Monrovia

Please be informed that consistent with our discussion of April this year at our PGA Regional Africa Parliamentary Workshop in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and following PGA's bilateral briefing, suggestion and kind request to the Delegation of Liberia at this Workshop to consider making contact with our Government to encourage ratification of the BWC , my Government has done same on 5th October 2016 and our signed Instrument of Ratification is now in Washington DC, submitted by Ambassador of Liberia to the United States, H.E. Mr. Jeremiah Suluteh.

In addition to this, I am also pleased to inform that my Government has also ratified all of the remaining ECOWAS Protocols to which Liberia is a signatory.

All of these recent developments came about as a result of our collective efforts.

As I also communicated to PGA earlier this year, I visited Nigeria between June and July 2016 to attend the ECOWAS-ICRC / International Humanitarian Law Review meeting on IHL implementation in West Africa, and high on the agenda was discussion on issues similarly related.

Upon my return from the PGA Workshop in Tanzania and the Regional ECOWAS Meetings in Nigeria, I raised these issues with the Defense and Security Committee of the Senate of Liberia as well as with the President of Liberia, H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, at which time we all agreed to speed up the process.

I am glad to report, working together with PGA, ICRC, ECOWAS, we have achieved these goals. Senator Stephen J. H. Zargo
Chairman of Defence and Security Committee of Senate of Liberia