Committee: 1ST COMMITEE OF GA (DISEC)

Country: Japan
Topic Area A:
Revising the Ottawa Treaty: Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and
Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction
When we are talking about Japan's policy regarding the use, stockpiling, production
or transfer the anti-personnel mines, well this policy doesn't exist. Japan signed the Ottawa
Treaty, commonly known as the Mine Ban Treaty and ratified it on 30 September 1998,
becoming one of the founders members because its policy on disarmament was available
and encouraged a lot after the end of the Second World War, especially at the pressure of
the United States of America. This policy of pacifism has continued after the end of the
war until nowadays.
The current situation is difficult in the Asia - Pacific zone because the North Korea
and the South Korea are non-signatory states and in our vision, North Korea, especially
represents a major threat of the world peace. Despite this fact, North Korea's nuclear policy
on producing deadly atomic bombs is active.
Our country wants to improve the Ottawa Treaty by including sanctions to those
who use, produce, stockpile and transfer the anti-personnel mines. In our vision, those who
do such things causes many serious concerns and they are viewed as threats to the
international peace. Due to lack of a large territory, when we signed this Treaty we had
many reserves to sign it because in Japan there aren't many anti-personnel mines, but then
we thought that this Treaty would be improve the international security and safety.

In conclusion, Japan agrees the revising the Ottawa Treaty in order to

improve it. In 2005, the prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto " expressed his support
for international cooperation aimed at eliminating APLs (Anti-Personnel Mines)".
Also Japan will respect the Treaty's obligations :
Japan will advance the necessary measures to modify its APLs into selfdestructing land mines.
Japan will not acquire new supplies of land mines without self-destructing
mechanisms.
Japan will not use land mines without self-destructing mechanisms, even in
cases where such use is permitted under the CCW Revised Protocol.
Japan will promptly pursue the study of alternative weapons to land mines,
namely weapons that pose no risk of damage or injury to civilians.1
Topic Area B:
Implementation of the declaration of the Indian Ocean as a peace zone
Japan's interests for the Indian Ocean firstly appeared at the starts of the building the
Japanese Empire and even when it crumbled at the end of the Second World War, our
country is still interested for this region. We developed large partnerships with
Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam which we have an historical friendly trade. In
modern times, Japan is one of the main investors in the economy of Vietnam and
foreign aid donor. Also we have a strong economic and political partnership with
Indonesia, our both countries are members in G20 and APEC.
We developed a strong relation with India, we are historically friends and we
want to solve this issue of insecurity in the Indian Ocean. We recommend India, as
1

http://www.sfu.ca/~kawasaki/Adachi.pdf

other major powers such as United Kingdom, France, United States of America, Russia
and China to limit the maritime activity of external powers in this region.2 The current
situation provokes insecurity to our trade and we want to eradicate this problem.
We hope we will find a solution together due to this problem even if it failed in 1971,
but the time is not lost. Our wish is to minimize the foreign military presence, but with
many cautions because we don't want to rise the risk of piracy which will cause serious
damage to our trade.

2 http://thediplomat.com/2015/01/the-indian-ocean-zone-of-peace-reality-vs-illusion/