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Conference on Armament?

During the Conference on Disarmament (CD)'s third plenary meeting, representatives from Nepal and the Republic of Korea delivered statements on the importance of multilateral disarmament, after which the current president indicated the meeting would switch to informal mode in order to approve Georgia's request for observer status. Georgia's request was approved, though the meeting remained in formal mode, causing some confusion. The representative of the Russian Federation delivered an intervention on this decision immediately following the approval.

Brief highlights

  • The current CD president indicated discussions are ongoing regarding arrangements for substantive discussions on all issues on the CD's agenda, some form of which have been conducted for the last several years.
  • Nepal drew connections between disarmament and development and urged progress on multilateral disarmament in the 2009 CD session.
  • The Republic of Korea expressed support for the 2008 proposed programme of work, CD/1840.
  • Russia criticized the granting of CD observer status to Georgia.

Conference on Armament?
After inquiring whether the meeting was in formal or informal mode and learning from the president that the formal meeting had not been suspended, Russian Ambassador Loshchinin argued that Georgia should not have been granted observer status to the CD. He argued that last year Georgia "did not really contribute to the discussions of the agenda, except perhaps its attempts to use the Conference for false accusations and attempts to remove all questions related to its responsibility for military aggression against South Ossetia." He also suggested that increases in Georgia's armaments and military spending should prevent Georgia from being a CD observer, pointing out, "[t]he name of our conference is the Conference on Disarmament and not on Armament."

Considering this suggestion that the actual act of disarmament or reduction of military expenditures be a requirement for observer status to the CD, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) looked into the possibility of extending that criterion to existing CD members and observers. Based on SIPRI data on military expenditures, we found that spending in at least 40 member states and 16 observer states increased between 2005–2006. Data was not available for all relevant states. Spending in some states actually decreased in those years. See WILPF's spreadsheet for numbers.

Military spending versus security and development
The continuing increase in global military expenditures, which rose to $1339 billion in 2007, has alarmed many governments and citizens, especially since the global financial crisis has taken shape. In November 2008, the UN Security Council held an open debate on enhancing collective security through the regulation of armaments and reduction of military spending. The government of Costa Rica initiated the debate to revitalize discussion around Article 26 of the UN Charter, which says:

In order to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world's human and economic resources, the Security Council shall be responsible for formulating, with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee referred to in Article 47, plans to be submitted to the Members of the United Nations for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments.

In his statement to the debate, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias argued that the wording of Article 26 is not an accident—spending in arms is a diversion of human and economic resources; asking for the least diversion of resources for armaments means finding alternatives to excessive military spending that do not under security. One such alternative, he argued, is strengthening multilateralism. As long as states do not feel protected by regional and international organizations or arrangements, they will continue to arm themselves at the expense of their people's development—especially economic and social development of their poor—and at the expense of international security.

Numerous states have expressed concern at the CD already this year with the lack of regional security arrangements and with the state of multilateral disarmament efforts. On 20 January, Russia noted the problem of systematic breakdowns in security in many regions where there is no mechanism for security and the transfer of arms, such as the Middle East and the Caucasus. Today in the CD, the representative of Nepal—which has not spoken to a plenary meeting of the CD since Reaching Critical Will started tracking the Conference in 2001—expressed concern that the stalemate in multilateral disarmament "has not only escalated rivalry in armament, increased insecurity, and held up resources but also denied developments to billions of people around the world." Nepal's ambassador articulated his hope that the 2009 CD session will "revitalize multilateral disarmament efforts, gather momentum, and lead to the release of human and economic resources for development purposes, help move towards the achievement of the MDGs [Millennium Development Goals], and to create a sustainable foundation of peace, security, progress and prosperity for all countries."

After the Security Council debate on Article 26, Reaching Critical Will of WILPF suggested some concrete actions for government and civil society representatives to take, including:

  • Calling on the Security Council to report on progress made toward a plan to reduce the human and economic resources spent on armaments;
  • Requesting that, within one year, the Office of Legal Affairs, Office for Disarmament Affairs, individual governments, and NGOs report on ways and means for implementing Article 26;
  • Indicating an intention to evaluate the Security Council's performance and initiatives towards advancing Article 26 in the next General Assembly session;
  • Calling on the world's disarmament experts concentrated in Geneva at the Conference on Disarmament to report on various paths of action that could be taken up to ensure that the Article 26 obligation is fulfilled, in the interests of revitalizing the First Committee to undertake the tasks for which it was created, and revitalizing the Conference on Disarmament which has been blocked for 9 years;
  • Encouraging the First Committee to promote and adopt a resolution containing the above elements and/or to draft a convention or protocol on implementing Article 26, calling on all UN member states to make a legally-binding regional or international commitment to reducing the diversion for armaments of their state's human and economic resources by an agreed percentage per year;
  • Calling on governments to participate in the UN Register of Conventional Arms and the UN Instrument for Reporting Military Expenditures to enhance transparency and confidence-building; and
  • Making the reduction of militarism a global norm through sustained development of a culture of peace, in order to help shift policies and budgets onto different paths.

Notes from the gallery
Today's CD plenary marked the third for WILPF interns Maria and Ilse. They reported being surprised when a security guard checked their badges at the door to the balcony seating, especially after several ambassadors to the CD made formal statements last week pressuring their colleagues to allow greater interaction with civil society. Usually, the small WILPF contingent is surrounded by only a few other NGO representatives, but today, most of the seats in the gallery were taken: a group of students from Bordeaux, France attended the meeting with their professor. Maria and Ilse were glad the session did not go into informal mode, as they had difficulty getting back into the CD chamber after an informal meeting last week. They both say that while they are only here for six months or a year, they truly hope that they'll be able to see the positive changes discussed last week, especially the way the CD interacts with civil society.

The next plenary meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, 3 February 2009.

- Ray Acheson, Reaching Critical Will of WILPF