Arms control and disarmament

The UN’s founders hoped that the maintenance of international peace and security would lead to the control and eventual reduction of weapons. Therefore the Charter empowers the General Assembly to consider principles for arms control and disarmament and to make recommendations to member states and the Security Council. The Charter also gives the Security Council the responsibility to formulate plans for arms control and disarmament. Although the goal of arms control and disarmament has proved elusive, the UN has facilitated the negotiation of several multilateral arms control treaties.

Because of the enormous destructive power realized with the development and use of the atomic bomb during World War II, the General Assembly in 1946 created the Atomic Energy Commission to assist in the urgent consideration of the control of atomic energy and in the reduction of atomic weapons. The United States promoted the Baruch Plan, which proposed the elimination of existing stockpiles of atomic bombs only after a system of international control was established and prohibited veto power in the Security Council on the commission’s decisions. The Soviet Union, proposing the Gromyko Plan, wanted to ensure the destruction of stockpiles before agreeing to an international supervisory scheme and wanted to retain Security Council veto power over the commission. The conflicting positions of the two superpowers prevented agreement on the international control of atomic weapons and energy.

In 1947 the Security Council organized the Commission for Conventional Armaments to deal with armaments other than weapons of mass destruction, but progress on this issue also was blocked by disagreement between the Soviet Union and the Western powers. As a result, in 1952 the General Assembly voted to replace both of these commissions with a new Disarmament Commission. Consisting of the members of the Security Council and Canada, this commission was directed to prepare proposals that would regulate, limit, and balance reduction of all armed forces and armaments; eliminate all weapons of mass destruction; and ensure international control and use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes only. After five years of vigorous effort and little progress, in 1957 the International Atomic Energy Agency was established to promote the peaceful uses of atomic energy.

In 1961 the General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring the use of nuclear or thermonuclear weapons to be contrary to international law, to the UN Charter, and to the laws of humanity. Two years later, on August 5, 1963, the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty was signed by the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The treaty—to which more than 150 states later adhered—prohibited nuclear tests or explosions in the atmosphere, in outer space, and underwater. In 1966 the General Assembly unanimously approved a treaty prohibiting the placement of weapons of mass destruction in orbit, on the Moon, or on other celestial bodies and recognizing the use of outer space exclusively for peaceful purposes.

In June 1968 the Assembly approved the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which banned the spread of nuclear weapons from nuclear to nonnuclear powers; enjoined signatory nonnuclear powers, in exchange for technical assistance in developing nuclear power for “peaceful purposes,” not to develop or deploy nuclear weapons; and committed the nuclear powers to engage in measures of disarmament. The treaty represented a significant commitment on the part of more than 140 (now 185) signatory powers to control nuclear weapons proliferation; nevertheless, for many years the treaty, which went into effect in 1970, was not ratified by significant nuclear powers (including China and France) and many “near-nuclear” states (including Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Israel, Pakistan, and South Africa). Some of these states signed the treaty in the early 1990s: South Africa signed in 1991, followed by France and China in 1992.

The UN has been active in attempting to eliminate other weapons of mass destruction of a variety of types and in a variety of contexts. In 1970 the General Assembly approved a treaty banning the placement of weapons of mass destruction on the seabed. A convention prohibiting the manufacture, stockpiling, and use of biological weapons was approved by the Assembly in 1971 and took effect in 1975, though many states have never acceded to it. In 1991 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution on the registration of conventional arms that required states to submit information on major international arms transfers. During the first several years of the registry, fewer than half of the UN’s members submitted the required information; by 2000 about three-fifths of governments filed annual reports. In 1993 the Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibited the development, production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons and called for the destruction of existing stockpiles within 10 years, was opened for signature. In 1996 the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which prohibited the testing of nuclear weapons, was signed—though it has not yet entered into force—and two years later a treaty banning the production and export of antipersonnel land mines (Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction) was concluded. Despite international pressure, the United States refused to sign both the test ban and the land mine agreements.

Many negotiations on disarmament have been held in Geneva. Negotiations have been conducted by the Ten-Nation Committee on Disarmament (1960); the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament (1962–68); the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament (1969–78); and the Disarmament Commission (1979– ), which now has more than 65 countries as members. Three special sessions of the General Assembly have been organized on disarmament, and, though the General Assembly sessions have produced little in the way of substantive agreements, they have served to focus public attention on the issue. In other forums, significant progress has been made on limiting specific types of armaments, such as bacteriologic, chemical, nuclear, and toxic weapons.