The 2000 NPT Review Conference (RevCon)
14 April - 19 May 2000, New York   

INTERVENTION OF ARCHBISHOP JEAN-LOUIS TAURAN

SECRETARY FOR THE HOLY SEE'S RELATIONS WITH STATES

VI NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY CONFERENCE

NEW YORK, 27 APRIL 2000 

Mr. President,

It is my privilege to bring to this Assembly the cordial greetings and encouragement of Pope John Paul II, who has charged me to repeat to you what he stated at the beginning of this year in his message for 1^st January, the World Day of Peace: "War is a defeat for humanity. Only in peace and through peace can respect for human dignity and its inalienable rights be guaranteed" (n. 3).

If the Holy See is a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, this is certainly not to encourage preparations for war, but the promotion of peace.

This Treaty has been one of the most significant efforts in disarmament because, as we know, it involves: 

- the prevention of the spread of nuclear weapons; 

- the promotion of cooperation in the field of the peaceful use of nuclear energy; 

- a vision of disarmament which leads to general and complete disarmament.

If one considers the specific nature of nuclear weapons compared with other arms, their destructive power and their unpredictable and lasting effects on people, as well as on the ecosystem, one can only rejoice in nothing that the 1968 text is the international instrument on disarmament which has received most ratifications; to date 187 countries adhere to it.

Nevertheless, the Review Conference, which is due every five years, is a providential opportunity to take stock of how the objectives stipulated in 1968 have been carried out.

The work of the preparatory committees to the New York meeting this year have unfortunately shown how uncertain the situation really is with regard to non­proliferation, despite this being the first review since the proclamation in 1995 of the Treaty's indefinite extension. Furthermore, our meeting has a symbolic significance: at the beginning force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations", and it goes further: "The establishment and maintenance of international peace and security are to be promoted with the least diversion for armaments of the world's human and economic resources".

For its part, the Holy See, will never tire of repeating that only disarmament which is universal, progressive and controlled will guarantee a climate of confidence, collaboration and respect between all countries. In this regard the Holy See is committed to herald the hopes of the men and women of these times, particularly of those believers engaged in building a world where it is good to live side by side in the sight of God. Is this a dream or an utopia? No, it is simply the conviction that, with one group pitted against another, with guns in their hands, sewing the seeds of death and mass destruction, we will most certainly not win the war, but together, with mutual trust and collaboration, we can win peace!

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