Summary: Working Group on Peace and Disarmament

The challenges of disarmament

This panel presented the challenges to disarmament from a variety of perspectives and from different cultural contexts. The themes discussed include the role of civil society in promoting effective disarmament, the importance of grassroots movements in affecting political will, and the undermining of human security due to increased military expenditures. 

Dr. Patricia Lewis of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research presented her technical expertise in defining the various weapons that pose a threat to human security. These weapons include small arms and light, nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. She stressed the importance of the different levels of initiatives to reach disarmament: local, regional, and international. Dr. Lewis then emphasized the different existing conventions on arms-related issues (non-proliferation, reduction, disarmament, and arms control, etc). To conclude, she suggested that disarmament be framed as a humanitarian issue to ensure that civil society takes an active role in the process and requires transparency and accountability from politicians.

Ms. Mareso Anguina from the Kenya Campaign Against Landmines declared that grassroots-level organizations make powerful partners with international institutions in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. She remarked that civil society had to be encouraged to play a strong role with respect to this issue. She also noted that although the treaty was signed in 1997, there is still a lot of work to be done. For instance, civil society could also play a role in monitoring the implementation of the resolution. She urged civil society to be active in pressuring politicians to make the right decisions.

Mr. Pablo Celi of the Ecuadorian Foundation for International and Strategic Relations spoke about the negative impact of military expenditures vis-à-vis several areas including: economic, social, political, and defense. The world in general needs to re-define national defense in order to promote peace and security. More expenditure does not equal more security. In fact, in the above-mentioned areas, it has caused much chaos and instability. Mr. Celi underlined the need to find a common definition of conflict and to identify threats concretely (such as terrorism) so that vague pretexts cannot justify increased military spending.

Surprising issues
Civil society cannot always be held accountable for inaction. For example, one member of the working group pointed out that during the 1980s and 1990s, several prominent members of intellectual civil society in Afghanistan were assassinated. Therefore, global civil society needs to step in when a particular group has been silenced.

Interesting questions
One participant asked how the millennium goals could be incorporated into the Working Group. One of the panelists answered that while the purpose of this session was to look at the challenges to disarmament, the following sessions involving the Working Group on Peace and Disarmament would deal with proposals in which the millennium goals could be incorporated.

Conclusions
There are many challenges to disarmament. Increased military spending is causing increasing unrest instead of peace. Civil society, particularly at the grassroots level, needs to play a stronger role to effect the change that their political leaders have been unable, and often unwilling, to accomplish.

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