First Committee Monitor, Vol. 22, No. 3
Editorial: Backsliding Into the Abyss, or Pursuing Peace and Justice
19 October 2024
By Ray Acheson
As the First Committee wrapped up its general debate this week, the overall vibe articulated by the majority states was that the international disarmament system, is, as Lesotho said, “losing its grip.” Genocide and war are raging, prohibited weapons like cluster munitions, chemical weapons, and incendiary weapons are being used, nuclear arsenals are being expanded, modernised, and threatened to be used. Meanwhile, Guyana lamented, “As we turn to the United Nations for multilateral solutions, we find that its authority is being undermined by the selfish ambitions of a few.”
The question for delegations as we move now into thematic discussions and action on resolutions is whether they can turn this ship around, prevent it from completely running aground. There are practical steps all states can take here in this forum to help: they can commit to stop arming Israel and all others waging war; they can vote in favour of the resolutions establishing consultations on autonomous weapons and a UN study on the effects of nuclear war; and they can ratify, implement, and reiterate their support for all of the disarmament, non-proliferation, and arms control treaties and vote in favour of their relevant First Committee resolutions.
Delegations can also implement the suggestions made in the debate on working methods and programming planning—including better access for and participation of civil society in the work of the First Committee; grouping right of replies into one single session at the end of general debate and each thematic cluster; and merging or consolidating resolutions to prevent the proliferation of duplicative efforts, such as in relation to the outer space and cyber processes. In this regard, it’s helpful that on Thursday this week, member states already adopted without a vote the draft decision proposed by Singapore and South Africa to identify the states that request votes on resolutions at the First Committee.
While these might be relatively small measures in the grand scheme of things, they are tangible actions states can take right now in this forum that will help “create the conditions” for the bigger picture actions for disarmament and demilitarisation that will constrain violence, save lives, and prevent suffering. That bigger picture is what delegations should be thinking about in every action they take at the First Committee. As Ghana urged, member states must act in accordance with “the scale, reach and impact of the international security challenges we are called upon to confront,” calling for all efforts to be made to achieve disarmament and demilitarisation. “Not to do so, would be a deliberate act of negligence that leads us into the abyss of doom and destruction.”
Backsliding, warmongering, and power playing
It certainly seems like we’re heading into the “abyss of doom and destruction,” a sense that has become more acute in recent years. Eritrea’s description of the current situation is grim but accurate:
The heightened geopolitical tensions, catalyzed by local and regional conflicts as well as proxy wars, are seriously endangering global peace and security. The hegemonic world order, manifested by military adventurism and the zero-sum security logic as well as policies of ‘containment’ and ‘illegal unilateral sanctions,’ are all pushing our world towards the realm of an unimaginable catastrophe—one of which is the use of nuclear weapons…. Against such alarms and the collective wisdom of the majority, the futile attempts to impose a uni-polar global order in the last thirty years or so, and in particular, the crises spawned in these times aimed at reviving defunct alliances and military blocs, are increasingly propelling our global community into the edges of a much more perilous calamity.
In this context, the “traumatic humanitarian crises” caused by destructive armed conflicts around the world, noted Mozambique, are symptoms “of the violations of the international law and weakening of the disarmament and international security regimes.” Frequent breaches of disarmament and arms control agreements lie at the heart of the cracking open and destabilisation of the world. And impunity for these violations has meant more and more states feel emboldened to trash more and more agreements. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s genocide against Palestinians were undoubtably inspired by the United States’ invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, its torture-filled black sites and catastrophic drone strikes, and the impunity with which its war crimes were met. “When dangerous precedents go unchallenged,” warned North Macedonia, “they transform into tolerated practices that threaten world peace and security.”
Among these dangerous precedents is the undermining of the UN Charter “by the resurgence of a ‘might is right’ ideology and the escalation of geopolitical rivalries. In place of cooperation and dialogue, we increasingly see unilateral actions and dangerous power plays,” said Kenya. Urging states to “demonstrate leadership that prioritizes peace over conflict, dialogue over division, and cooperation over unilateralism,” Kenya warned that the continuation of the violence and humanitarian crises in the Middle East, Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, and more “is an indictment of not only the perpetrators, but also of the international peace and security architecture that has failed to stop these senseless wars and hold the perpetrators to account.”
