Overview

“The Disarmament and International Security Committee”, or First Committee, is the main Committee of the General Assembly concerned with disarmament and related international security questions. It will hold its seventy-eighth session from 2 October to 3 November 2023. An organizational meeting will take place on 28 September 2023.

Officers

Chair

The Chair of the First Committee at its seventy-eighth session is His Excellency Rytis Paulauskas, Permanent Representative of Lithuania to the United Nations.

Before his latest appointment, Mr. Paulauskas was Director of the Communications and Cultural Diplomacy Department of his country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a position to which he was appointed in August 2016.

He was Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva between August 2012 and July 2016; Director of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Chairmanship Department and Head of the OSCE Chairmanship Task Force from 2008 to 2012; and Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, OSCE, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other international organizations in Vienna from November 2003 to August 2008.

At Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was Director of the Security Policy Department from February to October 2003; Director of the Multilateral Relations Department from 2001 to February 2003; and Head of the Security Policy Division from 1999 to 2000.

In New York, he was Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1996 to 1999 — during which time he was elected as Rapporteur of the Sixth Committee (Legal) — and Counsellor from 1995 to 1996.  He was Lithuania’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, from 1993 to 1994, and Attaché and then Acting Head of the International Organizations Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1991 to 1993.

Mr. Paulauskas holds a Master of Arts degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the United States and a Master of Law degree from Vilnius University in Lithuania.

Born in Vilnius on 24 May 1969, he is married, has one son and lists reading, theatre, cinema and the restoration of old-time cars among his hobbies.

Other members of the Bureau

Please see the following link for information on the other members of the Bureau.

Side Events

The Office for Disarmament Affairs has prepared an indicative schedule of side events (up-to-date as of 26 September).

Member States and NGOs that wish to add their events to this list can contact Diane Barnes at diane.barnes@un.org.

Views of Member States pursuant to requests by the General Assembly

Replies received pursuant to resolution A/RES/77/38 on Establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the region of the Middle East

Replies received pursuant to resolution A/RES/77/47 on Follow-up to the 2013 high-level meeting of the General Assembly on nuclear disarmament

Replies received pursuant to resolution A/RES/77/57 on Follow-up to the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons

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