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Unit 18The United Nations Disarmament MachineryChapter 5: Accomplishments and Shortcomings
All chapters
  1. 0. A Message from the Author
  2. 1. Introduction
  3. 2. Constructing the Disarmament Machinery
  4. 3. Central Components
  5. 4. Supporting Bodies
  6. 5. Accomplishments and Shortcomings
  7. 6. The Disarmament Machinery and the European Union
  8. 7. Quiz
  9. 8. Summary and Further Reading
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Chapter 5

Accomplishments and Shortcomings

The UN Disarmament Machinery has an played important role in disarmament efforts since 1945. Still, experts have criticised some of its working methods, constituent organs, and proposed reforms.

Accomplishments

The UN Disarmament Machinery plays an important role in the negotiation and adoption of major multilateral arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament treaties.

Treaties

TreatyEffectiveUN Involvement
1970Negotiated by Eighteen-Nations Committee on Disarmament, a precursor to the CD
1975Negotiated by the CD
1983?
1997Negotiated by the CD, administered by OPCW 1
1999?
2014Preparatory committee estabslied by UNGA, adopted by UNGA
2021Working group established by GA, negotiations led by C1
n/aRecognised by the GA
n/aExplored by a CD ad-hoc commission
n/aAdministered by CTBTO

Civil society

Civil society plays a fundamental role in the advancement of disarmament goals and in assisting the United Nations Disarmament Machinery achieve its major accomplishments in the field.

Campaigners dressed as nuclear bombs express confidence that a treaty banning nuclear weapons is on its way. This was part of an action held during the UN open-ended working group on nuclear disarmament in May 2016.

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons / Tim Wright, CC BY 2.0.
  • marches
  • studies and publications
  • conferences
  • side events at international conferences

… are only some of the ways in which civil society is able to generate incredible impact often resulting in the adoption of well-informed national policies and ground-breaking international treaties.

Criticism and Proposed Changes

The Disarmament Machinery has been the subject of considerable criticism, mainly due to the inability of its bodies to produce substantive results in recent years.

[…] The intransigence of many state positions has frustrated all previous attempts to increase the effectiveness of UN disarmament institutions. In fact, voting patterns at the First Committee clearly demonstrate the permanence of deep divisions on many disarmament issues, and for most of the past decade the Disarmament Commission has not even been able to agree on session agendas. Even when consensus on agenda items exists, conference reports to the General Assembly simply record the disagreement on the disarmament issues under discussion, which does nothing to promote conceptual progress and agreement on substance.

This beleaguered situation compounds frustration over the persistent lack of substantive negotiations at the Conference on Disarmament.

Sergio Duarte 2013: How to Revitalize Disarmament Efforts, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Read full document

In particular, scholars have directed criticism and reform proposals at the machinery’s central components:

First Committee

CritiqueProposals
Many resolutions reiterate known ideas without proposing concrete actions and don’t produce behavioural change.Attach concrete actions with specific timelines and deadlines to resolutions, limit the number of resolutions
The committee deals with a sprawling agenda, diverting focus from critical needs of the international community.Limit speaking time in general debate, make resolutions legally binding if approved by consensus or three quarters of states.1

Conference on Disarmament

CritiqueProposals
The consensus rule allows progress to be easily blocked, leading to a stalemate.Reconsider the consensus rule, at least for the adoption of the agenda
Political and regional groupings still reflect Cold War era divisions (i.e. some NATO countries are still in the Eastern Group).Reconsider the composition of regional and political groups, consider enlargement of overall membership.2

UN Disarmament Commission

  • Its work has been affected by a lack of political will to deal with certain issues at the multilateral level.
  • Its reports to the UNGA often focus on the disagreements on disarmament issues rather than on ways to produce conceptual and substantive progress.3

UN Security Council

Sanctions imposed by Security Council resolutions aren’t always effective in curbing nuclear weapons programmes and ambitions, particularly in the case of North Korea.4

Within the Machinery

  • encourage dialogue among main bodies
  • convene a SSOD-IV to put a stronger emphasis on nuclear disarmament, reaffirming the SSOD-I’s mandate

Footnotes

  1. I’m a footnote inside a table. ↩ ↩2

  2. How to Revitalize Disarmament Efforts (2013), https://carnegieendowment.org/2013/01/09/how-to-revitalize-disarmament-efforts-pub-50394 ↩

  3. Morales Pedraza, J. (2015). The Reform of the United Nations Disarmament Machinery. Public Organization Review, 16(3), 319–334. ↩

  4. Lewis, Patricia; Thakur, Ramesh Chandra, Maîtrise des armements, le désarmement et les Nations Unies (2004), https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/517020?ln=en ↩

The EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament eLearning Course aims to cover all aspects of the EU non-proliferation and disarmament agenda. It's produced by PRIF with financial assistance of the European Union. The contents of individual learning units are the sole responsibility of the respective authors and don't necessariy reflect the position of the European Union.