改正議定書Ⅱ締約国会議

Please allow me, at the outset, to congratulate you on your election to the Presidency of this Conference. I would like to assure you of my delegation's full support and cooperation in your work.　I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the staff members of the UN Secretariat for all their efforts to ensure the efficient and smooth proceeding of this Conference.

Since the Amended Protocol II was adopted in 1996 as a valuable outcome of the First Review Conference of the CCW, 63 countries have notified their consent to be bound by it. We believe that the Amended Protocol complements the Ottawa Convention in the international efforts to eradicate human suffering caused by anti-personnel landmines. The Amended Protocol, which constitutes an approach to resolve humanitarian problems takes into account broad security interests of the States parties and enjoys the membership of a wide range of States, including those possessing a significant amount of landmines. Certain States have not been able to accede to the Ottawa Convention due to various security reasons. Here it is meaningful for those States to become party to the Amended Protocol because under this Protocol they will be in a position to comply with a high standard of the detectability for such mines, as well as with the requirement for the self-destruction and the self-deactivation mechanisms for the remotely-delivered anti-personnel mines. It is also significant that the Amended Protocol prohibits the State parties from transfering those undetectable mines without self-destruction/self-deactivation mechanisms.

In addition, the Amended Protocol has novel provisions such as its application to non-international conflicts or the compliance measures which do not exist in other protocols to the Convention. Hence, the Amended Protocol animates some of the proposals being tabled in the current review process and represents a new trend in international law of arms control and disarmament as a whole. Therefore, Japan believes that Amended Protocol II is a significant achievement of the international community and hopes that its significance should be further strengthened.

In this context Japan welcomes six new member States to the Amended Protocol since the Annual Conference last year, Bolivia, Guatemala, Republic of Korea, Mali, Moldova, and Nauru. I would like to congratulate these States on their worthwhile decisions and urge other States to ratify it. I would also like to stress the importance of the full compliance with the provisions of the Amended Protocol by all States parties.

Japan fully supports the Ottawa Convention, which is now ratified by more than 120 States. This fact demonstrates that a great majority of nations have declared their firm determination to completely abolish anti-personnel landmines completely and are engaged in carrying out their commitments. We attach great importance to promoting the universality of this Convention. Japan has for the past years endeavored to achieve the objective of "Zero Victim," in particular by actively contributing to mine clearance and victim assistance. We participated in the Third Meeting of the State Parties in Managua, Nicaragua this September, as a co-chair of the Standing Committee of the Victim Assistance and Socio-Economic Reintegration. We regard both the Ottawa Convention and Amended Protocol II as the stronghold pillars reinforcing the global efforts to address the problems of anti-personnel landmines.