V0.3 16 July 2001

1.0 Summary

This document outline a proposal for a UN Convention / Protocol on implementing Article 26 of the UN Charter regarding the UN security council ensuring "the least diversion for armaments of the world's human and economic resources" by reducing the amount of resources expended on armaments by a set percentage (x) per year. It considers some of the issues involved.

2 Type of Agreement

The States of the UN will make a legally binding commitment to reducing the diversion for armaments of their State’s human and economic resources by an agreed percentage (x) per year. In other words the amount of the resources and human effort expended on things to kill people. It would apply to all weapons (as a cumulative sum of all the resources spent on all weapons).

3 Defining Quantities

3.1 Starting quantity would be as of date of passing convention.
3.2 Starting quantity could be calculated from:
3.2.1 Actual resources used in ten (z) years prior to date of passing convention.
3.2.2 By calculation of the average percentages used by the 5 permanent members of UN Security Council over the last ten (z) years and applying that percentage to each country to obtain a quantity.
3.4 Human resources could be man hours expended on armaments.
3.5 Economic resources could be quantity based on GDP/GNP expended on armaments averaged over the last ten (z) years (ask economists).
3.6 All decisions (e.g. The percentage reduction per year (x), last ten years (z), Review / re-commitment period (y) tc.) set by consensus of The UN General Assembly when agreeing the convention.

4 Monitoring

4.1 Establish a UN Security Council committee to make decisions on issues that arise; such as:
4.1.1 Requests for non-compliance (in general smaller percentages may be allowed but not increases). Some concessions may be required in the first few years while States get their independently verifiable / auditable compliance systems in place.
4.1.2 Sanctions for persistent or gross non-compliance.
4.1.3 Reporting and auditing standards. Selection of which states will be independently verified / audited each year. Note: To reduce verification costs random statistical sampling techniques could also be used to select a sample of states (or aspect of states quantities) that will be independently verified / audited each year.
4.2 Publish targets and achievements annually.
4.3 Require Review / re-commitment every 10 to 20 (y) years, and if don’t work (or minimum levels required to provide security for citizens reached); cancel convention and revert back to using precious resources on things to kill people.
4.4 A mechanism whereby states may specify members of which states they would NOT like to audit them (max 10% of General Assembly, One of Five Security Council Veto members).

5 Other Issues

5.1 Race to produce weapons that require less resources, or transfer of resources to weapons that require less resources, or stockpile old weapons..
5.2 Largest reduction in first years. If ahead of target can only spend up to schedule.
5.3 Protecting state secrets.
5.4 Account for Inflation / growth rates (i.e. population)
5.5 Could transfer resources saved to poverty reduction, sustainable development. peaceful resolution of conflict systems, maintaining the environment.
5.6 Penalties for non-compliance could be agreed and specified in the convention.
5.7 Accuracy / precision of calculation / reporting of resources.
5.8 Could have monitoring mechanism to prevent / detect build up of arms like in Rwanda prior to and during the Genocide.
5.9 Could specify how amounts diverted from armaments to be used (e.g. 50% in State programmes, 5% on admin / auditing, % for poverty reduction, % that General assembly allocates each year)

Table 1 showing the percentage of resources that would be still available for use on armaments and the amount diverted from armaments in each period (based on year 2000 estimate of $800 billion dollars for world’s arms trade).

(E.g. For 1% could use 90% of year 0’s resources on armaments in ten year time, diverting about $7bn per year to poverty etc.).