Some Arms Reduction Resolutions

Some Arms Reduction Resolutions

Below are some ARC related resolutions. Submit a similar one to the policy conference or committee of your organisation (e.g. Trade Unions, NGO's, Political Parties). See the UN website and http://disarmament.un.org/ for disarmament resolutions. Most years the UN First Committee passes a resolution on Disarmament for development http://disarmament.un.org/cab/d&d.html .

The ARC Resolution
People's Assembly resolution
Armaments Resolution at the 2006 UNA-UK Conference.
The Dresden Appeal
We the Peoples Millennium Forum Declaration and Agenda for Action.
The Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century
UNA Policy 2001
Charter of the Economic Rights and Duties of States
Greenpeace at UN Summit 2005
Armaments Resolution at the 2006 UNA-UK Conference.

ARC is guided by

The ARC Resolution

The Arms Reduction Coalition (ARC):

Concerned by the obstacles, threats and difficulties that the large amounts of arms in circulation pose to the maintenance of peace and security and to Non-Governmental Organisations and UN departments in carrying out their work;

Concerned by the disproportionately large amount of the world’s human and economic resources being expended on arms;

Recalling that Article 26 of the United Nations (UN) Charter calls for "the least diversion for Armaments of the world’s human and economic resources";

Calls upon the United Nations General assembly, to agree, and for all signatory States of The United Nations to ratify, a legally binding instrument:

a) for reducing the diversion for Armaments of their State’s human and economic resources by between one and five percent per year;

b) to establish and maintain systems that enable annual independent verification and auditing of their States compliance;

c) to establish a United Nations mechanism to facilitate implementation; dealing with such matters as non-compliance, concessions, reporting and auditing standards, and the publication of targets and achievements annually;

d) that specifies how amounts diverted from Armaments are to be used on State and UN programmes such as poverty reduction, sustainable development, conflict prevention, peaceful resolution of conflict, protecting the vulnerable, maintaining the environment; and effective and efficient implementation of the legally binding Instrument;

e) that gives full opportunities to non-governmental organisations and other non state actors to make their contributions in implementation, compliance and allocation of resources;

f) that requires review and re-commitment by the States to the legally binding Instrument after a period of between 10 and 25 years.

People's Assembly resolution

On Saturday 30th August 2003, the Stop The War coalition People's Assembly passed the following resolution:

"The People's Assembly calls upon the states of the UN to honour their pledge made in Article 26 of the UN Charter "to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the worlds human and economic resources", by agreeing and implementing a legally binding instrument, to reduce the amount of resources spent on arms by between 1 and 5 percent for a period of between 10 and 25 years, and to spend the resources saved on programmes that benefit humanity and the earth. " www.stopwar.org.uk

Armaments Resolution at the 2006 UNA-UK Conference.

The resolution was proposed by ARC members and passed at the 2006 UNA-UK Conference in Durham 21-23 April 2006.

Before the Hague Peace Conference in 1899 the Russian Foreign Secretary, Count Muraviev said; "The maintenance of a general peace and a possible reduction of the excessive armaments ... are in the present world situation an ideal towards which the endeavours of all governments must be directed ... "

Article 8 of the League of Nations Covenant and 26 of the UN Charter, dealt with arms reduction. The League called for "... the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations".

Article 26 of the UN Charter calls for the Security Council to formulate "… plans for the establishment of a system for the regulation of Armaments". This was "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".

This UNA Conference demands that after a century of delay the British Government puts the reduction of arms and the ending of the pernicious system of arms sales at the top of its agenda.

visit http://www.una-uk.org/

The Dresden Appeal

" Heavily armed, the world will remain without peace. Disarmament gives peace a chance. One fifth of today's military spending would suffice to ensure everyone sustains a basic supply of food, drinking water, education and public health services."
The Dresden Appeal by the German Party of Democratic Socialism 7^Th October 2001

We the Peoples Millennium Forum Declaration and Agenda for Action.

Our vision is of ..... a world where peace and human security, as envisioned in the principles of the United Nations Charter, replace armaments, violent conflicts and wars....
The UN and its member states have failed to fulfil their primary responsibility of maintaining peace and preserving human life. "
"Disarmament is not the only way to peace. It must be accompanied by genuine human security. It is imperative that NGOs be included in the dialogue for peace. The world community, civil society, including younger and older people and their governments have the resources and knowledge to move from a culture of violence to a culture of peace."...
"The Forum urges: ... Governments... To initiate a world-wide freeze on armed forces and a 25% cut in production and export of major weapons and small arms, ... as the beginning of world-wide build-down of conventional forces."
We the Peoples Millennium Forum Declaration and Agenda for Action. Strengthening the United Nations for the 21^st Century - Declaration over 1,350 representatives of over 1,000 NGO from more than 100 countries. May 2000. (available from UN Information Centre and UNA)

The Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century

"43. Demilitarise the Global Economy by reducing Military Budgets and Shifting resources Toward Human Security Programs.
Peace in the 21^st century demands a shift from the 20^th century's expenditures on the military to civilian programs that safeguard human security. Disarmament will entail making drastic cuts in weapons, forces and military budgets. Demilitarisation will require transforming the military economy to a peace economy by allocating resources for programs that ensure the well being of the world's citizens - that provide for the basic human rights of food, shelter, education, work, health, security and peace. It will require global adherence to the United nations Charter and to the development of non-military security structures and peace-making institutions.
As a first step toward disarmament and demilitarisation, the Hague Appeal for Peace endorses the Women's Peace Petition, which calls for a 5% reduction a year for 5 years in military spending and the reallocation of these substantial resources toward human security programs and peace education.
The Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21^st Century - UN Ref: A/54/98 www.haguepeace.org

UNA Policy 2001

"We fear that, unless the principles of this Culture (of Peace) are increasingly built into every activity undertaken by governments and others, the world will risk the continuation of the appalling bloodshed and of the destruction which so dominated great periods of the 20^th century with its threat of termination of life throughout the world."
"Members' determination at the United Nations to pursue the unfinished global disarmament agenda remains sadly limited. The threatened development and/or spread of weapons of mass destruction remain ver real."
"Small arms remain available in the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa, in Angola and in many other countries and continue to fuel conflict, exacerbate human rights abuses, undermine development programmes and peace processes and defy the effects of our and other governments and of civil society to curb them. We believe that reductions in Military budgets remain the cornerstones to achieving the international development and environmental targets and greater human rights implementation"
"We remain deeply concerned at the UK's continuing reliance on the defence industry and at the periodic provision of arms to a number of unsavoury regimes, where they may be used against civilians or to abuse human rights or could undermine development, often with the Export Credit Guarantee Department's (ECGD) support."
"We call upon Her Majesty's Government vigorously to seek a Fourth Special Session of the UN General Assembly on Disarmament no later than 2003, which would seek to confirm a creative, holistic and comprehensive UN disarmament agenda and action plan for the first part of the 21^st century. We believe that such Special Sessions should be held on a regular basis in order to review progress and to set new targets."
"We urge Her Majesty's Government to campaign at the UN for structuring of effective regional security guarantees to help to reduce individual countries' felt need for arms."
"We believe that space should be kept free of weapons and of nuclear power and that the excessive expense it would involve would be better served by sharing more fairly the world's resources."
"... what must be engendered is far greater political will to bring those aspirations to fruition."
Policy 2001. United Nations Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (www.una-uk.org ). Policy Statement adopted at Annual Conference April 2001.

Charter of the Economic Rights and Duties of States

All states have the duty to promote the achievement of general and complete disarmament under effective international controland to utilise the resources released by effective disarmament measures for the economic and social development of countries, allocating a substantial portion of such resources as additional means for the development needs of developing countries.
Article 15 of of the Charter of the Economic Rights and Duties of States (UN Economic and Social Council Charter) stipulates :

Greenpeace at UN Summit 2005

Peace

Development cannot happen while so many resources are spent on weapons, in particular nuclear weapons. They are too expensive. They are too toxic, leaving a legacy of plutonium, radioactive waste, nuclear weapons testing sites, and radiation victims. They encourage other countries to acquire nuclear weapons, and in doing so create even more plutonium and enriched uranium. Nuclear weapons are suicidal, genocidal and ecocidal obstacles in the path to development; they can and should be dismantled in a phased programme. Nuclear weapons related issues are a major part of the cause and effect of conflicts in many parts of the world, at a minimum exacerbating situations or tipping the balance. In many cases removing nuclear weapons from the scenario would significantly decrease the rhetoric and risks of conflict.

The good news is that the largest security treaty in existence – the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) promises nuclear disarmament – and a precise 13-point plan toward this goal was also agreed at the NPT Review Conference in 2000.

For UN Reform to be successful Governments need to Get On With It:

If the Millennium Summit opportunity is utilized, it will also give the United Nations the credibility it needs to deliver on the many agreements forged through it. The UN has certainly not failed us in creating opportunities for governments to set standards and agreements – governments are simply not living up to their promises – the failure is in implementation.

The General Assembly passed its first resolution on nuclear disarmament. Almost 60 years after this call to eliminate atomic weapons it is time for the General Assembly First Committee on Disarmament and International Security to establish a body to Get On With Negotiating Nuclear Disarmament.

The Security Council has not ever completed its first task, as defined in Article 26 of the UN Charter. If the Security Council had done its job we would now have a plan for the least diversion of human and economic resources to armaments. Instead the Security Council permanent members have participated in arms races and arms profiteering. Whatever shape the Security Council becomes or stays, Greenpeace says Get On With Implementing Article 26, the most appropriate conflict prevention and development mechanism ever dreamed up.

Armaments Resolution at the 2006 UNA-UK Conference.

The resolution was proposed by ARC members and passed at the 2006 UNA-UK Conference in Durham 21-23 April 2006.

Resolution G - Armaments -
H. Evans, J. Addington, V. Mehta, C. Langdon, A.Williams, A. Moore

This UNA Conference demands that after a century of delay the British Government puts the reduction of arms and the ending of the pernicious system of arms sales at the top of its agenda.

visit http://www.una-uk.org/