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Call on UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-Moon:
Don't Downgrade Disarmament at the UN
March
15 Update:
DDA is now ODA
After a valiant campaign by civil society against
the downgrading of the Department of Disarmament Affairs, Secretary-General
Ban Ki-Moon revised his proposal to the General Assembly in March,
preventing DDA from being subsumed by the Department of Political
Affairs. On 15 March, the General Assembly passed Resolution 61/257
supporting the establishment of an Office of Disarmament
Affairs, which will maintain the budgetary autonomy and
existing structures and functions of the Department of Disarmament
Affairs.
This means the ODA is an independent entity within
the Secretariat, rather than an appendage of the Secretary-General's
office. Furthermore, while the title of the head of disarmament
affairs has changed to High Representative, she/he will still have
the official rank of Undersecretary-General.
The consequences of this move remain to be fully
seen, however, we are concerned that the downgrade has the following
implications:
- First, High Representatives are personally linked to the Secretary-General,
with time-bound and expiring mandates at the discretion of the
Secretary-General. This means the ODA's mandate and chief will
change from being part of the UN secretariat's institutional framework
to being personally linked to changing Secretary-Generals.
- Second, retaining DDA's independence would have allowed the
Secretary-General to avoid being directly involved in political
disarmament issues until he chooses to engage, instead of having
every disarmament decision directly linked to his office as they
now will with the ODA.
The efforts of civil society to maintain pressure on the Secretary-General
and to emphasize the independence of the DDA were not in vain. Now
there is a need to maintain pressure on the High Representative,
Ambassador Duarte, to keep disarmament in the spotlight.
March
8 Update:
Civil society helps save DDA; Secretary-General's proposal
to the General Assembly
Civil society's campaign against downgrading disarmament
in the UN system has been extremely effective to date. Civil society
and governments have opposed the proposed downgrade so vigorously
that Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has improved his proposals twice
so far. The Department will no longer be subsumed under the Department
of Political Affairs, as originally proposed, and it will now be
headed by an Under-Secretary General instead of the lower Assistant-Secretary-General,
as originally proposed. Reaching Critical Will would once again
like to commend our civil society partners for this work—this
is an significant success for those working for disarmament.
However, the new UN Secretary-General continues to propose
changing the current Department into an Office and moving it into
his own office, headed by a High Representative of the Secretary-General,
for reasons that remain unclear. According to the the Secretary-General,
he wants the Department to be “closer” to him, thus
the move into his own office. Presumably, however, if he had simply
wanted the DDA to be in his office, he would have originally proposed
this and not the move into the Department of Political Affairs.
Analysts also originally assumed that the proposal to demote DDA's
chief from an Under-Secretary-General to an Assistant-Secretary-General
was to make room for the additional proposed Under-Secretary-General
in Peacekeeping without increasing the UN's budget allocation for
the top posts. But if the DDA continues to be headed by an Under-Secretary-General,
then this does not explain the restructuring either.
As we said in our last update (see the more detailed argument in
"info from Feb 6" below), there are important reasons
to either maintain DDA as it is, or increase its resources, for
the following reasons:
- First, High Representatives are personally linked to the Secretary-General,
with time-bound and expiring mandates at the discretion of the
Secretary-General. We do not want DDA's mandate and chief to change
from being part of the UN secretariat's institutional framework
to being personally linked to changing Secretary-Generals.
- Second, retaining DDA's independence will allow the Secretary-General
to avoid being directly involved in political disarmament issues
until he chooses to engage, instead of having every disarmament
decision directly linked to his office.
Without clear reasons for changing the Department into an Office
and moving it into the Secretary-General's office, it makes more
sense not to restructure the Department. Given disarmament's importance,
it would make the most sense to increase DDA's resources.
Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon made the new restructuring proposal
to the General Assembly at an informal session on February 16, and
a General Assembly framework resolution on all his restructuring
proposals is supposed to be coming out soon. The proposals still
have to go through several bureaucratic processes, including the
UN's budgetary committee, before being approved, which could take
several months.
Information
From February 6:
DDA will remain its own entity; reasons to upgrade its status
Response to Ban Ki Moon's proposal to downgrade DDA has been overwhelming.
