«Réunion de haut niveau sur le désarmement nucléaire» (en)

Madam President,
Mr. President,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Switzerland welcomes the holding of this High-level Meeting of the General Assembly on Nuclear Disarmament. Sixty-eight years after the founding of the United Nations it is high time for the states to come together on this important question, which has been of concern to the organization since its creation. The goal of a world without nuclear weapons is one the international community needs to pursue with verve and determination.

As long as nuclear weapons continue to exist, there is a real risk they will again be used one day. Indeed, hundreds of nuclear warheads are on high alert ready for launch within minutes - weapons that are also to be found in unstable regions. Finally, there is the possibility a nuclear weapon could fall into the hands of terrorists. Their eventual use – whether accidental, deliberate or due to an error of calculation or evaluation – therefore cannot be excluded. Nuclear weapons are viewed as an instrument of deterrence. They are also seen as a symbol of power. But above all they are a threat to the security of states and of humankind.

With this in mind, Switzerland welcomes the fact that the international community increasingly recognizes that the use of these weapons could have devastating consequences, both immediately and in the long term. We welcome the holding of a conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons in Oslo last March, and the announcement by Mexico to organize a follow-up conference. We also commend the efforts of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and of civil society. All of these developments help to demonstrate that it is difficult to envisage how nuclear weapons could be used in conformity with international humanitarian law.

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) states clearly in Article VI that nuclear disarmament concerns us all and that we all have a responsibility to redouble our efforts in various areas:

1. First and foremost, no additional state should be allowed to acquire these weapons. The international community needs to be firm on this point. The proliferation of nuclear weapons is a threat to international peace and security. It is absolutely essential to strengthen the credibility of the non-proliferation regime.

2. The creation of additional nuclear-weapon-free zones is to be encouraged. These are the building blocks of a world without nuclear weapons. We therefore vigorously support the establishment of a zone free of nuclear weapons and of other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. The international response to the recent use of weapons of mass destruction in Syria should serve as a strategic opportunity for moving this ambitious project forward.

3. We also need to accelerate progress in relation to nuclear disarmament. The nuclear-weapon states have a special responsibility in this context. We invite them:

- to reduce their dependence on nuclear weapons in their security doctrines;
- to lower the alert level of nuclear weapons;
- to cease all efforts to modernize these weapons and their delivery systems;
- to accelerate the reduction of nuclear-weapon stockpiles.

Additional legally binding instruments are needed, and in this context it is absolutely necessary to revitalize the disarmament machinery, including the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We welcome the open, innovative and constructive discussions held this year in Geneva in the Open-ended Working Group of the General Assembly on Nuclear Disarmament. In its role as an international center for disarmament efforts, Geneva is the venue for states, international organizations and representatives of civil society to meet in order to advance nuclear disarmament. Switzerland applauds this. This is what we call the spirit of Geneva: promotion of peace, finding innovative approaches to meet major challenges, and the desire to build bridges to serve the interests of humankind.

We need to continue our work in this spirit in a collective, long term effort to achieve our key objective – the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction. All states, both those that have renounced nuclear weapons and those that possess them, are called upon to unite around this humanitarian imperative. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that future generations will never again be confronted with the destructive power of these weapons.