Information for the Media

• 5 November 2013
  ‘Record-Breaking’ Participation Defined First Committee Session, says Chair at Closing, as Delegations send 53 Drafts to General Assembly
  

• 4 November 2013
  With Some in First Committee Seeking to Reframe Nuclear Debate Around Humanitarian Consequences, New Draft Reaffirms Compliance With International Humanitarian Law
  

• 1 November 2013
  First Committee Approves 18 Texts Covering Dual-Use Goods Transfers, Transparency in Armaments, Arms Trade Treaty, Five Requiring 21 Seperate Recorded Votes
  

• 1 November 2013
  First Committee Approves 18 Texts Covering Dual-Use Goods Transfers, Transparency In Armaments, Arms Trade Treaty, Five Requiring 21 Separate Recorded Votes
  

• 31 October 2013
  Political Compromise in Short Supply as First Committee Begins Consideration of Drafts in Nuclear Weapons Cluster, Approving Eight by Recorded Vote
  

• 30 October 2013
  Nothing ‘Conventional’ about Conventional Weapons, First Committee Told, as Hopes For New Treaty Temper Ambivalence towards Arms Restraint
  

• 29 October 2013
  First Committee Speakers Greet Arms Trade Treaty as ‘Epoch-Making’ Achievement Capable of Restraining Proliferation If Backed by Strict Export Controls Delegates Troubled by Trend towards Autonomy in Robotic Weapon
  

• 28 October 2013
  Space-Based Ballistic Missile Defence ‘Very Worrying Dimension’, with Potentially Devastating Consequences on Earth, Speaker Tells First Committee
  

• 25 October 2013
  Outer Space Increasingly ‘Congested, Contested And Competitive’, First Committee Told, as Speakers Usge Legally Binding Document to Prevent Its Militarization
  

• 24 October 2013
  Recent Battlefield Use of Chemical Weapons, Absence of Verification Mechanism For Biological Weapons Ban Trigger Strong Rebuke in First Committee
  

• 23 October 2013
  Debating Whether Rules of Procedure Were Political Impediments or Working Methods In Need of Review, First Committee Seeks Ways to Revive Disarmament Machinery
  

• 22 October 2013
  ‘Globalization of Indifference’ No Option, Says Speaker as First Committee Probes Degree to Which Stalled Progress Symptomatic of Institiutional Failings
  

• 21 October 2013
  Discourse Shifts in First Committee from Cold War ‘Balance of Terror’ Logic Against Nuclear Weapon Use to Catastrophic Humanitarian Impacts Speakers Say Promises of Nuclear-Weapon-Free World ‘Empty’ Unless Elimination Supplants Risk Mitigation

• 18 October 2013
  Concept of Nuclear Deterrence, Hard-Wired into Certain Security Strategies, Comes under Critical Review as First Committee Continues Thematic Debate
  

• 17 October 2013
  Sobering Threat Analysis in First Committee as Agency Heads Present Mixed Reviews: Window of Opportunity Has Opened for Disarmament, but Could ‘Easily Swing Shut’; Non-Aligned Movement, New Agenda Coalition Introduce Resolutions
  

• 16 October 2013
  Removing Roadblocks to Progress with ‘Virtually Moribund’ Disarmament Machinery Informs Debate in First Committee as Speakers Consider Probable Causes

• 14 October 2013
  Focus in First Committee on ‘Excessively Injurious’ Effects of Cluster Munitions, Landmines, Improvised Explosive Devices, Long after Accords Signed, Combat Ends

• 10 October 2013
  Non-Nuclear-Armed States in First Committee Call for Binding Security Assurances To Address Crippling Potential of Nuclear Weapons Use against Them Arab States Advocate Middle East Zone Free of Mass Destruction Weapons

• 9 October 2013
  Conditions not yet ripe to rid world of Nuclear weapons, United States tells First Committee, amid growing appetite to make difficult policy choices

• 8 October 2013
  Recent use of Chemical Weapons ‘Stark and Horrific Reminder’ of Duty to Eliminate them, Speaker Tells First Committee as it continues full- Scope Debte

• 7 October 2013
  High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Hopes First Committee Can ‘Meet Rising Tide of Expectations’ by Redirecting ‘Counter-Currents’

• 2 October 2013
  Ibrahim Dabbashi of Libya Elected Chair of First Committee