. .DISARMAMENT & SECURITY. .

An article by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies in Common Dreams ( reprinted according to Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

As it did last year, the 2023 United Nations General Assembly has been debating what role the United Nations and its members should play in the crisis in Ukraine. The United States and its allies still insist that the UN Charter  requires countries to take Ukraine’s side in the conflict, “for as long as it takes” to restore Ukraine’s pre-2014 internationally recognized borders.

They claim to be enforcing Article 2:4 of the UN Charter that states “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

By their reasoning, Russia violated Article 2:4 by invading Ukraine, and that makes any compromise or negotiated settlement unconscionable, regardless of the consequences of prolonging the war.

Other countries have called for a peaceful diplomatic resolution of the conflict in Ukraine, based on the preceding article of the UN Charter, Article 2:3: “All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.”

They also refer to the purposes of the UN, defined in Article 1:1, which include the “settlement of international disputes” by “peaceful means,” and they point to the dangers of escalation and nuclear war as an imperative for diplomacy to quickly end this war.

As the Amir of Qatar  told the Assembly, “A long-term truce has become the most looked-for aspiration by people in Europe and all over the world. We call on all parties to comply with the UN Charter and international law and resort to a radical peaceful solution based on these principles.”

This year, the General Assembly has also been focused on other facets of a world in crisis: the failure to tackle the climate catastrophe; the lack of progress on the Sustainable Development Goals  that countries agreed to in 2000; a neocolonial economic system that still divides the world into rich and poor; and the desperate need for structural reform of a UN Security Council that has failed in its basic responsibility to keep the peace and prevent war.

One speaker after another highlighted the persistent problems related to U.S. and Western abuses of power: the occupation of Palestine; cruel, illegal U.S. sanctions against Cuba and many other countries; Western exploitation of Africa that has evolved from slavery to debt servitude and neocolonialism; and a global financial system that exacerbates extreme inequalities of wealth and power across the world.

Brazil, by tradition, gives the first speech at the General Assembly, and President Lula da Silva  spoke eloquently about the crises facing the UN and the world. On Ukraine, he said,

The war in Ukraine exposes our collective inability to enforce the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. We do not underestimate the difficulties in achieving peace. But no solution will be lasting if it is not based on dialogue. I have reiterated that work needs to be done to create space for negotiations… The UN was born to be the home of understanding and dialogue. The international community must choose. On one hand, there is the expansion of conflicts, the furthering of inequalities and the erosion of the rule of law. On the other, the renewing of multilateral institutions dedicated to promoting peace.

After a bumbling, incoherent speech by President Biden, Latin America again took the stage in the person of  President Gustavo Petro of Colombia:

While the minutes that define life or death on our planet are ticking on, rather than halting this march of time and talking about how to defend life for the future, thanks to deepening knowledge, expand it to the universe, we decided to waste time killing each other. We are not thinking about how to expand life to the stars, but rather how to end life on our own planet. We have devoted ourselves to war. We have been called to war. Latin America has been called upon to produce war machines, men, to go to the killing fields.

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Can the culture of peace be established at the level of the state?

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They’re forgetting that our countries have been invaded several times by the very same people who are now talking about combatting invasions. They’re forgetting that they invaded Iraq, Syria and Libya for oil. They’re forgetting that the same reasons they use to defend Zelenskyy are the very reasons that should be used to defend Palestine. They forget that to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, we must end all wars.

…I propose that the United Nations, as soon as possible, should hold two peace conferences, one on Ukraine, the other on Palestine, not because there are no other wars in the world—there are in my country—but because this would guide the way to making peace in all regions of the planet, because both of these, by themselves, could bring an end to hypocrisy as a political practice, because we could be sincere, a virtue without which we cannot be warriors for life itself.

Petro was not the only leader who upheld the value of sincerity and assailed the hypocrisy of Western diplomacy. Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves  of St. Vincent and the Grenadines cut to the chase:

Let us clear certain ideational cobwebs from our brains. It is, for example, wholly unhelpful to frame the central contradictions of our troubled times as revolving around a struggle between democracies and autocracies. St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a strong liberal democracy, rejects this wrong-headed thesis. It is evident to all right-thinking persons, devoid of self-serving hypocrisy, that the struggle today between the dominant powers is centered upon the control, ownership, and distribution of the world’s resources.