Governments and civil society have opposed the downgrade, originally
slated as a move into the Department of Political Affairs and now
proposed as a move into the Secretary-General's own office. The
General Assembly discussed the restructuring with the Secretary-General
on Monday, February 5, in a closed, informal meeting, and smaller-scale
consultations are scheduled to continue. Some governments have suggested
the proposed restructuring be processed through the notorious Administrative
and Budgetary (Fifth) Committee, where it would presumably encounter
challenges.
Due to opposition, the proposed downgrade has changed form, but
is still opposed. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Group of
77 (G77) originally opposed moving the DDA into a Department for
Political Affairs because it was likely to be headed by a nuclear
weapon state representative, so the Secretary-General has now proposed
moving the Department into his own office. The Department would
become an “office”, headed by a Special Representative
or High Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), initially
an Assistant-Secretary General. However, the NAM and the G77 reportedly
still have reservations, as do several western governments, including
Austria, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden.
It is still important to retain an independent DDA, with its own
institutional mandate and Under-Secretary General. Changing the
Department to an office and demoting its chief still represent a
downgrade, which is moving in the wrong direction when challenges
to disarmament and nonproliferation are increasing. Moreover, SRSGs
are personally linked to the Secretary-General, with time-bound
and expiring mandates at the discretion of the Secretary-General.
We do not want DDA's mandate and chief to change from being part
of the UN secretariat's institutional framework to being personally
linked to changing Secretary-Generals. Finally, retaining DDA's
independence will allow the Secretary-General to avoid being directly
involved in political disarmament issues until he chooses to engage,
instead of having every disarmament decision directly linked to
his office.
Reaching Critical Will would like to commend civil society's response
to this issue. You were loud, you were quick, and you made a difference.
Letters are still helpful, but either update them with the above
information, or use our new sample letter below.
The
original proposal for downgrade; civil society's reasons for
opposition
The Department for Disarmament Affairs (DDA) is the United Nation's
institutional memory and stronghold of expertise on disarmament
at the international level. Several countries have a shameful record
on disarmament and would like to see the Department and its institutional
memory and activity downgraded.
The new Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, is purportedly
considering subsuming the Department for Disarmament Affairs (DDA)
into the Department of Political Affairs, reducing the stature of
disarmament within the UN at a time when the problems posed by nuclear
and other weapons of mass destruction, as well as small arms, are
escalating.
Disarmament was recognized from the outset of the United Nations
as an essential condition for global peace and security. The UN
Charter recognized that an armed peace was not going to be a just
peace, and that preparation for war was not going to bring peace.
Nuclear disarmament was the subject of the very first United Nations
resolution, and general disarmament is included in the mandate of
the Security Council.
Characterizing the Department as of the "Cold War" era
is inaccurate. The current Department is a post-Cold War phenomenon,
created out of recognition that problems associated with weapons
have changed but not decreased. In fact military budgets are soaring,
wars are being fought over weapons and new treaty processes are
forming. The disarmament agenda remains unfinished, which lies at
the core of today's security challenges.
Putting the issue of disarmament into the Department of Political
Affairs is unhelpful and unnecessary, both in terms of the UN fulfilling
its mandate, and servicing inter-governmental meetings and treaty
bodies. The world's disarmament machinery, norms and regime are
embattled right now, and reducing the stature of the primary global
institution responsible for implementation of UN decisions is the
wrong course. It is important for the Department to remain its own
entity with its own mandate specific to disarmament, headed by an
Under-Secretary-General whose primary concern is disarmament. This
allows the Department to make independent assessments with disarmament
as the goal. The Department also houses years of expertise and institutional
memory that is invaluable to governments and civil society, and
which could be quietly lost under a different department. Having
a disarmament-focused department actually allows decisions to be
made more quickly than having them processed through a department
dealing with disparate concerns that may be less familiar with the
issues. The Department is sufficiently burdened with work to warrant
a dedicated department, and the issue it covers is sufficiently
urgent to justify expansion rather than absorption.
Among its many crucial functions, DDA:
- serves states parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT), the major treaty governing nuclear weapons, because that
treaty does not have its own secretariat;
- serves the General Assembly during the First Committee on Disarmament
and International Security when the world's governments meet and
debate the most pressing disarmament and security issues;
- serves the Conference on Disarmament, the world's sole multilateral
disarmament treaty negotiating body;
- maintains the Register of Conventional Arms and the Instrument
for Reporting Military Expenditures;- provides independent assessments
to the Secretary-General and Security Council and General Assembly
as appropriate; and
- provides technical assistance to governments in the process
of ratifying and implementing treaties.