Digging into the Upside Down
The perpetrators, meanwhile, are using the First Committee as some kind of masterclass in obfuscation, attempting a Jedi mind trick in which their violations of international law are not the violations of international law we’re looking for. Russia, for example, complained that “the conflicts that flared up earlier are escalating in a spiral” and that “confrontation involving States with military nuclear capabilities is increasing”—with zero acknowledgment that it is one of the states with nuclear weapons that is engaged in a conflict! Rightly criticising the United States and its allies for being unwilling to give up their hegemonic ambitions, Russia declined any responsibility for the violence it has committed and harm it has caused in trying to assert its own dominance. And in the process, Russia threated to tear even more disarmament efforts down in its quest for power, asserting, “In these circumstances, attempts to implement any disarmament initiatives run up against harsh politico-military and strategic realities that hamper such endeavours.”
Like Russia’s attempt to hold itself outside of the violence and violations it is committing, Israel continued, in right of replies throughout the week, to simultaneously deny and justify its genocide and war crimes. Yet, outside of Conference Room 4, Israel has ratcheted up its killing operations in Gaza. Addressing the First Committee this week, the representative of Palestine described:
A year has passed, and we have not been free for a moment from the pain that grips our hearts, weighs down our souls, and bleeds our eyes due to the massacres and destruction perpetrated by the Israeli war machine against our Palestinian people, especially in the Gaza Strip. Every day and hour, the Palestinian people are subjected to the most heinous crimes and the harshest acts of war committed by the Israeli occupation forces, which have set their sights on the extermination of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, ending their existence and displacing them, using all available means for killing, torture, starvation, thirst, siege, and deprivation, which has led to the loss of tens of thousands of innocent civilian lives.
In the commission of these crimes, Palestine pointed out, “Israel has used internationally prohibited weapons, especially the most lethal explosive weapons, which fell upon the heads of innocent people living in the most densely populated areas in the world.” The delegation noted that, after the displacement of nearly two million refugees, “who were uprooted from their homes that became piles of rubble,” Israel “is now bombing them in their tents and shelters for the whole world to see in a live broadcast, burning them alive and scattering their remains.” In one grave example of this violence, as reported in Drop Site News, “Israel’s attack on Al-Aqsa Hospital and its grounds—causing tents to catch on fire and those inside to burn alive—created some of the most disturbing images to date: people wounded in previous attacks burning to death, including one person with an IV still attached.”
As Comoros said, “We are witnessing one of the most brutal manifestations of human suffering daily as homes are reduced to rubble, and hospitals struggle to cope with the sheer volume of casualties.” In addition, “the Israeli blockade has created a situation where civilians are being deprived of food, water, and medical supplies. Children are dying of hunger and thirst and hospitals are overwhelmed.”
Breaking the silence
After a year of unhinged violence, the condemnations of Israel’s actions are increasing. Building on the interventions during the general debate last week, this week many more states expressed their concerns, including Algeria, Belgium, Bolivia, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, France, Greece, Guinea, Iceland, Iran, Italy, Maldives, Nicaragua, Panama, San Marino, Slovenia, Spain, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Türkiye, and Ukraine. Speaking a bit more vaguely, Costa Rica, Japan, Kenya, Mozambique, Nepal, Norway, Senegal, Timor-Leste, and Tanzania also raised concerns about the situation in the Middle East.
Eritrea condemned “the inhumane war unleashed to stifle the Palestinian cause and evict them from their land,” as well as “the commotion that it continues to engender and the wider regional conflagration that it has triggered.” Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, and Ukraine specifically condemned the attacks by the Israeli Defence Forces against the United Nations Interim Force positions in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL), while Belgium and Sudan criticised Israel’s efforts to criminalise the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
“We are appalled by the unacceptable number of civilian casualties the current crisis in the Middle East causes and we remind all parties that they are bound by international humanitarian law and that breaches thereof must be prosecuted to their full extent,” said Belgium, urging all actors “to exercise restraint, prevent further escalation and engage in international diplomatic efforts.” Most delegations commenting on the situation made similar remarks, and Algeria, Belgium, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, France, Iceland, Italy, Nigeria, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, Türkiye, and the United Kingdom called for an immediate ceasefire. Describing Israel’s aggressions in the region as “a glaring manifestation” of the hegemonic, unipolar world order, Eritrea said that Israel’s “vicious war and arbitrary attacks on civilians must stop immediately” and declared that the “international community cannot and should not stand silent in the face of such egregious crimes.”
Stop arming Israel
And yet even as fewer states are remaining silent, the violence continues—which prompted the delegation of Palestine to ask, “How could Israel, the occupying power, continue to wage a war of extermination against the Palestinian people for a whole year under the watchful eyes of the entire world?”
The answer, of course, which Palestine itself provided, “is that all these crimes and massacres are committed by Israel from a sense of security, because it sits on its throne above the law, believing itself immune from accountability.” There is a double standard at play that ensures “the selection of those who should be held accountable and the application of the law upon them is not based on the principle of everyone being under the law, but rather on political considerations and other considerations that threaten the international system, undermine its credibility, and destabilize its effectiveness in establishing peace and maintaining international security and safety.”