On the war in Ukraine, Gonsalves was equally blunt. “…War and conflict rage senselessly across the globe; in at least one case, Ukraine, the principal adversaries — the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and Russia — may unwittingly open the gates to a nuclear Armageddon… Russia, NATO, and Ukraine should embrace peace, not war and conflict, even if peace has to rest upon a mutually agreed, settled condition of dissatisfaction.”

The Western position on Ukraine was also on full display. However, at least three NATO members (Bulgaria, Hungary and Spain) coupled their denunciations of Russian aggression with pleas for peace. Katalin Novak, the President of Hungary, said,

…We want peace, in our country, in Ukraine, in Europe, in the world. Peace and the security that comes with it. There is no alternative to peace. The killing, the terrible destruction, must stop as soon as possible. War is never the solution. We know that peace is only realistically attainable when at least one side sees the time for negotiations as having come. We cannot decide for Ukrainians about how much they are prepared to sacrifice, but we have a duty to represent our own nation’s desire for peace. And we must do all we can to avoid an escalation of the war.

Even with wars, drought, debt and poverty afflicting their own continent, at least 17 African leaders took time during their General Assembly speeches to call for peace in Ukraine. Some voiced their support for the African Peace Initiative, while others contrasted the West’s commitments and expenditures for the war in Ukraine with its endemic neglect of Africa’s problems. President Joao Lourenço  of Angola clearly explained why, as Africa rises up to reject neocolonialism and build its own future, peace in Ukraine remains a vital interest for Africa and people everywhere:

In Europe, the war between Russia and Ukraine deserves our full attention to the urgent need to put an immediate end to it, given the levels of human and material destruction there, the risk of an escalation into a major conflict on a global scale and the impact of its harmful effects on energy and food security. All the evidence tells us that it is unlikely that there will be winners and losers on the battlefield, which is why the parties involved should be encouraged to prioritize dialogue and diplomacy as soon as possible, to establish a ceasefire and to negotiate a lasting peace not only for the warring countries, but which will guarantee Europe’s security and contribute to world peace and security.

Altogether, leaders from at least 50 countries spoke up for peace in Ukraine at the 2023 UN General Assembly. In his closing statement, Dennis Francis, the Trinidadian president of this year’s UN General Assembly, noted,

Of the topics raised during the High-Level Week, few were as frequent, consistent, or as charged as that of the Ukraine War. The international community is clear that political independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity must be respected, and violence must end.

You can find all 50 statements at this link on the: CODEPINK website

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from The United Nations

As United Nations-led talks on nuclear disarmament continued in Geneva, New York and Vienna, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Sunday that “the drums of nuclear war are beating once again”. 

In a message to mark the 78^th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Mr. Guterres urged the international community to learn from the “nuclear cataclysm” that befell the Japanese city on 6 August 1945.

Secretary-General Guterres

The drums of nuclear war are beating once again; mistrust and division are on the rise,” the UN chief said in a statement to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, delivered by UN’s High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu. “The nuclear shadow that loomed over the Cold War has re-emerged. And some countries are recklessly rattling the nuclear sabre once again, threatening to use these tools of annihilation.”

UN chief’s peace agenda

Pending the total elimination of all nuclear weapons, Mr. Guterres appealed to the international community to speak as one, as outlined in his New Agenda for Peace. Launched in July this year, the Agenda calls on Member States to urgently recommit to pursuing a world free of nuclear weapons and to reinforce the global norms against their use and proliferation.

“States possessing nuclear weapons must commit to never use them,” he insisted, as he stressed the UN’s commitment to continue working to strengthen global rules on disarmament and non-proliferation, notably the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

NPT talks are taking place at the UN in the Austrian capital until 11 August, where Ms. Nakamitsu reiterated her warning to the forum that not “since the depths of the Cold War” has the risk of a nuclear weapon being used so high – just as the rules-based order intended to prevent their use has never been “so fragile”.

