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What is Disarmament?
By Felicity Hill, Director, UN Office, Women's International League
for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
& Oliver Meier, Arms Control and Disarmament Researcher, The
Verification Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC)
Peace has two essential prerequisites: disarmament and
human security.
- destroying and dismantling the tools of war;
- reducing the size of and expenditures on armed forces;
- eliminating the capacity to build new weapons; and
- releasing and integrating military personnel into civilian life.
- the elimination of actual, potential or perceived threats of
violence as well
- the full spectrum of human rights;
food, shelter, education etc.
As long as the tools of war exist and as
long as humans do not live in a secure world, we will not enjoy
peace.
Military preparedness, a one-dimensional understanding of security,
has resulted in the accumulation of weapons. The military approach
to security has not achieved the absence of threat, but have rather
increased the actual, potential and perceived threat of violence.
The resources spent on producing weapons and building the infrastructure
capable of delivering them has inhibited the acquisition of the
other vital elements of human security. The result of this century's
investment in military preparedness is vast deposits of weaponry,
distorted economies and identities based on the capacity for violence.
The generations of the 21st Century will evolve from military preparedness
by taking weapons apart, demilitarising their economies as well
as their minds.
To achieve human security in the 21st Century the patterns of behavior
normalised and legitimised during the Cold War will have to be overcome.
Thus, Cold War military alliances like NATO, conceiving security
still primarily in military terms, will have to be replaced by institutions
that take economic, political and cultural factors into account.
Such a more holistic view of security must strengthen peace keeping,
demilitarisation and capacity building in post conflict areas.
1. Building a civil social movement
for the abolition of war - the New Diplomacy
Disarmament and human security can only be achieved through negotiation,
mediation and facilitation. Much of the work outlined in the unfinished
disarmament agenda requires negotiation to arrive at solutions that
are beneficial to all. Peace is not a zero sun game, but it requires
empathy and the willingness to compromise.
Transnational contacts have become central components of international
politics. NGOs and other representatives of civil society have made
international politics more democratic by bringing the demands of
people directly to the international level. This tendency must be
recognized and strengthened. Past patterns of imposing the view
of the economically and militarily strong on those with fewer resources
must be overcome and be supplemented by a process of facilitation
and mediation between different interests. Non-governmental organizations
and civil society have a central role to play in this process.
International mechanisms based on negotiations among those with
a legal monopoly of representing states in the international sphere
are not able to bring about changes that are so obviously and desperately
needed. These structures were developed during the Cold War era
and urgently need to be reformed to reflect new cultures of diplomacy.
The Security Council, currently the main venue for debates on international
security, is dominated by the five nuclear weapons states who are
also the only five permanent members. Just as a permanent parliament
or political leader is absurd, so too is the notion of permanent
Security Council membership.
A new culture of diplomacy working for the abolition of war is more
than a supplement to the traditional means of diplomacy: it is a
symbol of and means for the transformation of dialogue between different
peoples who will safeguard the achievements of the past. Such as
the treaties banning chemical and biological weapons, landmines
and nuclear testing. A new approach taking into account civil society
will also help to nurture the difficult negotiations to come, such
as the negotiation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention, eliminating
all nuclear weapons and the negotiation of a comprehensive global
code of conduct on the manufacture and transfer of all types of
conventional weapons, light weapons, landmines and guns. Future
negotiations will be strengthened by pledges of social responsibility
in which scientists and workers reinforce thedisarmament norms by
pledging not to engage knowingly in research and teaching that furthers
the development, transfer and use of weapons.
2. Small arms, light weapons and landmines/the
arms trade
As long as the profits made by selling the tools of war are perceived
to be legitimate, there will be no peace. Disarmament must address
those weapon systems that pose the biggest threat to human security.
For many people, these are small arms, light weapons and land-mines.
