Conference on Disarmament to Hold First Public Plenary of its 2025 Session on Tuesday, 21 January

The Conference on Disarmament, the world’s single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum, will hold the first public plenary of its 2025 session on Tuesday, 21 January.  The meeting will start at 10 a.m. under the Presidency of Italy.  

Tatiana Valovaya, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva and Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament, will address the Conference at a later date. 

Public meetings, which will be held in the Tempus building of the Palais des Nations, can be followed in-person or through listen-live.unog.ch. 

The 2025 session of the Conference on Disarmament will be divided up into three successive parts, from 20 January to 28 March, from 12 May to 27 June, and from 28 July to 12 September. 

The Presidency of the Conference rotates among its Member States according to the English alphabetical order, with each President holding office for four working weeks.  

After Italy’s Presidency (20 January to 14 February), the following countries will also take the Presidency during 2025: Japan (17 February to 14 March), Kazakhstan (17 to 28 March and 12 to 23 May), Kenya (26 May to 20 June), Malaysia (23 to 27 June and 28 July to 15 August), and Mexico (18 August to 12 September).  

The high-level segment of the Conference will be held from 24 to 28 February in room XIX of the Palais des Nations. 

In accordance with rule 27 of its Rules of Procedure, the Conference on Disarmament shall adopt its agenda for the year at the beginning of each annual session.  “In doing so, the Conference shall take into account the recommendations made to it by the United Nations General Assembly, the proposals presented by Member States of the Conference, and the decisions of the Conference.”  The Rules of Procedure of the Conference also provide that, on the basis of its agenda, the Conference, “at the beginning of its annual session, shall establish its programme of work, which will include a schedule of its activities for that session, taking also into account the recommendations, proposals and decisions referred to in rule 27.”

The Conference on Disarmament and its predecessors have negotiated such major multilateral arms limitation and disarmament agreements as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, the Treaty on the Prohibition of the Emplacement of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction on the Sea-Bed and the Ocean Floor and in the Subsoil thereof, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction, and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

The agenda of the Conference contains the following core items: cessation of the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament; prevention of nuclear war, including all related matters; prevention of an arms race in outer space; effective international arrangements to assure non-nuclear-weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons; new types of weapons of mass destruction and new systems of such weapons, radiological weapons; comprehensive programme of disarmament; and transparency in armaments.

Documentation related to the 2025 session of the Conference on Disarmament can be found here.  The public meetings of the Conference on Disarmament can be listened to in real time here.  They are also recorded and can be found here.

Member States of the Conference

The 65 members of the Conference are Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Cuba, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Senegal, Slovakia, Spain, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Viet Nam and Zimbabwe.

Produced by the United Nations Information Service in Geneva for use of the information media; 
not an official record. English and French versions of our releases are different as they are the product of two separate coverage teams that work independently.

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