§ Mr. Leeasked the Lord Privy Seal whether Her Majesty's Government are satisfied with the outcome of the United Nations conference on certain conventional weapons which concluded in Geneva on 10 October; and what contribution was made by the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. HurdThe Government welcome the outcome of this conference. The agreement reached there contains the first restrictions on the use of conventional weapons adopted internationally for over 70 years. These new controls on mines and booby-traps, incendiary weapons, and weapons with fragments not detectable by X-ray have genuine humanitarian value.
The mines protocol is largely based on a British draft tabled at an earlier stage of the conference. The final text of the convention, to which the three protocols are attached, is based on a draft elaborated jointly by the United Kingdom and Netherlands delegations.