“This is, to a large extent, because of the volatile times in which we live,” Ms. Nakamitsu continued, pointing to the “existential” threat facing the world today, which is the result of “the highest level of geopolitical competition, rising tensions and deepening divisions among major powers in decades”.

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Trillion dollar question

Coupled with rising global tensions is a record level of world military expenditure which reportedly reached a $2,240 billion in 2022.

This situation has led to an increased emphasis on nuclear weapons, “through modernization programmes, expanded doctrines, allegations of growing stockpiles and most alarmingly…threats to use them”, explained the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.

“The fact that in the last 12 months nuclear weapons have openly been used as tools of coercion should worry us all,” she added.

The 1968 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) is one of the only international agreements signed by both nuclear and non-nuclear states, aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and furthering the goal of nuclear disarmament.

After entering into force in 1970, 191 states have since become party to the treaty – the most signatories of any arms limitation agreement.

Bold goals

The treaty centres on the idea that non-nuclear States agree to never acquire weapons and nuclear-weapons states in exchange agree to share the benefits of the technology, whilst pursuing efforts towards disarmament and elimination of nuclear arsenals.

In addition to the Vienna talks now under way and which come ahead of the NPT’s five-yearly review in 2026, countries have also exchanged on disarmament and non-proliferation issues at the UN’s Conference on Disarmament in Geneva in the past week.

In recent days – and despite ongoing concerns that the Conference remains deadlocked by geopolitical developments – the forum’s 65 Member States heard briefings from the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) and the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the battlefield.

The aim of such discussions is to establish a mechanism that allows for regular multilateral dialogue and the inclusion of the views of countries that are not actively involved in the development of artificial intelligence, to ensure the responsible development and deployment of AI in the military domain.

The Conference on Disarmament – which was established in 1979 – is not formally a UN body but reports annually, or more frequently as appropriate, to the UN General Assembly.Its remit reflects the Organization’s conviction that disarmament and non-proliferation remain indispensable tools to create a security environment that is favourable to human development, as enshrined in the UN Charter.

In addition to convening the Conference on Disarmament, Member States gather in Geneva to discuss a range of multilateral disarmament agreements and conferences including the Anti-Personnel Landmine Convention (APLC), the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), The Convention on Cluster Munitions, The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), as well as NPT review panels.

DISARMAMENT AND SECURITY .

Data from UN document of A/77/L.74 and Meeting coverage of 79th Meeting of GA 77th Session

The UN General Assembly adopted without a vote this year’s resolution for the culture of peace, presented as usual by the delegation of Bangladesh.

The resolution was sponsored by the following countries: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Canada, China, Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Germany, Honduras, Hungary, India, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kiribati, Mauritania, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Qatar, Russian Federation, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, United Republic of Tanzania, Vanuatu and Venezuela.

Photo from BNN

Following 40 preambular paragraphs which among other things recognized “the importance of the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace, adopted by the General Assembly on 13 September 1999,” the resolution included the following 21 operative paragraphs:

1. Reiterates that the objective of the effective implementation of the Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace is to strengthen further the global movement for a culture of peace, and calls upon all concerned to renew their attention to this objective;

2. Invites Member States to continue to place greater emphasis on and expand their activities promoting a culture of peace at the national, regional and international levels and to ensure that peace and non-violence are fostered at all levels;

3. Invites the entities of the United Nations system, within their existing mandates, to integrate, as appropriate, the eight action areas of the Programme of Action into their programmes of activities, focusing on promoting a culture of peace and non-violence at the national, regional and international levels;

4. Commends the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for strengthening efforts to mobilize all relevant stakeholders within and outside the United Nations system in support of a culture of peace, and invites the Organization to continue to enhance communication and outreach, including through the culture of peace website;

5. Commends the practical initiatives and actions by relevant United Nations bodies, including the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) and the University for Peace, as well as their activities in further promoting a culture of peace and non-violence, in particular the promotion of peace education and activities related to specific areas identified in the Programme of Action, and encourages them to continue and further strengthen and expand their efforts;

6. Stresses the importance of addressing the underlying drivers of violence and conflict to promote a culture of peace;

7. Encourages Member States, United Nations entities and other relevant actors to adopt a holistic approach to the cross-cutting dimensions of peace, development, humanitarian action and human rights in order to prevent the recurrence of conflict and build lasting peace;

8. Underlines that early childhood development contributes to the development of more peaceful societies through advancing equality, tolerance, human development and promoting human rights, and calls for investment in early childhood education, including through effective policies and practices, towards promoting a culture of peace;

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(Click here for a version of this article in Spanish or click here for a version in French)

What is the United Nations doing for a culture of peace?