This double standard has meant that certain Western countries continue to arm Israel, which, as Sudan noted, has fueled Israel’s genocide and emboldened it to expand its aggression to Lebanon. As Palestine warned, arms stransfers to Israel “makes those countries partners in the genocide being perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people.” The UN Charter, the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), UN General Assembly resolutions, and the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, “which clearly determined that Israel's occupation is illegal and must end as soon as possible, and which calls on all countries and international organizations not to provide any assistance to the Israeli occupation aimed at sustaining the occupation,” make it clear that the provision of weapons to Israel violates international law.
Some delegations raised more general concerns about the global arms trade and armed conflicts. Iceland, for example, expressed concern that the proliferation of weapons to the Middle East “has led to an escalation which could bring a major conflagration with use of weapons of mass destruction.” Iceland also remarked that the war in Sudan is likewise “fuelled by a constant flow of arms, channelled by a number of countries in this room.” Likewise, San Marino lamented that millions of civilians are affected by armed conflicts in different parts of the world, noting that civilians are targeted, killed, wounded, traumatised, and displaced, especially by the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.
Despite widespread recognition of the danger and damage stemming from the arms trade, very few states called for its end. And even fewer explicitly called for an arms embargo on Israel. In general debate statements and/or right of replies during the past week, only the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Iran, Nicaragua, Palestine, and Tunisia called on states to stop providing Israel with weapons, parts or components, ammunition, and any other military equipment. Many Western states expressed concern with arms transfers from the DPRK, Iran, and China to Russia, which they rightly noted would extend its war of aggression against Ukraine. Yet these same states are apparently unwilling to say the same about arms transfers to Israel, even though it is undeniable that Israel would not be able to continue its genocide or expand its wars without military assistance from Western countries.
This is why, as Bolivia said, the international community must “ensure that justice and human dignity prevail over political and economic interests.” Certain Western states are supporting Israel’s genocide and expanding wars in the region because they benefit from them. Their weapon manufacturers are profiting financially, and the death and displacement of Palestinians and the destabilisation of the region creates new political, military, and economic “opportunities” for some Western countries seeking to retain their monopoly on global violence and over “resources” in a world under ever-increasing strain. This speaks to the wider need to also “regulate and overcome the economic interests of arms-producing facilities and prevent them from surging arms production and sales,” as Nepal recommended.
Whatever near-term profits can be generated from war, killing civilians will not make anyone safe, as Jordan warned in a right of reply to Israel this past week. Starving people, bombing them, blocking them, will never bring safety, said Jordan. Panama likewise argued that investing “in the preservation of peace and the prevention of conflicts is much more beneficial and economical than any armed conflict.” It noted, “The resources allocated to building peace and promoting international cooperation are an investment in the security, sustainable development and well-being of humanity as a whole.” The Maldives, which explained that it “is not a manufacturer of weapons and has no aspirations to join the ranks of arms-producing nations,” similarly argued that “true security comes not from military arsenals but from the well-being of our people, the health of our environment, and the strength of our international relationships.” It urged all states to “recognize that security cannot be achieved through weapons alone. Investing in the well-being of people and the planet is essential. Disarmament is a precondition for sustainable development, and sustainable development is the foundation for lasting peace.”
Disarmament, demilitarisation, and justice are all essential to true peace and security. In relation to Israel’s wars, a ceasefire alone, while imperative to save lives now, is insufficient to bring peace. Ending arms transfers is another key step, as is ending the occupation of Palestine and ending the impunity of Israel.
The imperative of preventing nuclear violence
But the First Committee is not just about ending war, it’s also about getting rid of the weapons that fuel it. And the obstacles to disarmament are the same as those to ending war—impunity for those that build and wield the tools of violence.
The nuclear-armed states have acted with impunity for decades in their development, possession, modernisation, and threats to use nuclear weapons. Just as nuclear-armed Russia and Israel try to Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender (DARVO) their way out of accountability for their atrocities, the other nuclear-armed states also try to build an Upside Down world to justify their world-destroying arsenals. “Now, more than ever, the first duty of any responsible government must be to keep their nation safe,” said the United Kingdom, explaining, “My Prime Minister has made clear that for as long as others have nuclear weapons, the UK will maintain a nuclear deterrent. Our posture of minimum credible nuclear deterrence, assigned to the defence of NATO, is a vital safeguard for the UK, our Allies, and for maintaining global peace and security.