Establishing limits on these weapons is therefore essential, even
if it is a demanding task. Currently small arms and light weapons
are flowing from the global north to the global south, with the
five nuclear weapon states, also the permanent Security Council
members, profiting the most from the proliferation of instability
through the trade in weapons. The objectives of the United Nations
arms register, tracking the flow of only seven types of weapons
must be enlarged to enforce transparency and the complete halt in
the trafficking in weapons.
Other steps toward the stopping the weapons trade include:
- controlling legal transfers between
states;
- constraining the availability, use
and storage of small arms within states;
- preventing and combating illicit transfers;
- collecting and removing surplus weapons
from both civil society and regions of conflict;
- reducing demand by reversing cultures
of violence;
- reforming public security institutions;
- creating norms of non-possession;
- promoting more effective and sustainable
demobilization; and
- reintegrating former combatants.
3. Weapons of mass destruction
Weapons of mass destruction still threaten the survival of all of
humankind. There is only one solution to the threat posed by weapons
of mass destruction, their total elimination. Biological and chemical
weapons are outlawed already, and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
contains a clear commitment to abolish all nuclear weapons. These
commitments were reinforced by the ruling of the International Court
of Justice in July 1996, and the unequivocal undertaking by the
nuclear weapon states for the total elimination of their arsenals,
made at the 2000 NPT Review Conference. All nuclear weapons states
should therefore undertake clear and fast steps to implement these
commitments.
There are some steps that can and should be taken to give substance
to these commitments to elimination of nuclear weapons:
- de-nuclearization of regional security
arrangements, including the withdrawal of all nuclear weapons to
the home territory of the nuclear weapon states;
- ending nuclear sharing;
- issuing legally binding and universal
negative security assurances to all non-nuclear weapon states;
- taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger
alert;
- all states should immediately ratify
the CTBT and stop undermining the treaty's purpose by continuing
to improve their nuclear capabilities;
- Russia and the United States should
agree on irreversible deep cuts into their nuclear arsenals;
- Immediate stop of the production of
fissile material for nuclear weapons and swift conclusion of negotiations
codifying a stop of production.
Nuclear arms control must be made comprehensive, to include tactical
nuclear weapons and those smaller nuclear weapon states currently
not taking part in the disarmament process.
There is a strong foundation of governmental and non-governmental
initiatives on which such a program for elimination of nuclear weapons
can build, including the New Agenda Coalition, the Canberra Commission,
the ruling of the International Court of Justice on the legality
of threat or use of nuclear weapons. Other arms control and disarmament
initiatives such as a treaty banning fissile materials, the de-alerting
of all nuclear weapons by all nuclear weapons states; adherence
to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the extension of nuclear
free zones are all legitimate steps.
4. Demilitarising the economy and building
an alternative security
Regions of conflict must be at the center of efforts to build peace
regionally. Peace building includes conflict prevention through
early warning and the presence of mediators and facilitators as
well as post conflict peace building. Today, peace making is at
the center of political attention. This narrow view of security,
while sometimes creating political and diplomatic breathing spaces
to search for political solutions for conflicts, is not sufficient.
Most conflicts have deep-rooted causes that can only be addressed
by civilian means of mediation and facilitation between the different
needs of the people involved. Post-conflict peace building must
be an integral part of efforts to secure human security in areas
of conflict and tension.
Unless societies and economies are demilitarized, there will be
no lasting peace.
Most nations have economies geared towards preparation for war
as well as industrial infrastructures geared to meeting these and
not other needs. The true peace dividend is not simply the amount
of money saved in the military budgets or in shifting it from one
pocket to another. Rather, it is the opportunity to reallocate substantial
resources to other productive activities. Like the establishment
of the current permanent war economy, conversion will require large
and long term investment. Internationally, all states should commit
themselves to a thirty year Global Action Plan to Prevent War by
reducing military budgets. A 5% reduction over 5 years would be
a first step and would make available one half billion dollars a
day.
In all these efforts, non-governmental organizations and other civil
actors must be directly involved.
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