Relentless militarism, underpinned by patriarchal
\ncapitalist structures and institutions, are at the root of today's major
\nsecurity crises, from nuclear threats to the millions of refugees fleeing armed
\ngangs and Syria's bombed-out cities. As the UN General Assembly convenes in New
\nYork this week, governments need to take more responsibility for tackling the
\nweapons, arms trade and conflicts that their policies have created and
\nexacerbated. <\/p>\n
High level government leaders are gathering in New York
\nfor the UN Sustainable
\nDevelopment Summit on 25\u201327 September, where they
\nwill adopt the 2030
\nAgenda for Sustainable Development, which follows on
\nfrom the largely unrealised Millennium
\nDevelopment Goals adopted in 2000. <\/p>\n
The 2030 Agenda commits governments \u201cto foster peaceful, just and
\ninclusive societies which are free from fear and violence.\u201d It declares: \u201cThere
\ncan be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without
\nsustainable development.\u201d Yet despite this emphasis on peace and freedom from
\nviolence, the Agenda only includes one goal related to weapons – to significantly
\nreduce illicit arms flows by 2030 (goal 16.4). <\/p>\n
This falls far short of the action necessary to
\nrestrict the arms trade and the possession and use of weapons, without which
\ndevelopment and peace are just empty words. Legal as well as illegal production and flows of arms blight lives,
\ndevelopment and aspirations across the world. People in poorer countries and unstable regions suffer the worst consequences of this trafficking and use, and
\nthen have to divert resources to deal with the consequences of weapons-fuelled
\nconflicts. <\/p>\n
The use of
\nexplosive weapons in populated areas is a
\nparticularly devastating practice that causes immense humanitarian suffering.
\nBetween 2011 and 2014, the civil society group Action on
\nArmed Violence has recorded almost 150,000
\ndeaths and injuries from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas. 78%
\nof these were non-combatants. When explosive weapons were used in populated
\nareas, 90% of the resulting casualties were civilians. <\/p>\n
Yet as the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom programme Reaching Critical Will has noted, there have been few
\noutcries about how the deaths, injuries, displacement and destruction caused by
\nthe use of explosive weapons in populated areas relate to the international
\narms trade.\u00a0 In fact, states parties or
\nsignatories of the 2013 Arms
\nTrade Treaty (ATT) are all too frequently
\nresponsible for the transfers that lead to these deaths and injuries. This
\ncritical gap between law and practice is due to the limitations of the ATT,
\naccentuating the continuing power of war profiteers. <\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take the case of the United Kingdom, which
\ntakes proud credit for its role in the ATT negotiations, while remaining the sixth largest arms exporter.\u00a0 While the
\nUK government maintains that the ATT reflects a global determination to stop
\nirresponsible transfers, London has this month been hosting one of the world\u2019s 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
\nprofile summit on
\npreventing sexual violence in conflict, hosted in 2014 by the former UK Foreign Secretary, William Hague. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Stop the arms fair protest in London September 2015. Photo: stopthearmsfair.org <\/em><\/p>\n While refusing to acknowledge The UK, which is a state party to the 2008 Cluster Munitions Convention This kind of hypocrisy is endemic where arms profits are concerned. Much UN On 30 September, the UN will hold 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 As the UN General Assembly meets By contrast, the growing support It also derives from the growing empowerment of those Gender equality is another UN Not all states or NGOs are yet While weapons The arms trade, the use of 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nthe link between the refugee crisis and the flow of weapons to the Middle East,
\nBritain extended
\nformal invitations to the arms fair to many
\ncountries with records of egregious human rights violations, including sexual
\nviolence. <\/p>\n
\n(CMC), recently
\nrefused to condemn the use of US-manufactured cluster
\nmunitions by Saudi-led military forces in Yemen, despite evidence
\nfrom Human Rights Watch about the humanitarian
\nsuffering these prohibited weapons are causing to civilians. \u00a0 <\/p>\n
\ndecision making continues to be dominated by the military industrial interests
\nof the five permanent members of the Security Council \u2013 Britain, China, France,
