South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone

South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone Zona de Paz e Cooperação do Atlântico Sul Zone de Paix et de Coopération de l'Atlantique Sud Zona de Paz y Cooperación del Atlántico Sur
Flag of the ZPCAS
Member countries shown in blue
Formation	27 October 1986
Headquarters	Brasília, Brazil
Membership	24 member states
Official languages	English, Portuguese, Spanish, French
Pro tempore Presidency	Angola (2007-2009)

President Fernando Henrique Cardoso speaks at the ZPCAS Summit held in Brasília.

The South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone (abbreviation: ZPCAS; Spanish: Zona de Paz y Cooperación del Atlántico Sur; Portuguese: Zona de Paz e Cooperação do Atlântico Sul; also called the Zone of Peace and Cooperation of the South Atlantic) was created in 1986 through a UN resolution on Brazil's initiative, with the aim of promoting regional cooperation and the maintenance of peace and security in the region. Particular attention was dedicated to the question of preventing the geographical proliferation of nuclear weapons and of reducing and eventually eliminating the military presence of countries from other regions.

A Declaration on the Denuclearization of the South Atlantic was adopted at a meeting of member states of the zone held at Brasilia in September 1994. The U.N. General Assembly endorsed this but the U.S., U.K., and France were opposed. All of the states in the Zone are now covered by the African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty which extends to all African countries' territorial waters or the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean which extends to islands as far east as the 20th meridian west, while the far south Atlantic (part of the Southern Ocean) is denuclearized by the Antarctic Treaty. However, several Mid-Atlantic Ridge islands, the British overseas territory of Saint Helena and its dependencies Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha, and Norway's Bouvet Island are not covered by any of those three treaties.

Members

• Angola
• Argentina
• Benin
• Brazil
• Cameroon
• Cape Verde
• Congo
• DR Congo
• Ivory Coast
• Equatorial Guinea
• Gabon
• Gambia
• Ghana
• Guinea
• Guinea-Bissau
• Liberia
• Namibia
• Nigeria
• São Tomé and Príncipe
• Senegal
• Sierra Leone
• South Africa
• Togo
• Uruguay

See also

• North Atlantic Treaty Organization
• Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries
• African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty, Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean

References

• Address to the 6th Ministerial Meeting of the Zone for Peace and Cooperation in the South Atlantic (Dept. of Foreign Affairs of South Africa)
• United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/41/11 - Zone of Peace and Cooperation of the South Atlantic
• South African-Latin American Maritime Co-operation: Towards a South Atlantic RIM Community? Written by Dr. Greg Mills, National Director, South African Institute of International Affairs, Johannesburg

External links

• Official website of the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Brazil
• Official website of the Department of Foreign Affairs of South Africa