Orang rasional dan manusiawi berusaha, betapapun tersendat-sendatnya, untuk
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--
A dysfunctional disarmament
The UN process of nuclear disarmament remains stalled, prompting plans to
reorganise the voting system of member states.
Ban Ki-moon Last Modified: 20 May 2011 10:30
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Despite its efforts, progress by the UN on nuclear disarmament has stalled for
more than a decade [GALLO/GETTY]
As the United Nations Conference on Disarmament begins a seven-week session in
Geneva, its future is on the line. Whereas countries and civil-society
initiatives are on the move, the Conference has stagnated. Its credibility -
indeed, its very legitimacy - is at risk.
The "CD", as it is informally known, has long served as the world's only
multilateral forum for negotiating disarmament. Its many impressive
accomplishments include the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions, the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.
Much of this progress was achieved during the Cold War, proving that it is
possible to create global legal norms even in times of deep political division.
Yet today, all is not well at the CD. It operates under a consensus rule, and
its member states have different priorities. Some want negotiations on nuclear
disarmament; others want to ban the production of fissile material for weapon
purposes; and still others insist that such a treaty should also cover existing
stocks.
Some want a treaty on security guarantees for non-nuclear-weapon states to
assure them against the threat or use of nuclear weapons; others want a treaty
to prevent an arms race in outer space.
But, instead of compromise and the give-and-take of good-faith discussions,
there has been paralysis. There was a brief glimmer of hope in 2009, when the
sense of paralysis led the Conference to consensus on a program of work.
Unfortunately, that agenda was never implemented.
As a result, the CD has failed to make any substantive progress for 15 years.
We simply must not let one lost decade turn into a second.
A 'critical juncture'
The CD's future is in the hands of its member states. But the disarmament and
non-proliferation agenda is too important to let the CD lapse into irrelevancy
as states consider other negotiating arenas. Last September, I convened a
high-level meeting at the UN to consider ways to revitalise the CD's work and
to advance multilateral disarmament negotiations.
The participants - who included dozens of foreign ministers - were unanimous in
stressing that membership of the CD is a privilege. So is the consensus rule.
Just one or two countries should not be able to block the organisation's work
indefinitely.
The message was clear: no more business as usual. The CD's member states must
recognise that the Conference's future is at a critical juncture. Continued
stalemate increases the risk that some like-minded countries might take up the
matter elsewhere.
After all, the deadlock has ominous implications for international security;
the longer it persists, the graver the nuclear threat - from existing arsenals,
from the proliferation of such weapons, and from their possible acquisition by
terrorists.
I have urged the CD to adopt an agenda based either on the consensus that was
forged in 2009, or on an alternative arrangement. Upon my request, the UN's
entire membership will take up the matter in a first-of-its-kind General
Assembly meeting this July.
That schedule makes the CD's current session crucial to its future.
Reaffirming the CD's agenda offers the prospect of renewed negotiations on
disarmament issues. Prior agreement on the scope or outcome should not be a
precondition for talks - or an excuse to avoid them - but rather a subject of
the negotiations themselves.
The current stalemate is all the more troubling in view of recent momentum on
other disarmament tracks, including last year's successful NPT Review
Conference and heightened attention to nuclear security. With the world focused
so intently on advancing disarmament goals, the CD should seize the moment.
Shakespeare once wrote that "there is a tide in the affairs of men". The tide
of disarmament is rising, yet the CD is in danger of sinking. And it will sink
unless it fulfills its responsibility to act.
Ban Ki-moon is Secretary-General of the United Nations.
A version of this article appeared previously on the Project Syndicate website.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily
reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Source:
Al Jazeera
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