Demoting DDA has been proposed before, but protest from cooler
heads - both governmental and non-governmental - saved the Department
whose goal it is to promote the global norms of disarmament. Last
time, the response from civil society was critical in turning the
tide, and your help is needed again.
Take Action!
Please register your concern in writing. Two sample letters in support
of keeping an independent DDA are provided below for you to adapt.
The first letter is quite long--five pages--and contains the most
recent information. It is the letter we actually sent to all the
UN missions, with a group of New York-based NGOs. The second is
shorter--one page--but is outdated. The older letter can give you
an idea of how you might want to shorten the longer, newer letter.
You can also download the letter both letters here: Newer
Longer letter or Older
Shorter Letter.
Please send your letter to your government's UN mission and Foreign
Ministry, and to Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. You can find the
addresses for your government's UN Mission and Foreign Ministry
here: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/resources/govcontacts/govindex.html
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's fax number is: +1 212 963-4879
SAMPLE LETTER
(Replace the address heading and title with your government's UN
Ambassador's information and then Foreign Minister's information
to send a letter to them as well)
February 7, 2007
VIA FAX (five pages)
To: All Permanent Representatives to the United Nations
From: New-York based civil society organizations working on disarmament/security
issues
Re: The Secretary-General’s Proposal to Make DDA an Office
Dear Ambassador:
The undersigned represent New York-based civil society organizations
that work on issues of disarmament and security in the United Nations
context and have worked closely with the Department for Disarmament
Affairs: Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy, Reaching Critical
Will/Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Hague
Appeal for Peace, Global Action to Prevent War, Peace Boat US, Global
Policy Forum, International Action Network on Small Arms, NGO Committee
on Disarmament, Peace, and Security, Middle Powers Initiative, Institute
for Defense and Disarmament Studies, and World Federation of United
Nations Associations. We write in support of keeping an independent
Department for Disarmament Affairs (DDA), with its own mandate and
Under-Secretary-General.
We are greatly concerned by the Secretary-General’s proposal
that the DDA become an office under the Secretary-General’s
direct oversight headed by a special representative or high representative
of the Secretary-General who would, at least initially, have the
rank of assistant secretary-general. As elaborated below, such a
change is a demotion of DDA in appearance, and likely would in fact
decrease DDA’s importance, now or in the future, and prevent
realization of its potential. The proposal also would cause practical
problems by making the Secretary-General the focal point of conflicting
demands regarding disarmament and non-proliferation and causing
confusion about the authority and mandate of the head of the Disarmament
Affairs office.
DDA’s Role Should be Expanded, Not Diminished
Disarmament is one of the central tasks of the United Nations.
The first UN General Assembly resolution called for nuclear disarmament,
and the UN Charter envisions the “the least diversion for
armaments of the world's human and economic resources” (Article
26). The UN must live up to its mandate and prioritize disarmament
in the Secretariat, maintaining the independent DDA instead of subordinating
it to other agendas.
The UN should not be reducing the stature of disarmament at a time
when the problems posed by nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction,
as well as small arms, are escalating. The DDA was established in
its current form in 1998 in order to address post-cold war disarmament
and non-proliferation issues.1 It is even more necessary in an era
with increased opportunity for, but decreased attention to, disarmament.
Moreover, the world's disarmament machinery, norms, and regimes
are embattled now, and lowering the profile of the primary global
agency responsible for implementation of UN decisions is the wrong
course.
In a January 4 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling for reassertion
of the vision of a nuclear-weapon-free world, former high U.S. officials
George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, and Henry Kissinger and former
U.S. Senator Sam Nunn characterized the present situation this way:
[T]he world is now on the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear
era. Most alarmingly, the likelihood that non-state terrorists will
get their hands on nuclear weaponry is increasing…. [U]nless
urgent new actions are taken, the U.S. soon will be compelled to
enter a new nuclear era that will be more precarious, psychologically
disorienting, and economically even more costly than was Cold War
deterrence. It is far from certain that we can successfully replicate
the old Soviet-American ‘mutually assured destruction’
with an increasing number of potential nuclear enemies world-wide
without dramatically increasing the risk that nuclear weapons will
be used.
