United Nations A/RES/57/73 General Assembly Distr.: General 8 January 2003 Fifty-seventh session Agenda item 66 (l) Resolution adopted by the General Assembly [on the report of the First Committee (A/57/510)] 57/73. Nuclear-weapon-free southern hemisphere and adjacent areas The General Assembly, Recalling its resolutions 51/45 B of 10 December 1996, 52/38 N of 9 December 1997, 53/77 Q of 4 December 1998, 54/54 L of 1 December 1999, 55/33 I of 20 November 2000 and 56/24 G of 29 November 2001, Welcoming the adoption by the Disarmament Commission at its 1999 substantive session of a text entitled “Establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones on the basis of arrangements freely arrived at among the States of the region concerned”, 1 Welcoming also the ratification by Cuba of the Treaty of Tlatelolco, 2 which fulfils the establishment of the first inhabited nuclear-weapon-free zone, encompassing all States of Latin America and the Caribbean, Welcoming further the ratification by the Kingdom of Tonga of the Treaty of Rarotonga, 3 in December 2001, which completes the list of original parties to the South Pacific nuclear-free-zone treaty, Welcoming the endorsement from heads of State and Government at the thirtythird Pacific Islands Forum, held in Suva from 15 to 17 August 2002, for a nuclearweapon-free southern hemisphere, Welcoming also the meeting between the Secretary General of the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean and representatives of the Pacific Islands Forum secretariat, held in New York in April 2002, aimed at identifying areas for further cooperation, Determined to pursue the total elimination of nuclear weapons, Determined also to continue to contribute to the prevention of the proliferation of nuclear weapons in all its aspects and to the process of general and complete _______________ 1 Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-fourth Session, Supplement No. 42 (A/54/42), annex I. United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 634, No. 9068. 3 See The United Nations Disarmament Yearbook, vol. 10: 1985 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.86.IX.7), appendix VII. 2 02 54287