宇宙空間における軍備競争防止等に関する安全保障理事会決議案採決後の山﨑大使による投票理由説明（EOV）

Mr. President,

Let me begin by reminding you all of what our Russian colleague stated in this Champer just a few weeks ago.

He stated in this Chamber, quote: “the discussion of space security issues and the decisions taken should be comprehensive” and should “involve all UN members. (…) Otherwise, this is nothing but an obvious attempt to impose the opinion of UNSC members on the rest of the UN membership.” End quote.

The same delegation now proposed a draft resolution on outer space security to this Council, which the rest of the UN membership would not accept.

I cannot find consistency in their approach.

Throughout the negotiations on this draft text, our delegation made its best efforts to find compromise by offering concrete proposals to converge the divergent views among Council members.

We regret that the penholder did not fully take into account such constructive suggestions and decided to put forward a text with a number of divisive elements.

For example, on the prevention of an arms race in outer space, while there is consensus to take further measures and appropriate international negotiations in accordance with the spirit of the Outer Space Treaty, at this stage, there is no consensus among UN Member States on a specific way forward.

That is why the General Assembly and the Conference on Disarmament continue to discuss this important issue.

Maintaining the peaceful nature of outer space is greatly relevant to the work of the Security Council.

However, we believe the Council should complement the efforts made in other relevant fora rather than preempting or prejudging the results of such efforts.

Japan reiterates its strong commitment to ensuring the security, stability and sustainability of outer space and the objective of preventing an arms race in outer space.

However, significant challenges remain in defining and verifying a weapon in outer space.

This derives from the dual-use nature of space objects and technologies as well as the need to address space threats in a comprehensive manner.

In order to address security challenges in outer space, it is crucial to focus on how certain objects or capabilities are applied and used.

Based on this position, we voted against this (resolution) at today’s voting.

Before concluding, there is another note I would like to emphasize.

This draft resolution, in OP7, calls upon UN Member States not to develop nuclear weapons or any other kinds of WMD specifically designed to be placed in outer space.

We are pleased to see that the proponents of this resolution are now ready to proactively commit to this important principle, which Japan and the United States wanted to deliver in our draft resolution presented last month.

Outer space must never be an arena for a nuclear arms race.

I thank you.