Within the UN, it is clear that member states need to find new or re-tooled diplomatic vehicles to advance progress on the broad disarmament agenda.
By: Paul Meyer
Adjunct professor of international studies, Simon Fraser University.
Meyer is a board member of Canadian Pugwash Group.
This article was previously published in Open Canada (Canadian International Council)
On the eve of their “Summit of the Future” (September 22-23) in New York, leaders of UN member states adopted a comprehensive document entitled “The Pact for the Future”. This consensus outcome document painstakingly negotiated over several months represented an effort to impart a new momentum to the preeminent international organization. Covering 39 pages with 56 Action items (plus two annexes), the Pact addresses the major chapters of international relations: Sustainable Development, Science & Technology, Youth & Future Generations, Global Governance and of course International Peace & Security – the core business of the UN.
Against a backdrop of intensified nuclear sabre-rattling (especially by Russia since its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine) and the on-going dismantlement of the arms control architecture, there were hopes that the Pact would endorse a significant package of remedial action to prevent nuclear war and re-energize disarmament activity. What emerged in the final version of the Pact, despite some valuable input and strong language in earlier versions, was to say the least, underwhelming. This commentary will focus on the disarmament elements of the section on International Peace & Security and will discuss how it might have been strengthened and what action can still be taken to make progress on nuclear disarmament.Like all such multilateral documents the language of the Pact was subject to a protracted process of negotiation and modification (there were four revisions of the Pact’s original “zero draft” leading up to the final version). The results tend to be a mixture of lofty rhetoric and prosaic positions often reflecting the “lowest common denominator” pressures that strip away more ambitious or substantive language in favour of reiterating past bromides or contorting new commitments to an extent that will drain them of all practical utility.
Still the document does acknowledge that nuclear weapons pose “an existential threat to humanity” and affirms, in its Action 25, “We will advance the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons” (albeit vaguer wording than the “accelerate progress towards” phrase used in the penultimate version). This objective is broken down into five components of a general nature to be assumed by all states and which, while paying lip service to the final objective of general and complete disarmament, stipulates that “the immediate goal is elimination of the danger of nuclear war”. Earlier versions of the Pact, in contrast, directly pointed to action that should be undertaken by the nuclear weapon states: i) call upon nuclear weapon states to prevent any use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, ii) reverse the erosion of international norms against possession, spread, testing and use of such weapons, iii) accelerate the implementation of existing nuclear disarmament obligations and commitments and iv) a call for nuclear weapon states to engage in and intensify dialogue on strategic stability and to elaborate next steps for nuclear disarmament. Such specificity is abandoned in favour of repeating the 1985 Reagan-Gorbachev formula of “a nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought” (cliché might be a better term) along with a few pieties on avoiding an arms race and clearing the path towards lasting peace.
Although the G20 states were able to issue a statement in early September 2023 characterizing universally the threat or use of nuclear weapons as “inadmissible”, this clarity was absent from the Pact which substituted a convoluted sentence indicating that it was only in the context of existing nuclear weapon free zones that their members could benefit from assurances that they would not be threatened by nuclear weapons.
The Pact also agrees to “revitalize the role of the UN in the field of disarmament, including by recommending that the General Assembly pursue work that could support preparation of a fourth special session devoted to disarmament (SSOD IV)”. If this sounds weaselly worded to your ears you are not mistaken. By way of contrast consider how this issue regarding SSOD IV was treated in the penultimate fourth revision of the Pact: “including by recommending that the General Assembly start preparation of the fourth special session devoted to disarmament”. A crisp, clear direction was replaced by a watered-down text of diplomatic mush.
“Revitalize” is also a hardy perennial in UN disarmament discourse. Consider this phrase contained in the outcome of the first special session on disarmament (SSOD I) held in 1978: “[there is] an urgent need that existing disarmament machinery be revitalized”. Almost half a century later member states can in a display of embarrassing fecklessness offer up nothing more that repeating this hoary injunction.
