Insights on Counter-Terrorism: The 1540 Committee
The Council is expected to renew the mandate of the 1540 Committee on non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism on Wednesday, 20 April and Council members at expert level have been busy finalising the Committee’s report. They have also been negotiating a draft resolution renewing the Committee’s mandate.
There appears to be four main issues in the draft resolution: the length of the mandate, the number and structure of future reviews of the implementation of 1540, the composition of the Panel of Experts and the areas of emphasis for the Committee. The decision on the length of the mandate is likely to have a direct impact on the second issue.
A draft resolution was circulated by the US and seems to favour an indefinite extension of the Panel of Experts mandate. Other Council members are not in favour of this and a number of members while open to a longer extension than the current 3 years do not favour an indefinite one.
There appear to have been a range of views on the future emphasis of the Committee’s work particularly if it should continue to work as it has or to focus on more defined tasks. It seems that the outcome is likely to result in no fundamental change to the Committee’s mandate.
An interesting issue that has emerged in discussion and is of concern to a number of the elected members is the structure of the Panel of Experts and in particular the breadth of regional representation.
