Convention on the Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques Message to the Senate Transmitting the Convention.

To the Senate of the United States:

I am transmitting herewith, for the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification, the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, signed at Geneva on May 18, 1977.

The Convention is the result of extensive study, debate, and negotiation at the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament at Geneva and at the United Nations. It seeks to avert the dangers resulting from the hostile use of environmental modification techniques "having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury to any other State Party."

In 1973, growing awareness of the need for protecting our environment led to the adoption of Senate Resolution 71 which urged the Executive Branch to negotiate a treaty prohibiting environmental warfare. The United States and the Soviet Union, after three rounds of bilateral consultations, tabled identical draft texts of a multilateral convention at the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament in 1975. Negotiations on the basis of these texts resulted in the document I am transmitting to you today.

I am also sending with the Convention four Understandings relating to Articles I, II, III and VIII, respectively. These Understandings are not incorporated into the Convention. They are part of the negotiating record and were included in the report transmitted by the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament to the United Nations. The provisions of the Convention and the Understandings are described in detail in the accompanying report of the Department of State.

By prohibiting the hostile use of potentially disastrous environmental modification techniques, the Convention represents one more advance in the field of arms control to which my Administration is firmly committed. I recommend that the Senate give prompt consideration to the Convention, and advise and consent to its ratification.

JIMMY CARTER

The White House,

September 22, 1978.