Relentless militarism, underpinned by patriarchal
capitalist structures and institutions, are at the root of today's major
security crises, from nuclear threats to the millions of refugees fleeing armed
gangs and Syria's bombed-out cities. As the UN General Assembly convenes in New
York this week, governments need to take more responsibility for tackling the
weapons, arms trade and conflicts that their policies have created and
exacerbated.
High level government leaders are gathering in New York
for the UN Sustainable
Development Summit on 25–27 September, where they
will adopt the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development, which follows on
from the largely unrealised Millennium
Development Goals adopted in 2000.
The 2030 Agenda commits governments “to foster peaceful, just and
inclusive societies which are free from fear and violence.” It declares: “There
can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without
sustainable development.” Yet despite this emphasis on peace and freedom from
violence, the Agenda only includes one goal related to weapons – to significantly
reduce illicit arms flows by 2030 (goal 16.4).
This falls far short of the action necessary to
restrict the arms trade and the possession and use of weapons, without which
development and peace are just empty words. Legal as well as illegal production and flows of arms blight lives,
development and aspirations across the world. People in poorer countries and unstable regions suffer the worst consequences of this trafficking and use, and
then have to divert resources to deal with the consequences of weapons-fuelled
conflicts.
The use of
explosive weapons in populated areas is a
particularly devastating practice that causes immense humanitarian suffering.
Between 2011 and 2014, the civil society group Action on
Armed Violence has recorded almost 150,000
deaths and injuries from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas. 78%
of these were non-combatants. When explosive weapons were used in populated
areas, 90% of the resulting casualties were civilians.
Yet as the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom programme Reaching Critical Will has noted, there have been few
outcries about how the deaths, injuries, displacement and destruction caused by
the use of explosive weapons in populated areas relate to the international
arms trade. In fact, states parties or
signatories of the 2013 Arms
Trade Treaty (ATT) are all too frequently
responsible for the transfers that lead to these deaths and injuries. This
critical gap between law and practice is due to the limitations of the ATT,
accentuating the continuing power of war profiteers.
Let’s take the case of the United Kingdom, which
takes proud credit for its role in the ATT negotiations, while remaining the sixth largest arms exporter. While the
UK government maintains that the ATT reflects a global determination to stop
irresponsible transfers, London has this month been hosting one of the world’s largest arms fairs organised by Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI). This sales fest of weapons and torture equipment took place at the same venue as the high
profile summit on
preventing sexual violence in conflict, hosted in 2014 by the former UK Foreign Secretary, William Hague.
Stop the arms fair protest in London September 2015. Photo: stopthearmsfair.org
While refusing to acknowledge
the link between the refugee crisis and the flow of weapons to the Middle East,
Britain extended
formal invitations to the arms fair to many
countries with records of egregious human rights violations, including sexual
violence.
The UK, which is a state party to the 2008 Cluster Munitions Convention
(CMC), recently
refused to condemn the use of US-manufactured cluster
munitions by Saudi-led military forces in Yemen, despite evidence
from Human Rights Watch about the humanitarian
suffering these prohibited weapons are causing to civilians.
This kind of hypocrisy is endemic where arms profits are concerned. Much UN
decision making continues to be dominated by the military industrial interests
of the five permanent members of the Security Council – Britain, China, France,
Russia and the United States – which not only dominate global arms manufacture
and sales, but also possess the largest nuclear arsenals.The connections are inescapable.
On 30 September, the UN will hold
a high-level event to commemorate the International
Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
designated as 26 September. Developing states in the Non-Aligned Movement
initiated this commemorative UN Day to draw attention to the lack of effective
progress on nuclear disarmament in over 45 years since the 1968 Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT) was concluded.
In May this year, the US,UK and Canada formally blocked the adoption by NPT states of further disarmament actions and for a regional conference to rid
the Middle East of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. But all was not
lost, as a large group of states signalled their determination to oppose nuclear
business as usual by signing up to a Humanitarian
Pledge, introduced by Austria, in which they committed themselves to
“fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear
weapons”.
As the UN General Assembly meets
in New York, 117 member states have already declared their support for the
Humanitarian Pledge. The UN and its First Committee on Disarmament and
International Security will consider a range of resolutions and proposals this
year, with different proposals on how to move forward on several important issues. The Pledge builds on humanitarian disarmament initiatives that are
increasingly challenging the previously dominant discourse of “national
security” and “strategic stability”, which privileges the nuclear-armed states
and major weapons manufacturers. Nonetheless, some states and NGOs continue
to demand the full participation of all nuclear-armed states in a UN
negotiating process for a nuclear weapons convention. Such a convention may be required to codify the total elimination of nuclear weapons in the future, but there are concerns that it has been on the agenda for many years
without progress, in large part because of the pre-eminence (and vetoes) such
proposals give to the nuclear-armed states.
By contrast, the growing support
for the Humanitarian Pledge points towards a next-step nuclear
ban treaty under
international humanitarian law. This is the objective advocated by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
(ICAN), which coordinates over 400 organisations
from 100 countries. The momentum for this approach derives from a series of
intergovernmental conferences hosted by Norway, Mexico and Austria, as well as
joint government statements to the UN General
Assembly and NPT
conferences, and resolutions
and actions
plans of the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement.
It also derives from the growing empowerment of those
without nuclear arsenals to confront the heavily militarised countries and pursue a more
just and equitable future. Humanitarian-centred security approaches epitomise and reinforce global pressure to reshape international politics towards equity and justice.
Gender equality is another UN
and 2030 Agenda goal. UN Security
Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, adopted in 2000, will come under scrutiny when the Security Council hosts an open debate on 13 October on its high-level review, together with a global study commissioned
by Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon. This will provide an opportunity to call for more effective action
ensuring women’s participation and promoting gender perspectives in conflict
prevention, resolution, and disarmament.
Not all states or NGOs are yet
prepared to recognise the gendered patterns of harm attributable to all weapons
and armed conflict. Small arms and light weapons are often used to facilitate
acts of sexual violence and domestic abuse, while explosive weapons in
populated areas can have a
unique effect on women, affecting access to public
places and services.
While weapons
are considered to be men’s business, men and
adolescent boys are the most frequent direct victims of weaponised
violence. Viewed through the
patriarchal lens, this is rarely presented as evidence of their weakness, as is
the case when 'women and children' are characterised as victims of violence.
The ground-breaking aspect of SCR 1325 was its recognition that men and women
experience wars differently and that women are not just victims but agents of
change: women’s full and equal participation in all aspects and stages of peace
processes is essential to building sustainable peace.
The arms trade, the use of
explosive weapons, the possession of nuclear weapons, gender perspectives in
disarmament, and equitable participation of women are all
crucial issues to grapple with in order to effectively deal
with the major security challenges we face today. The
next two months at the UN provide an opportunity to take up these challenges with renewed resolve.