Disarmament Commission urged to complete declaration for disarmament decade

Written by Jacqueline Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation and Executive Advisor, Mayors for Peace

Two years into the fourth United Nations Disarmament Decade, 2010–2020, there is still no Declaration for the Decade. At the 2006 session of the UN General Assembly, a resolution entitled, “Declaration of a fourth disarmament decade,” introduced by Sierra Leone, was overwhelmingly adopted by a vote of 123 to one, with 52 abstentions. Only the United States voted no. The resolution recognized “the role that a fourth disarmament decade could play in the mobilization of… global efforts to meet current and emerging challenges in the area of arms control, disarmament, non-proliferation and international security,” and directed the Disarmament Commission at its 2009 session to prepare elements of a draft “Declaration of the 2010s as the Fourth Disarmament Decade” for consideration by the General Assembly later that year.

Following the new US President Barak Obama’s Prague speech, hope was in the air when the Disarmament Commission met in 2009 and the US did not block adoption of its agenda.

Mayors for Peace sent an Open Letter from Capital Cities to the UN Disarmament Commission, signed by the mayors of Amsterdam, Budapest, Berlin, Dar es Salaam, Freetown, Kathmandu, La Paz, London, Luxembourg, Montevideo, Rome, Roseau, and Sarajevo. In their letter, the mayors declared: “In terms of progress on disarmament, the first decade of the new millennium has been a serious disappointment; the world must resolve to do much better in the coming decade. We, therefore, take heart from the United Nation’s plans for an International Decade for Disarmament.”

The mayors requested that, “as you prepare the elements of the Declaration of the Decade… you include the role cities can play in promoting disarmament…. it is our sincere hope that the engagement of local authorities will contribute to the success of this new Decade.”

However, even in the new environment the UNDC was unable to make progress on a Declaration, and the item was carried over to its 2010 session, where agreement could not be reached on a very long draft declaration infested with brackets. It would appear that, frustrated by the lack of progress in other fora, the non-nuclear weapon states attempted to use the drafting process for the Declaration as a substitute mechanism for extracting substantive timebound disarmament commitments from the nuclear weapon states. And, true to form, the nuclear weapon states are not biting.

The 2011 session of the Disarmament Commission—the final session in this three-year cycle—will be the make-or-break point for the fourth United Nations Decade for Disarmament. In the wake of what is widely considered to be a successful 2010 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, and under the leadership of a skilled and determined new President, Ambassador Hamid Al Bayati of Iraq, the onus is on the UNDC participants to fulfil in good faith the mandate of the 2006 General Assembly. As the Mayors’ 2009 letter urgently concluded: “[P]lease, take up the task assigned to you by the UN General Assembly in a spirit of unity and with determination to set the world on course for a productive International Decade for Disarmament.”

Mayors worldwide are campaigning for the global elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020. What more fitting climax could there be to the fourth Decade for Disarmament?