DISARMAMENT AT THE UNITED NATIONS AND RELATED BODIES
The “Non-Violence” (or “Knotted Gun”) sculpture by Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd on display at the UN Visitors’ Plaza in New York City.
ACTION 1: STAY INFORMED
The United Nations is the leading organization dealing with global non-proliferation and disarmament issues. Several UN bodies have different tasks. The General Assembly (www. un.org/en/ga), where all UN Member States meet, was given the chief responsibility for considering “the general principles of cooperation in the maintenance of international peace and security, including the principles governing disarmament and the regulation of armaments”. The General Assembly has divided its work over several committees. The First Committee (www.un.org/en/ga/first) deals with disarmament and international security. The resolutions on disarmament that pass through this committee are taken up by the General Assembly in its plenary sessions and, once adopted, guide the agenda of the UN on specific disarmament themes. The UN Disarmament Commission (bit.ly/1m2ScWt) is a more reflective body, where States discuss, not decide, on more general questions of disarmament and arms control. The 15-member Security Council (un.org/en/sc), with five permanent members, bears “the primary responsibility for the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security” in our world. The Charter also mandates the Security Council to formulate plans for the regulation of weapons and their use. The Security Council also has the power to deploy UN peacekeepers to conflict regions to prevent war and the escalation of armed violence. The Council focuses on crises, but increasingly has an eye for the root causes of conflict and war. Its resolutions are legally binding for all UN States. They can range from establishing an arms embargo on a specific country, to ensuring that terrorists do not acquire weapons of mass destruction, to setting the standards for how to tackle the small arms problem in countries coming out of conflict. The Conference on Disarmament (CD) (www.unog.ch/ disarmament), based in Geneva, Switzerland, is not formally a
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3/20/14 12:58 PM