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9. Encourages Member States, United Nations entities, regional and subregional organizations and relevant actors to consider instituting mechanisms to involve youth in the promotion of a culture of peace, tolerance and intercultural and interreligious dialogue and develop, as appropriate, an understanding of respect for human dignity, pluralism and diversity, including, as appropriate, through education programmes, that could discourage their participation in acts of terrorism, violent extremism as and when conducive to terrorism, violence, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination;

10. Encourages the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations to increase its activities that focus on peace education and global citizenship education in order to enhance an understanding among young people of values such as peace, tolerance, openness, inclusion and mutual respect, which are essential in developing a culture of peace;

11. Encourages the United Nations peacebuilding architecture to continue to promote peacebuilding and sustaining peace activities, as outlined in its resolutions 72/276 and 75/201, and to advance a culture of peace and non-violence in postconflict peacebuilding efforts at the country level, and recognizes the important role of the Peacebuilding Commission in this regard;

12. Emphasizes the critical importance of an inclusive, resilient and sustainable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and in this regard calls upon States to promote the values of a culture of peace, inter alia, in countering rising inequalities, discrimination, exclusion, hate crimes and violence;

13. Urges the appropriate authorities to provide age-appropriate education in children’s schools that builds a culture of peace and non-violence, including lessons in mutual understanding, respect, tolerance, active and global citizenship and human rights;

14. Encourages the involvement of media, especially the mass media, in promoting a culture of peace and non-violence, with particular regard to children and young people;

15. Commends civil society, non-governmental organizations and young people for their activities in further promoting a culture of peace and non-violence, including through their campaign to raise awareness on a culture of peace and the peaceful settlement of disputes;

16. Encourages civil society and non-governmental organizations to further strengthen their efforts to promote a culture of peace, inter alia, by adopting their own programme of activities to complement the initiatives of Member States, the United Nations system and other international and regional organizations, in line with the Declaration and Programme of Action;

17. Invites Member States, all entities of the United Nations system and civil society organizations to accord increasing attention to their observance of the International Day of Peace on 21 September each year as a day of global ceasefire and non-violence, in accordance with its resolution 55/282 of 7 September 2001, and of the International Day of Non-Violence on 2 October, in accordance with its resolution 61/271 of 15 June 2007;

18. Requests the President of the General Assembly to consider convening a high-level forum, as appropriate and within existing resources, devoted to the implementation of the Programme of Action on the occasion of the anniversary of its adoption, on or around 13 September, and requests the Secretariat to provide required logistical support for its effective organization within their respective mandates and existing resources;

19. Invites the Secretary-General, within existing resources, in consultation with the Member States and taking into account the observations of civil society organizations, to explore mechanisms and strategies, in particular strategies in the sphere of information and communications technology, for the implementation of the Declaration and Programme of Action and to initiate outreach efforts to increase global awareness of the Programme of Action and its eight areas of action aimed at their implementation, including through public information activities by the Department of Global Communications of the Secretariat;

20. Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its seventy-ninth session a report, within existing resources, on actions taken by Member States, on the basis of information provided by them, and those taken system-wide by all concerned entities of the United Nations to implement the present resolution;

21. Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its seventy-eighth session the item entitled “Culture of peace”.

Following the presentation by Bangladesh, the resolution was welcomed by Brunei Darussalam, speaking for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), by Venezuela, speaking on behalf of the Group of Friends in Defence of the Charter of the United Nations, by Barbados, speaking on behalf of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). Other speakers were from Syria, Malaysia, Morocco, United Arab Emirates, Equatorial Guinea and Iran, and an exchange of criticisms between Armenia and Azerbaijan.