Especially in this historical context, it is important for the
Department for Disarmament Affairs to remain its own entity with
its own mandate and Under-Secretary-General whose primary concern
is disarmament. DDA houses years of technical and policy expertise
and institutional memory which are invaluable to governments and
civil society. It could be quietly lost if the DDA becomes an office
under direct oversight of the Secretary-General. When the U.S. Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency was moved into the State Department,
the Agency’s technical expertise and institutional memory
was lost, as was internal advocacy for disarmament.
Among its many crucial functions, the Department for Disarmament
Affairs:
- serves states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT), which does not have its own secretariat;
- serves the General Assembly during the First Committee on Disarmament
and International Security when the world's governments meet and
debate the most pressing disarmament and security issues;
- serves the Conference on Disarmament, the world's sole multilateral
disarmament treaty negotiating body;
- maintains the Register of Conventional Arms and the Instrument
for Reporting Military Expenditures;
- plays a pivotal role in implementing disarmament, demobilization
and reintegration programs, especially in countries in which the
UN does not have a peacekeeping mission;
- implements programs under the “Practical Disarmament Measures”
mandate of the General Assembly;
- monitors the compliance of states parties with the Ottawa Treaty
on landmines (the Article 7 mandate);
- monitors implementation of the Small Arms Program of Action;
- provides independent assessments to the Secretary-General and
Security Council and General Assembly as appropriate; and
- provides technical assistance to governments regarding ratifying
and implementing treaties.
Further, there is potential, and the need, for DDA to do much more.
For example, the DDA could house a successor to UNMOVIC, and become
a center for addressing space and missile issues. Stripping DDA
of its departmental status may undermine its capacity to fulfill
its present functions, and almost certainly would prevent it from
realizing its potential. A demoted DDA would lack the flexibility,
mandate, and resources to play a significant role in emerging issues
on the arms control agenda.
We also observe that DDA has a good record on taking action-oriented
steps toward the inclusion of gender in all aspects of its work.
In March 2001, shortly after the Passage of UNSC Resolution 1325
on Women, Peace and Security, the DDA published a series of briefing
papers on gender and disarmament in collaboration with OSAGI and
DESA. In 2003, DDA continued this work by developing the first
departmental Gender Action Plan. Demoting a department that has
emerged as a leader in gender mainstreaming and in the promotion
of Resolution 1325 sends the wrong message about which achievements
are rewarded and which are dismissed.
Practical Problems with the Secretary-General’s Proposal
As an independent department, DDA is shielded to some extent from
the intense political pressures that disarmament/non-proliferation
issues generate. If Disarmament Affairs is more closely associated
with the Secretary-General, inevitably political pressures from
all quarters would impede achievement of objectives. Further, the
Secretary-General himself could be harmed by failure to meet heightened
expectations. The Secretary-General can find other ways to strategically
intervene on important matters where his influence could make a
difference.
Also, the DDA Under-Secretary-General (USG) already has direct access
to the Secretary-General. So nothing is really added by making the
head of the Disarmament Affairs office a special or high representative.
Since initially at least the head of the office will be an assistant
secretary-general (ASG), he or she will not be a peer to clearly-defined
USGs. In particular, the head of the Disarmament Affairs office
will be junior to many of the principal officers with whom he or
she must work: the chief UN official servicing the Conference on
Disarmament in Geneva and the heads of the IAEA and the verification
bodies for the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty all are director-generals with the rank of USG.
The Secretary-General’s proposal may also introduce confusion
over the Disarmament Affairs mission. DDA’s mandate is based
on the directives of the current Secretary-General and his two predecessors
as well as numerous resolutions of the General Assembly and Security
Council. A special or high representative heading Disarmament Affairs
would muddy the waters as to the extent of his or her mandate since
the SRSG’s mandate generally is linked to the Secretary-General
personally and is time-bound. It would be difficult to pursue new
mandates within the field, as the USG can now do. While the Secretary-General’s
proposal affirms that the office would continue to implement existing
directives, the practice might be different. In short, we do not
want DDA's mandate and chief to change from being part of the UN
secretariat's institutional framework to being personally linked
to changing Secretary-Generals.
We appreciate the Secretary-General’s desire to give the
disarmament/non-proliferation agenda a higher profile by associating
it more directly with him. However, there are other ways to accomplish
this that do not have the weaknesses of the proposal. In addition
to taking a personal role, the Secretary-General could, for example,
appoint to his staff a special advisor on disarmament/non-proliferation.
