New York, 28 March 2017. As part of the High Level Segment of the United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Toward their Total Elimination, Cuba considered today that such document’s preamble shall firstly comprise the threat that weapons of mass destruction represent for humanity and its survival, along with its humanitarian impact, and the terrible and irreversible consequences with immediate effects, in the medium and long term, of an accidental or intentional nuclear weapon explosion for human beings and the environment.
The Cuban delegate, Lilianne Sánchez Rodríguez, highlighted that the 1996 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice shall be included, which establishes that the use or threat to use nuclear weapons, under any given circumstance, would constitute a violation of International Law and a crime against humanity. She also considered the inclusion of the General Assembly’s decision to summon, at the latest by 2018, a High Level International Conference on nuclear disarmament in order to examine the outcomes achieved in this regard.
The Cuban diplomat noted that a prohibition legally binding instrument is an intermediate step to nuclear disarmament and that these negotiations should lead to the adoption of a comprehensive Convention establishing the elimination of nuclear weapons within a specified period and under strict international verification, as the only way to ensure full, effective, irreversible, transparent and non-discriminatory nuclear disarmament.
Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations