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INT 312 Introduction To Peace and Conflict Studies Disarmament and Survival Asst. Prof. Dr. Efser Rana Coşkun Türkmen

The document discusses arms control and disarmament, noting that while arms control aims to promote stability and reduce war, disarmament calls for enforceable restrictions and a transparency in reducing armaments globally. It reviews some successes in banning specific weapons like chemical weapons but also challenges, and examines the role of the UN in establishing priorities and negotiating treaties around issues like nuclear nonproliferation and reducing weapons of mass destruction.

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40 views

INT 312 Introduction To Peace and Conflict Studies Disarmament and Survival Asst. Prof. Dr. Efser Rana Coşkun Türkmen

The document discusses arms control and disarmament, noting that while arms control aims to promote stability and reduce war, disarmament calls for enforceable restrictions and a transparency in reducing armaments globally. It reviews some successes in banning specific weapons like chemical weapons but also challenges, and examines the role of the UN in establishing priorities and negotiating treaties around issues like nuclear nonproliferation and reducing weapons of mass destruction.

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inahnip inanhnip
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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INT 312 Introduction to Peace and

Conflict Studies

Disarmament and Survival

Asst. Prof. Dr. Efser Rana Coşkun Türkmen


Production levels of military weapons
have reached record levels in the past
five years, with worldwide sales and
transfer agreements totaling 37
billion dollars in 2004.
Introduction Though patterns in arms transfers
have shifted since the Cold War era,
weapon sales and distribution remain
concentrated on developing nations
(Shanker 2005).
Controlling and limiting weapons

• The word disarmament is sometimes used interchangeably with arms control.


• Actually the two terms represent somewhat different concepts.
• Agreements among nation states to limit or even to reduce particular weapons occur in a
pragmatic context. This context does not address directly the somewhat anarchic
international environment in which autonomous nation states are assumed to compete
for interests as defined by their governments.
• Military is seen in this context as a tool to expand such interests and as a way of
protecting against the aggression by other states.
Arms control does not aim to eliminate the The objectives of arms control are better
competitive assumptions that drive nation viewed as efforts to promote international
states, or even to eliminate violent conflict. stability and to reduce the likelihood of war.

Arms
control Major states give consideration to arms
control as part of their security policy. The
US Congress, for example, established the
Other objectives are to reduce the costs of
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
weaponry and the damage that follows
(ACDA) in 1961 to provide a bureaucratic
once violent conflict occurs.
institution for dealing with arms control
issues (Institute for Defense and
Disarmament Studies 2005).
The pursuit of disarmament
• It prescribes a world in which enforceable restrictions on the massing of armaments, and
armed forces, are in place with a universal transparency and openness for early
detection of violations.
• Disarmament calls for the support of institutions like the International Court of Justice
that might be called upon to make binding judgements in disputes and for police
functions available to monitor outbreaks of violence.
• In the present climate, most countries are unlikely to disarm voluntarily. In fact their
leaders would consider such actions as suicidal as long as other nations did not also
renounce war and armaments.
Bans upon particular weapons

Efforts to ban particular types of weapons have had some measure of success. The
horrible consequences of poison gas used in the First World War led to the acceptance of
the Geneva Protocol in June 1925. Eventually 132 nations signed the Protocol.

The Protocol bans the use of chemical and bacteriological weapons (UNIDC 2005). In
January 1989, a conference was held in Paris to strengthen the Protocol.

The United Nations had created a forum for discussion of disarmament-related issues.
One product of its deliberations has been the Chemical Weapon Convention: 130
countries signed the original agreement in 1993 (OPCW 2005).
Bans upon particular weapons
In August 1992, the International Conference on Disarmament’s Ad Hoc Committee on Chemical
Weapons completed an effort begun in March 1980 to draft a ban on chemical weapons (CW). It was
submitted to the UN General Assembly and recommended the text of the Chemical Weapon Convention
(CWC); 130 states signed the convention at a ceremony in January 1993.

The time spent on this indicated the concern of the member states. The committee had worked on the
draft since 1980 and the CWC finally went into force in April 1997.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the treaty’s implementing
organization, came into operation one month later.
• Under the treaty, each signatory nation agrees
never ‘to develop, produce, otherwise acquire,
stockpile or retain chemical weapons’. It agrees, as
well, not to use or prepare to use CW and not to
assist others in acting against any of the prohibitions
of the convention.
Bans upon • The convention also requires states to destroy any
CW in their possession, to destroy any of their own
particular CW abandoned on the territory of another state,
weapons and to dismantle their CW production facilities
(UNIDC 2005).
• One problem in restricting the use of chemical
weapons is that the range of products produced is
quite wide and most of the research and production
activity is done secretly (Barnaby 1999).
The impact of nuclear weapons
• The leaders of the superpowers gave
considerable attention to arms control
during the period of the Cold War.

The impact • A relaxation of tensions in superpower


relations, or détente was widely viewed to
of nuclear coincide with arms control agreements, such
as the conclusion of the first round of SALT
weapons (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) in 1972,
the INF (intermediate nuclear forces)
agreement in 1987 and START (Strategic
Arms Reduction Talks) in 1991.
• In the aftermath of the Cold War, attempts to limit the
geographical spread of nuclear weapons and ballistic
missiles, and to eliminate the use of chemical and
biological agents as weapons of mass destruction, have
also emerged as important policy concerns.
• The coalition that fought Iraq in 1991, for instance, aimed
not only at restoring Kuwait as an independent sovereign
After the Cold state, but also at eliminating Iraq’s ability to manufacture
and use nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
War • The prospect for a major war in northeast Asia, brought
about by North Korea’s desire to build a nuclear arsenal,
and the determination of the US and South Korea to
prevent this development, is also part of an attempt to
further international disarmament on a selective basis.
• The UN Disarmament Commission meets in New York
once or twice a year to help refine the agenda
proposed by the First Committee for the talks in the
Conference on Disarmament.
• Resolutions are passed by a majority vote or by a two-
thirds majority if deemed important issues (United
Nations Department for Affairs Disarmament 1988).
• The more specialized UN Conference on Disarmament
(CD), currently with 66 members, meets in Geneva to
The role of produce multilateral agreements. It is the only group
given authority to negotiate actual treaties.
the UN • This group sets its own agenda, taking into account
recommendations from the UN General Assembly
(UNGA), and it submits reports at least annually to the
General Assembly. Its work has been slow, reflecting
wide differences among members on what should be
discussed.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3ZBK2UvpqY
The UN disarmament agenda in 2005 had the following
priorities:
• cessation of the nuclear arms race and nuclear
disarmament,
• prevention of nuclear war (including all related matters),
• prevention of an arms race in outer space,

The role of the • effective international arrangements to assure nonnuclear


weapon states that they would be protected against the
UN use or threat of use of nuclear weapons (negative security
assurances),
• new types of weapons of mass destruction and new
systems of such weapons,
• radiological weapons, comprehensive programme of
disarmament,
• transparency in armaments, and landmines (UNIDC 2005).
• True progress toward disarmament will likely require the
development of some form of world government with the
policing authority to limit weapons and the moral authority
to require mediated or judicial resolution of disputes.

Conclusion • What is your solution?

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