PHOTO: New Zealand Parliament, Office of the Clerk. The Regional Seminar on parliaments and the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 1540 for Pacific Island Parliaments will be held in the New Zealand Parliament at Wellington, New Zealand.
Regional seminar on parliaments and the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 1540 for Pacific Island Parliaments will be held in Wellington, New Zealand from 19-20 September 2019. The conference will be co-hosted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the House of Representatives of New Zealand, and will be open to parliamentarians and parliamentary officials from Australia, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, France, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, United States, and Vanuatu.
The UNSC resolution 1540 of 2004 is an important tool in the global non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) architecture. Adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, the resolution imposes binding obligations on all States and commits governments to implement effective laws and regulations to prevent access to WMDs by non-State actors. As part of the binding obligations, the Security Council called upon all States to present a first report on steps they had taken or intended to take to implement this resolution. However, a small group of Member States has not yet submitted their initial report. States were also encouraged to prepare, on a voluntary basis, national implementation action plans mapping out their priorities and activities when implementing the key provisions of the resolution, and to submit those plans to the 1540 Committee.
As the legislative branch of government that is also responsible for oversight and budget allocations, parliaments have a key role to play in supporting the implementation of the resolution in its many provisions. Yet, in most countries there remains little awareness among parliamentarians of the security risks associated with WMDs. As a result, effective national legislative and regulatory frameworks are lacking in one respect or another.
Through the seminar, the Inter-Parliamentary Union is looking to work closely with the United Nations in the implementation of UNSC resolution 1540 by strengthening parliaments’ abilitiy to assess the risk associated with WMD and to take the requisite measures to lower the risk in the region. The seminar will also aim to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and allow parliamentarians to establish informal networks across borders or individual contacts. The seminar will take the form of a practical workshop, presenting examples of laws and regulations in place in countries within the Pacific region with a view to highlighting their strengths and weaknesses.
https://www.ipu.org/event/regional-seminar-parliaments-and-implementation-un-security-council-resolution-1540-pacific-island-parliaments
BY MSEAP Cyber Secretariat (mseap@assembly.go.kr) |