\nRussia and the United States \u2013 which not only dominate global arms manufacture
\nand sales, but also possess the largest nuclear arsenals.The connections are inescapable.<\/p>\n
\na high-level event to commemorate the International
\nDay for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
\ndesignated as 26 September. Developing states in the Non-Aligned Movement
\ninitiated this commemorative UN Day to draw attention to the lack of effective
\nprogress on nuclear disarmament in over 45 years since the 1968 Non-Proliferation
\nTreaty (NPT) was concluded. <\/p>\n
\nthe Middle East of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. But all was not
\nlost, as a large group of states signalled their determination to oppose nuclear
\nbusiness as usual by signing up to a\u00a0 Humanitarian
\nPledge, introduced by Austria, in which they committed themselves to
\n\u201cfill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear
\nweapons\u201d. <\/p>\n
\nin New York, 117 member states have already declared their support for the
\nHumanitarian Pledge. The UN and its First Committee on Disarmament and
\nInternational Security will consider a range of resolutions and proposals\u00a0this
\nyear, with different proposals on how to move forward on several important issues. The Pledge builds on humanitarian disarmament initiatives that are
\nincreasingly challenging the previously dominant discourse of \u201cnational
\nsecurity\u201d and \u201cstrategic stability\u201d, which privileges the nuclear-armed states
\nand major weapons manufacturers. Nonetheless, some states and NGOs continue
\nto demand the full participation of all nuclear-armed states in a UN
\nnegotiating 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
\nwithout progress, in large part because of the pre-eminence (and vetoes) such
\nproposals give to the nuclear-armed states.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nfor the Humanitarian Pledge points towards a next-step\u00a0nuclear
\nban treaty under
\ninternational humanitarian law. This is the objective advocated by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
\n(ICAN), which coordinates over\u00a0400 organisations
\nfrom 100 countries. The momentum for this approach derives from a series of
\nintergovernmental conferences hosted by Norway, Mexico and Austria, as well as
\njoint government statements to the UN General
\nAssembly and NPT
\nconferences, and resolutions
\nand actions
\nplans of the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nwithout nuclear arsenals to confront the heavily militarised countries and pursue a more
\njust and equitable future. Humanitarian-centred security approaches epitomise and reinforce global pressure to reshape international politics towards equity and justice.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nand 2030 Agenda goal. UN Security
\nCouncil\u00a0Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security,\u00a0 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
\nby Secretary General
\nBan Ki-moon. This will provide an opportunity to call for more effective action
\nensuring women\u2019s participation and promoting gender perspectives in conflict
\nprevention, resolution, and disarmament. <\/p>\n
\nprepared to recognise the gendered patterns of harm attributable to all weapons
\nand armed conflict. Small arms and light weapons are often used to facilitate
\nacts of sexual violence and domestic abuse, while explosive weapons in
\npopulated areas can have a
\nunique effect on women, affecting access to public
\nplaces and services. <\/p>\n
\nare considered to be men\u2019s business, men and
\nadolescent boys are the most frequent direct victims of weaponised
\nviolence.\u00a0 Viewed through the
\npatriarchal lens, this is rarely presented as evidence of their weakness, as is
\nthe case when 'women and children' are characterised as victims of violence.
\nThe ground-breaking aspect of SCR 1325 was its recognition that men and women
\nexperience wars differently and that women are not just victims but agents of
\nchange: women\u2019s full and equal participation in all aspects and stages of peace
\nprocesses is essential to building sustainable peace.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nexplosive weapons, the possession of nuclear weapons, gender perspectives in
\ndisarmament, and equitable participation of women are all
\ncrucial issues to grapple with in order to effectively deal
\nwith the major security challenges we face today. The
\nnext two months at the UN provide an opportunity to take up these challenges with renewed resolve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"