NAM DELEGATIONS ENDORSE PHILIPPINES AS VICE-PRESIDENT OF REVIEW CONFERENCE 
FOR CONVENTION ON CERTAIN CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS (CCW) 

15 September 2006 — The Department of Foreign Affairs has announced that delegations of member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) unanimously endorsed on 13 September 2006 the candidature of H. E. Ambassador Enrique A. Manalo, Permanent Representative of the Philippines to the UN and other International Organizations in Geneva, to serve as one of the Vice-Presidents of the Third Review Conference of the 1980 Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects, commonly known as the "CCW Convention." 

The CCW is a central instrument in conventional arms control and the law of armed conflicts. It is made up of a framework convention and five protocols, which ban or restrict the use of various types of weapons that are considered to cause unnecessary suffering and which can affect soldiers and civilians indiscriminately.  

The weapons currently covered include weapons leaving undetectable fragments in the human body (Protocol I); mines, booby-traps and other devices (Protocol II); incendiary weapons (Protocol III); blinding laser weapons (Protocol IV); and explosive remnants of war (Protocol V). 

The Review Conference will be held in Geneva from 7-17 November 2006, with the Permanent Representative of France appointed as its President-designate.  

The 2006 Review Conference will address issues such mines other than anti-personnel mines; reducing the risks of explosive remnants of war, including cluster munitions: enhancing mechanisms for compliance with the Convention and all its protocols; and the establishment of a sponsorship programme under the Convention.  END

/jay

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