Reaching Critical Will Action Alert - Call on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon:
Don't Downgrade Disarmament at the UN

January 12, 2007

Dear Reaching Critical Will friends and advisors,
Because of the urgent nature of the issue, we are sending this RCW e-news with a lone issue. We will send out all the information about the upcoming nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee next week, so stay tuned!
Best wishes,
Jennifer Nordstrom, Project Manager

Call on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon:
Don't Downgrade Disarmament at the UN

The Department for Disarmament Affairs (DDA) is the United Nation's institutional memory and stronghold of expertise on disarmament at the international level. Several countries have a shameful record on disarmament and would like to see the Department and its institutional memory and activity downgraded.

The new Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, is purportedly considering subsuming the Department for Disarmament Affairs (DDA) into the Department of Political Affairs, reducing the stature of disarmament within the UN at a time when the problems posed by nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, as well as small arms, are escalating.

Disarmament was recognized from the outset of the United Nations as an essential condition for global peace and security. The UN Charter recognized that an armed peace was not going to be a just peace, and that preparation for war was not going to bring peace. Nuclear disarmament was the subject of the very first United Nations resolution, and general disarmament is included in the mandate of the Security Council.

Characterizing the Department as of the "Cold War" era is inaccurate. The current Department is a post-Cold War phenomenon, created out of recognition that problems associated with weapons have changed but not decreased. In fact military budgets are soaring, wars are being fought over weapons and new treaty processes are forming. The disarmament agenda remains unfinished, which lies at the core of today's security challenges.

Putting the issue of disarmament into the Department of Political Affairs is unhelpful and unnecessary, both in terms of the UN fulfilling its mandate, and servicing inter-governmental meetings and treaty bodies. The world's disarmament machinery, norms and regime are embattled right now, and reducing the stature of the primary global institution responsible for implementation of UN decisions is the wrong course. It is important for the Department to remain its own entity with its own mandate specific to disarmament, headed by an Under-Secretary-General whose primary concern is disarmament. This allows the Department to make independent assessments with disarmament as the goal. The Department also houses years of expertise and institutional memory that is invaluable to governments and civil society, and which could be quietly lost under a different department. Having a disarmament-focused department actually allows decisions to be made more quickly than having them processed through a department dealing with disparate concerns that may be less familiar with the issues. The Department is sufficiently burdened with work to warrant a dedicated department, and the issue it covers is sufficiently urgent to justify expansion rather than absorption.

Among its many crucial functions, DDA:
· serves states parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the major treaty governing nuclear weapons, because that treaty does not have its own secretariat;
· serves the General Assembly during the First Committee on Disarmament and International Security when the world's governments meet and debate the most pressing disarmament and security issues;
· serves the Conference on Disarmament, the world's sole multilateral disarmament treaty negotiating body;
· maintains the Register of Conventional Arms and the Instrument for Reporting Military Expenditures;- provides independent assessments to the Secretary-General and Security Council and General Assembly as appropriate; and
· provides technical assistance to governments in the process of ratifying and implementing treaties.
Demoting DDA has been proposed before, but protest from cooler heads - both governmental and non-governmental - saved the Department whose goal it is to promote the global norms of disarmament. Last time, the response from civil society was critical in turning the tide, and your help is needed again.

Take Action!
Please register your concern in writing. A sample letter in support of keeping an independent DDA is provided below for you to adapt. You can also download the letter from our website here: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/action/sampleletterJan07.doc

Please send your letter to your government's UN mission and Foreign Ministry, and to Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. You can find the addresses for your government's UN Mission and Foreign Ministry here: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/resources/govcontacts/govindex.html

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's fax number is: +1 212 963-4879

SAMPLE LETTER (Replace the address heading and title with your government's UN Ambassador's information and then Foreign Minister's information to send a letter to them as well)

DATE

His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General of the United Nations
United Nations Headquarters
New York, New York

Dear Mr. Secretary-General:

I am writing to you in support of keeping an independent Department for Disarmament Affairs (DDA), with its own mandate and Under-Secretary-General. I am concerned by reports that DDA might be subsumed under the Department for Political Affairs, a shift that is unhelpful and unnecessary, both in terms of the UN fulfilling its mandate, and servicing inter-governmental meetings and treaty bodies.

Disarmament is one of the central tasks of the UN, as evidenced by the first UN General Assembly resolution calling for nuclear disarmament, and the UN Charter's vision for the “the least diversion for armaments of the world's human and economic resources” (Article 26). The UN must live up to its mandate and prioritize disarmament in the Secretariat, maintaining the independent DDA instead of subordinating it to other agendas.

The UN should not be reducing the stature of disarmament within the UN at a time when the problems posed by nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, as well as small arms, are escalating. The DDA, which was designed to address post-cold war disarmament issues, is even more necessary in an era with increased opportunity for, but decreased attention to, disarmament. Moreover, the world's disarmament machinery, norms and regime are embattled right now, and reducing the stature of the primary global institution responsible for implementation of UN decisions is the wrong course.

It is important for DDA to remain its own entity with its own mandate and Under-Secretary-General whose primary concern is disarmament. It is also important that a department dealing with nuclear disarmament answer to an Under-Secretary-General from a non-nuclear weapon state. This allows DDA to make independent assessments with disarmament as the goal. DDA houses years of expertise and institutional memory that is invaluable to governments and civil society, and which could be quietly lost under a different department. For example, when something similar happened in the United States, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency was moved into the State Department, technical expertise and institutional memory was lost, as was internal advocacy for disarmament. Finally, disarmament is very technical; having a disarmament-focused department actually allows decisions to be made more quickly than having them processed through a department dealing with disparate concerns that may be less familiar with the issues.

The Department for Disarmament Affairs must not lose its unique identity, mandate and its ability to report directly to the Secretary-General through its own Under-Secretary-General. The quantity and technical nature of the Department's work is sufficient to warrant a dedicated department, and the issue the Department covers is sufficiently urgent to justify expansion rather than absorption. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
YOUR NAME (and organization, if relevant)
YOUR ADDRESS

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Jennifer Nordstrom, Project Manager
Reaching Critical Will
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, UN Office
777 UN Plaza
6th floor
New York, NY 10017
tel: (212) 682-1265
fax: (212) 286-8211
http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org