US Mission Geneva

Assistant Secretary Fried: Good afternoon. I believe you have already heard from the co-chairs and you have heard from Minister Karasin, so I will not repeat what they said, but I will first give thanks to the co-chairs and appreciation especially to Ambassador Pierre Morel who has done and did yesterday and today an excellent job of making as much progress as could have been made.

I am pleased to be here today to express my government’s support for the 2009 Global Appeal of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. On behalf of the United States Government, I am honored to pledge an initial $125 million to UNHCR’s Annual and Supplementary programs for 2009, which matches our initial pledge for 2008.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Director General, Excellencies, and Distinguished Colleagues:

Let me begin by congratulating the Council Bureau on their election. I also offer a warm welcome to IOM’s new Observer states, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the State of Qatar, and its two new NGO Observers.

This afternoon I would like to address one community whose educational support you have discussed this week – persons with disabilities. In all countries this group represents a large minority of our fellow citizens, and in all of our countries we face a similar challenge to maximize the life experience and opportunities of this important minority. For all of us, we risk the loss of valuable human resources, talent, and productivity for our economies and societies when we sideline our fellow citizens.

Mr. President, we must recognize that the CCW has failed this year to achieve its main task – the adoption of a new protocol on cluster munitions. Our failure is all the more disappointing because the opportunity to agree to a protocol that would have had substantial humanitarian benefits was within our grasp. We will have some additional observations on the GGE when its report is considered by this Meeting.

Mr. Chairman, my delegation finds it deeply disappointing that a group of states has blocked progress on this important humanitarian effort because they have remained completely focused on unrealistic results here and have not worked constructively to achieve a balanced, positive result. During the course of the negotiations these last two weeks, and in particular over the last couple of days, it has become clear that further progress in 2008is impossible given this approach by a number of delegations.

We have listened carefully to the argument made by some states that the draft text we are working on here would have no humanitarian benefit. In our view, the appropriate standard by which to judge the adequacy of an eventual protocol is whether it will have a significant humanitarian benefit on the ground.

We have studied the proposals put forward by some of the group of 25. We understand that the ideas expressed in these statements stem from a number of countries’ strongly held view that cluster munitions should be banned completely. My delegation would like to reiterate why a complete ban or a copy of the Oslo Convention is simply not an acceptable approach to my country, and to many other countries in this room.

Mr. Chairman, my delegation believes that the draft you have circulated is an excellent basis for our work this week and gives us a real chance to achieve consensus this year on a new CCW protocol addressing the issue of cluster munitions.