If the UN was able to raise a million dollars for every occasion of “we reaffirm” or “we recommit” to existing obligations in this outcome document, it would be a long way towards resolving its financial woes. The International Peace & Security chapter begins with an acknowledged “concern about the increasing and diverse threats to International peace and security [including] growing risks of a nuclear war which could pose an existential threat to humanity”.
The chapter sets out no less than 14 Action items to address these varied threats including through an intensification of diplomacy. Two of these Action items address disarmament (item 25, previously mentioned, that notes “We will advance the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons” and item 26 “We will uphold our disarmament obligations and commitments”). Neither of these paragraphs contain the degree of practicality and purpose reflected in the Secretary General’s policy document the “New Agenda for Peace”. This document carefully compiled by the Secretary General in 2023 with its many substantive recommendations is only referenced in the Pact with the rather dismissive sentence: “We take note of the New Agenda for Peace”.
Starting with his “Securing our Future: An Agenda for Disarmament” released in 2018 and continuing with his “New Agenda for Peace” Secretary General António Guterres has persistently raised the alarm over the nuclear threat and the dangerous behaviour of nuclear-armed states. The very first action item set out in his” New Agenda for Peace” is the elimination of nuclear weapons. In comparison, the Pact only manages a faint-hearted desire to advance towards the goal of a world free from nuclear weapons devoid of any benchmarks or concrete commitments by those possessing these weapons of mass destruction.
Perhaps with the freedom that comes with being a Secretary General in a second and final term in office, Guterres has bravely lectured the Security Council on its failings to halt the escalating nuclear arms race and has set out a demanding menu for action. In his address to the Security Council delivered on March 18 of this year, Guterres stressed that geopolitical tensions and mistrust have “escalated the risk of nuclear weapons to its highest point in decades”. He stated that “The Doomsday Clock is ticking loudly enough for all to hear” and cited the calls of civil society to “end the nuclear madness” alongside Pope Francis’ determination that the mere possession of nuclear weapons is “immoral”.
In his speech, the Secretary General prescribed six practical steps for the nuclear armed states to take: i) resume dialogue, ii) stop nuclear sabre-rattling, iii) reaffirm moratoria on nuclear testing, iv) act upon their disarmament commitments, v) support a joint No First Use agreement and vi) agree reductions in the number of nuclear weapons.
This was the kind of clear and substantial prescription for meaningful action by states to keep the nuclear demons at bay. Instead, the Pact’s section on disarmament provides a reiteration of platitudes and vague affirmations that cannot be rendered more energetic by applying to them the title “Action item”.
The Secretary General has also been clear that the UN’s disarmament machinery is in urgent need of “review and reform”. He has endorsed the call for the fourth UN special session on disarmament to be actually convened, the last such sessions having been held in 1982 and 1988 (SSOD II and III respectively).
While SSOD IV would not be a panacea it would shine the spotlight on the challenges the UN faces in making progress on its goal of nuclear disarmament – a goal by the way mandated by the very first resolution ever adopted by the General Assembly back in 1946. The special session could be a catalyst for a long overdue modernization of the UN’s disarmament machinery in a manner that would prevent the aims of the vast majority of states being stymied by the opposition of a few. The de facto veto wielded by any one of the 65 member states of the Conference on Disarmament, ostensibly the UN’s sole negotiating forum for multilateral arms control and disarmament agreements, has ensured the dysfunctionality of that body, which has not produced a program of work, let alone negotiate anything for over a quarter of a century.
Any serious reform of the rusting disarmament machinery of the UN will have to come to terms with the perils of consensus decision making. While it remains the ideal should strict adherence to consensus procedures understood as unanimity enable the few to continually sabotage progress on agreements favoured by the many? When even the commencement of discussion on a subject of concern to the international community can be forestalled indefinitely are we really serving the interests of global security? Within the UN we need to find new or re-tooled diplomatic vehicles to advance progress on the broad disarmament agenda – humankind deserves no less.
CPG Board Member Paul Meyer was interviewed for a Canadian International Council podcast on “