If part of the motive for the DDA proposal is to keep the number
of USGs constant in view of the proposal to split the Department
of Peace-keeping Operations, that aim can be achieved by means that
do not downgrade the DDA. For example, the Office of the Special
Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict
could be subsumed under the DDA, which already deals with related
matters including disarmament, demobilization, and rehabilitation,
and the Small Arms Program of Action. There may be offices outside
the peace and security field which could be headed by ASGs rather
than USGs. Another possibility would be simply to increase the total
number of USGs by one. Or the DPKO could have two divisions headed
by ASGs, one for peace operations, one for field support.
Conclusion
In sum, the Department for Disarmament Affairs must not lose its
unique identity and mandate and its ability to report directly to
the Secretary-General through its own Under-Secretary-General. The
quantity and technical nature of the Department's work is sufficient
to warrant a dedicated department, and the subject the Department
covers is sufficiently urgent and complex to justify expansion rather
than demotion to an office.
Sincerely,
John Burroughs
Executive Director, Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy (tel:
212 818 1861)
Jennifer Nordstrom
Project Manager, Reaching Critical Will
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Cora Weiss
President, Hague Appeal for Peace
UN Representative, International Peace Bureau
Saul Mendlovitz
Dag Hammarskjöld Professor, Rutgers Law School
Co-Founder, Global Action to Prevent War
Allison Boehm
International Coordinator, Peace Boat US
James Paul
Executive Director, Global Policy Forum
Mark Marge
UN Liaison, International Action Network on Small Arms
Vernon Nichols and Jim Nelson
Co-Presidents, NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace, and Security
Hon. Douglas Roche, O.C.
Chairman, Middle Powers Initiative
Ann Lakhdhir
UN Representative, Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies
Pera Wells
Secretary-General, World Federation of United Nations Associations
cc: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Mr. Vijay Nambiar, Chef du Cabinet
DATE
His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General of the United Nations
United Nations Headquarters
New York, New York
Dear Mr. Secretary-General:
I am writing to you in support of keeping an independent Department
for Disarmament Affairs (DDA), with its own mandate and Under-Secretary-General.
I am concerned by reports that DDA might be subsumed under the Department
for Political Affairs, a shift that is unhelpful and unnecessary,
both in terms of the UN fulfilling its mandate, and servicing inter-governmental
meetings and treaty bodies.
Disarmament is one of the central tasks of the UN, as evidenced
by the first UN General Assembly resolution calling for nuclear
disarmament, and the UN Charter's vision for the “the least
diversion for armaments of the world's human and economic resources”
(Article 26). The UN must live up to its mandate and prioritize
disarmament in the Secretariat, maintaining the independent DDA
instead of subordinating it to other agendas.
The UN should not be reducing the stature of disarmament within
the UN at a time when the problems posed by nuclear and other weapons
of mass destruction, as well as small arms, are escalating. The
DDA, which was designed to address post-cold war disarmament issues,
is even more necessary in an era with increased opportunity for,
but decreased attention to, disarmament. Moreover, the world's disarmament
machinery, norms and regime are embattled right now, and reducing
the stature of the primary global institution responsible for implementation
of UN decisions is the wrong course.
It is important for DDA to remain its own entity with its own mandate
and Under-Secretary-General whose primary concern is disarmament.
It is also important that a department dealing with nuclear disarmament
answer to an Under-Secretary-General from a non-nuclear weapon state.
This allows DDA to make independent assessments with disarmament
as the goal. DDA houses years of expertise and institutional memory
that is invaluable to governments and civil society, and which could
be quietly lost under a different department. For example, when
something similar happened in the United States, and the Arms Control
and Disarmament Agency was moved into the State Department, technical
expertise and institutional memory was lost, as was internal advocacy
for disarmament. Finally, disarmament is very technical; having
a disarmament-focused department actually allows decisions to be
made more quickly than having them processed through a department
dealing with disparate concerns that may be less familiar with the
issues.
The Department for Disarmament Affairs must not lose its unique
identity, mandate and its ability to report directly to the Secretary-General
through its own Under-Secretary-General. The quantity and technical
nature of the Department's work is sufficient to warrant a dedicated
department, and the issue the Department covers is sufficiently
urgent to justify expansion rather than absorption. Thank you for
your consideration.
Sincerely,
YOUR NAME
YOUR ADDRESS
777 UN Plaza - 6th Floor - New York, NY - 10017 - Ph: 212.682.1265 - Fax: 212.286.8211 - info@reachingcriticalwill.org
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