Not only is the UK apparently trying to promote the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but it’s also reiterating theoretical propositions about nuclear deterrence that are this point thoroughly debunked, given the current state of the world. As Sri Lanka pointed out, “The doctrine of nuclear deterrence which seeks to justify the possession of nuclear weapons, ostensibly as a means to avoid war, runs out of validity very quickly when tensions escalate. As a result, we have witnessed increase of nuclear rhetoric and the doomsday clock coming ever closer to midnight.”
One of the core reasons that nuclear deterrence theories persist is because, as Costa Rica said, “gender norms have propelled a narrative that the willingness to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons is a sign of masculine strength and power.” The vast resources funneled into modernising nuclear weapons “reinforce traditional masculine values and priorities within the defense sector,” argued Costa Rica. To counter this trend, Costa Rica noted that “incorporating a gender perspective and adopting feminist approaches is essential to dismantle traditional conceptions of power and security, historically linked to nuclear weapons.”
The patriarchal reliance on weapons of mass destruction to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction is a reckless endeavour. Yet the attempted Jedi mind tricks continue, and those who profit from building the bombs or using them to bully others continue to try to sell them as essential tools of security—just like Russia says taking over Ukraine is essential for its security or Israel says wiping out Palestine is essential for its. Gendered norms that contend that security is best achieved through weapons, war, and armed violence are reflected in the defence of nuclear weapons and of genocide and military interventions, as noted the in the civil society statement on gender and diversity to the First Committee.
The similarities between nuclear weapon possession and Israel’s genocide of Palestinians are so profound that Comoros argued that they are linked. Both “the heart-wrenching humanitarian catastrophe ongoing in Gaza and the persistent threat posed by nuclear weapons” demand collective attention and action, “as they are matters of life and death for millions of innocent people,” Comoros pointed out. “Both involve the question of how we, as a global community, respond to violence, oppression, and the threat of annihilation.” And both require making choices that “will shape the future of our children and future generations. The people of Gaza deserve to live in peace, just as all people around the world deserve to live free from the threat of nuclear war.”
The reality of nuclear weapons, as the vast majority of delegations articulated during the general debate, is that they are unconscionable and unacceptable weapons of terror that must be eliminated, now. “Nuclear weapons, with their unmatched destructive power, pose the greatest threat to humanity today. Their continued existence, and the potential for their use, signifies a collective failure in ensuring global security,” said the Maldives.
The failure of the nuclear-armed states and some of their allies to understand this is why we need an updated UN study on the effects of nuclear war. Nuclear weapon policy must be based on science, not dogma. The last time the international community collectively examined the impacts of nuclear weapon use was 1989. New technologies like climate modelling are now available, and recent case studies such as those on French nuclear testing in the Pacific and the US Trinity Test in New Mexico have shown how much more information is available now than in the past.
A comprehensive assessment of the effects of nuclear war is also important to enhance non-proliferation efforts and support the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the preamble of which states that “the proliferation of nuclear weapons would seriously enhance the danger of nuclear war.” Any government opposed to an updated scientific study on the effects of nuclear war is undermining non-proliferation and is also, in essence, suppressing information about nuclear weapons from the reaching the public. But people living in nuclear-armed states and in the rest of the world—all of whom are effectively held hostage by nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war—have a right to know the truth.
This is also why survivor-led and inclusive processes are so important. Justice for nuclear harms requires information. Whether it’s a UN study on nuclear war, or the implementation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)’s provisions on victim assistance and environmental remediation, or the establishment of an international symposium on the legacy of nuclear weapons being pursued by Kiribati and Kazakhstan in a First Committee resolution, participation of survivors is absolutely crucial for understanding the reality of nuclear weapons.
Refusing the automation of violence
At the same time, preventing more survivors is also crucial. Preventing the use of nuclear weapons by eliminating them is essential; so too is preventing the development of other weapons that we know will cause catastrophic harm to humans in the near future. We can already see how artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled technology is helping Israel commit genocide; it’s all too clear how AI and autonomy will be incorporated in more and more weapon systems, how software and sensors will be used to kill.
The First Committee resolution establishing consultations on autonomous weapon systems is a small but important step preventing this dystopian future. A legally binding treaty to stop the weaponisation of AI and the development of autonomous weapon systems is imperative, but so is states making that commitment right now not to contribute even further to the dehumanisation of warfare and policing.
We are at a crossroads, not just in terms of technological development, but in terms of our survival as a species that values human life and dignity. Sri Lanka asked if we are in fact “doomed for destruction one way or another,” lamenting the “violence, death, destruction, and the rhetoric of recrimination and threat of counter-violence being freely disseminated with ever greater vigour.” The Sri Lankan delegate urged states to reflect on the fact that, “If we don’t get this right, nothing you care about, and nothing you work on, will matter.”
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