I would like to assure you, Mr. Chairman, of my delegation's full support during your chairmanship at this Preparatory Committee meeting as well as your presidency at the coming Review Conference in December. My delegation fully shares the goal of this entire exercise with you and all the delegations to attain tangible results at the Conference.

Japan regards the CCW as one of the most practical and effective ways to alleviate unnecessary human suffering caused by certain types of conventional weapons without hampering　security requirements. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all the States Parties that have tabled concrete proposals, which shows their serious efforts in further enhancing the value of the CCW.

First, Japan fully supports the idea to extend the scope of application to internal conflicts. A growing number of serious humanitarian tragedies in internal conflicts need urgent care, and actually, there is no distinction between victims of international conflicts and internal conflicts. We urge the Conference to reach agreement on the extension of the scope of application by amending the framework convention so that the extension can be, in principle, applied to all protocols, including future ones.　

Second, Japan has decided to co-sponsor the U.S.-Danish joint proposal on mines other than anti-personnel mines not only because of the urgency of humanitarian problems caused by those mines but also because of the practicality of the proposal which tries to establish an appropriate level of detectability and self-destructive or self-deactivating capability in terms of military and financial perspectives. Desiring that this proposal will be formally adopted at the forthcoming Review Conference, Japan will strive, as a co-sponsor of this proposal, for a better understanding of and more support for this proposal among High Contracting Parties.

Third, Japan also supports the proposal to establish a group of governmental experts on explosive remnants of war (ERWs), as put forward by Friend of the Chair. Japan welcomes the draft mandate, which envisages comprehensive discussions on the issue of ERWs without prejudging whether or not the experts' group should negotiate a legally-binding instrument on ERWs. At this stage, we are of the view that the problem of ERWs is so complicated that it requires comprehensive and in-depth discussions without prejudging the outcome. We believe that the draft presented by the Friend of the Chair provides a good basis for detailed discussions in the Preparatory Committee.　　

Fourth, Japan appreciates Switzerland's sincere efforts to explain its proposal on restrictions of small caliber ammunitions and to hold consultations with all States Parties concerned. However, we need to clarify several basic questions, for example, how the dum-dum-like effect can be defined, and how we can verify if certain ammunitions have such an effect when we have an agreed definition. We very much look forward to further discussions and clarifications on these questions.

Finally, Japan is interested in developing compliance measures for the Amended Protocol II proposed by the U.S. as well as those which shall cover all protocols as proposed by France. We believe that compliance measures should be sufficiently effective and should not place an additional financial burden on High Contracting Parties. In this regard, the approach taken by the U.S., which is focused on measures to respond to specific questions related to compliance, follows the right path. We also expect to hear from France further elaboration of its proposal.