 13 November 2019
Statement by Sri Lanka
Mr. President,
It is with great pleasure and warmth that Sri Lanka welcomes you to Geneva and joins in congratulating you on your appointment as the President of this year’s Meeting of High Contracting Parties to the CCW. We commend the leadership provided by Pakistan to the CCW process in the run up to this Meeting, as it did during the CCW Review Conference of 2016 as well. We also take this opportunity to applaud Benin on acceding to Protocols II, IV and V in 2019, further strengthening its commitment to the cause of the CCW.
Mr. President,
As a country successfully emerging from the effects of long-term conflict, Sri Lanka appreciates and underlines the pronounced need for humanitarian disarmament and arms control. Norms of humanity and related principles of international humanitarian law, including proportionality, inform discourses on regulation, control and eventual elimination of weapons that are excessively injurious. Following years of humanitarian demining work that was undertaken even as the conflict was raging, we are now inching closer to making Sri Lanka landmines-free in the near future. Through sustained national efforts at mine risk education, we also succeeded in bringing civilian casualties of landmines, to zero by 2018.
The 9th Meeting of States Parties (MSP) to the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) concluded its deliberations in Geneva on 4 September 2019 under the Presidency of Sri Lanka. States parties, signatories, observer states and international and civil society organizations participated in the three-day meeting which convened its first session on 2 September 2019.
The MSP, chaired by Ambassador A.L.A. Azeez, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, marked the culmination of a year-long process of oversight and review of the implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and of guidance and advocacy for the universalization of the Convention and its norms, and the prohibition of use, production, stockpile and transfer of cluster munitions. Sri Lanka’s election to the Presidency of the 9th MSP had been facilitated by the wide recognition among the international community, of its strengthened commitment to humanitarian disarmament, as manifested by its accession to the CCM and the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (APMBC) in 2017 and 2018 respectively.
"Achieving a world free of cluster munitions depends on the strengthening of norms that are universally accepted and implemented", emphasizes Ambassador A.L.A. Azeez, in his capacity as the President of the 9th Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM). His statement has been released on the occasion of the 9th anniversary of entry into force of the CCM on 1 August 2019.
Web Article : http://www.clusterconvention.org/2019/07/31/9th-anniversary-of-the-conventions-entry-into-force/
Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka
Geneva
7th August 2019
Addressing a panel discussion at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, Ambassador A.L.A. Azeez stressed the need for making determined efforts towards achieving concrete progress in nuclear disarmament through the preservation of existing disarmament architecture; and substantive negotiation and finalization of instruments on CD’s agenda items, through fast-tracking the adoption of a Programme of Work.
Ambassador Azeez drew attention to the need for taking other important measures including completing the universalization of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, noting its significant contribution to advancement of science and technology, lying at the inter-section between nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. Deploring the continuing impasse in nuclear disarmament, he stressed that it was striking "the issue has coursed through the vortex of international public concern with little changes in its tide, for decades."
He highlighted the importance of disarmament education and full integration of a gender perspective as imperative to ensure "a fully informed, well-represented, result-oriented negotiation on critical issues.
The following article published on InDepthNews highlights the viewpoints expressed by Ambassador Azeez at the panel discussion:
https://www.indepthnews.net/index.php/opinion/2875-nuclear-disarmament-through-the-vortex-of-global-concern
Full Statement by Ambassador Azeez
Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka
Geneva
5th August 2019