The Conference on Disarmament

The Conference on Disarmament (CD) and its predecessors have negotiated a number of major multilateral arms limitation and disarmament agreements such as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction (BTWC), the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (CWC) and Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).
 
In 1978 the CD was recognised by the Tenth Special Session on Disarmament of the United Nations General Assembly (SSOD-I) as the single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum of the international community and comprises of 65 Member States. The Netherlands has been a member of the CD since the establishment in 1979 and is part of the Western European and Others Group (WEOG).

Currently, the CD focuses its work on the following agenda items: 
  1.  Cessation of the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament;
  2. Prevention of nuclear war, including all related matters;
  3. Prevention of an arms race in outer space;
  4. Effective international arrangements to assure non-nuclear-weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons;
  5. New types of weapons of mass destruction and new systems of such weapons; radiological weapons;
  6. Comprehensive programme of disarmament;
  7. Transparency in armaments.