US Mission Geneva

Secretary Clinton: “The Obama Administration sees chronic hunger as a key priority of our foreign policy. Other countries are joining us in this effort. Major industrialized nations have committed more than $22 billion over three years to spur agriculture-led economic growth. On September 26, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and I co-hosted a gathering of [...]

Mr. President, though we do not believe that this Special Session constitutes the appropriate forum for such a discussion, the United States will take this opportunity to share our views on the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. On September 28, 2009 Assistant Secretary for Human Rights, Democracy and Labor, Michael Posner, offered the U.S. assessment of the Report itself. As he said, the report raises important issues and serious allegations and the United States has serious concerns about many of its conclusions and recommendations which are, in our view, flawed. Our concerns have been outlined in this forum.

I would like today to discuss the views of the United States on nuclear disarmament. I will describe our fundamental approach, what we have accomplished in recent years and our current objectives, and some more long-range questions as we consider how to create, in the words of Security Council Resolution 1887, “the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons, in accordance with the goals of the NPT”.

Information on careers, jobs and internships with the U.S. government or at the U.S. Mission.

IAN KELLY: “I think we’ve – we regret the fact that the course that was laid out recently in the Human Rights Council is not the one being followed. As Ambassador Wolff said, while we have concerns about the balance in the report, at the same time we take the issues in the report very seriously. It is, as we’ve talked about, a very lengthy report, a very complex report, one that lends – should lend itself to a deliberate process, a chance for careful consideration of what’s in the report, a chance for the Israelis and Palestinians to investigate what’s in the report and take appropriate action.
We thought that the resolution in the HRC recently that laid out a process of deliberation leading to a further consideration of the report in March – the fact that some have brought this today to the Security Council during a meeting that was regularly scheduled regarding Middle East issues, and now we have a special session tomorrow in Geneva. We think that special sessions should be reserved for particular issues that are urgent at this particular time. And we, unfortunately, think that the steps that are being taken today and later this week mitigate against the kind of deliberative process that we think is appropriate.”

Conventional arms transfers are a crucial national security concern for the United States, and we have always supported effective action to control the international transfer of arms.

This eJournal USA offers perspectives of experts and activists in several key countries on effective policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate global warming and adapt to irreversible changes, and features an introduction by U.S. special envoy Todd Stern.

Thanks to Ambassador Salander, Chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative, and Dr. Christian Shoenenberger, Head of the Task Force on Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, for hosting this event and for inviting me to speak to you this afternoon on the subject of “Defining Success at the 2010 NPT Review Conference.” With less than seven months before the eighth Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, events like this provide a timely opportunity to bring together the Treaty’s many stakeholders, both governmental and non-governmental, to discuss the issues that we will have before us next May.

The United States and Russia are making progress in replacing a current treaty for reducing nuclear arsenals with one that goes further in physically reducing arsenals and also lessening perceived tensions over nuclear weapons, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says.