Disarmament
Disarmament
HISTORICAL AND LEGAL DEVELOPMENT
The Oxford English Dictionary defines disarmament as the action of disarming: “the reduction of an army or navy to the customary peace footing.” Encompassing the meaning inherent in its root, disarm, “to deprive of arms, to take the arms or weapons from, to deprive of munitions of war or means of defense, to dismantle (a city, a ship, etc.),” disarmament refers to armaments and includes any measure by which their existence is reduced or eliminated.
TYPOLOGY
Extending far back in history, the experience of disarmament presents a varied typology. Often a unilateral obligation imposed on the loser by the winner of a conflict (e.g., on Prussia by Napoleon Bonaparte, on France in 1814 by the United Kingdom, or Germany by the Versailles Treaty in 1919), disarmament has also been a reciprocal obligation (e.g., the naval agreement between France and the United Kingdom on October 27, 1787, or the Anglo-American treaty of April 28, 1817, limiting armaments on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain). Moreover, disarmament phenomena encompass unilateral disarmaments undertaken by states for philosophical, budgetary, strategic, or other reasons (e.g., Costa Rica, the U.S. unilateral destruction of biological stockpiles in 1969, or the Soviet Union’s unilateral reduction of forces decided on in 1988).
Disarmament in the context of a peace process following internal or international conflict has specific features. It is part of peace agreements between governments and guerillas in Africa and Latin America (e.g., between the government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation) and in the Northern Ireland peace process (Irish Republican Army disarmament ended in September 2005), leading to the disarmament of nongovernmental armed groups. Finally, disarmament within the framework of peace enforcement operations (e.g., Security Council Resolution 687 of April 3, 1991, concerning Iraq) is distinct from disarmament through negotiations, even if there is some overlap in the mechanics of weapons inspection and disposal.
Compliance verification is a common challenge in all cases. The main instruments of verification are United Nations (UN) inspectors (in peace enforcement), international or bilateral commissions (in peace agreements), and verification procedures set up by international treaties. Regrettably, some disarmament treaties do not include any supervisory mechanisms.
HISTORICAL AND LEGAL DEVELOPMENT
Disarmament as a general goal came into focus with the Hague Peace Conferences in 1899 and 1907. The resulting rules for hostilities and the means and methods of land warfare included prohibitions against the use of certain kinds of weapons. Although a resolution adopted in 1907 agreed on the desirability of studying a reduction of military charges, the conferences failed to agree on any limitation or reduction of possession of armaments.
General aspirations for disarmament returned after World War I as part of plans for international peace and security. The Versailles Treaty limited Germany, but it was also seen as a first measure toward general disarmament. The fourth point of President Woodrow Wilson’s message (January 8, 1918) proposed a reduction of national armaments to limits compatible with national security and the implementation of international obligations imposed by joint action. The main organs of the League of Nations were charged with drafting plans for the general reduction of national armaments, which was to be the main instrument for the realization of peace and security. “Qualitative disarmament” was to make universal the prohibition of armaments forbidden to the vanquished powers while leaving defensive power untouched (McKnight 1983, pp. 17–20). By 1930 a draft disarmament treaty was circulated to governments for consideration, but most of the politicians at the World Disarmament Conference, which opened on February 2, 1932, believed disarmament impossible and accepted the use of force as an instrument for settling international controversies.
In the twenty-first century disarmament is linked to the principle, established in article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations, denying states the threat or the use of force. Many authors argue that the UN Charter puts less emphasis on disarmament than did the League of Nations. Under the Charter the maintenance of international peace and security is based on collective security and the right of self-defense recognized in article 51, both of which require armed forces (Kalshoven 1985, pp. 198–199). In addition, there is no general rule denying or limiting the right of states to have armed forces and hence acquire and develop armaments (International Court of Justice 1996). By contrast, the Charter charges the General Assembly to consider the general principles governing disarmament and the regulation of armaments (article 11), while the Security Council is responsible for formulating plans for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments (article 26).
Cold war tensions prevented any progress toward those goals, although agreement seemed near in 1954, with the Anglo-French Memorandum based on a previous U.S. document titled “Essential Principles for a Disarmament Program,” and in 1961, after the U.S. -Soviet Joint Statement of Agreed Principles—the McCloy-Zorin Principles—on general and complete disarmament. Those major failures and growing impatience with the lack of progress on disarmament gave impetus to a new concept: arms control.
In the post–cold war 1990s the world witnessed a new impetus for disarmament, with the approval of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the indefinite prorogation of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and the beginning of negotiations for new treaties (the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty [CTBT] or the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty). Nevertheless, the trend of world military expenditures has been rising since 1998, accelerating to an annual average increase of around 6 percent in real terms from 2002 through 2004 (the United States accounts for 47 percent of world military expenditures and is the main representative of this trend). Additionally, no new disarmament measure has been approved and some older ones have been abandoned (e.g., the Treaty on the Limitation of Antiballistic Missile Systems [ABM]).
CONCEPTUAL DELIMITATION
Conceptually, the distinction between disarmament and arms control is troublesome. Some authors use the terms disarmament (Myrdal 1976; Kalshoven 1985; Lysén 1990) or arms control (Brennan 1961; Schelling and Halperin 1985) to cover all the rules and measures related to the development, production, and deployment of armaments. Nonetheless, most writers recognize a distinction, but disagree on where to draw the line on the continuum from complete reductions to measures restraining the testing, manufacture, possession, or deployment of specific types of weapon. Broad consensus assigns to the term disarmament the elimination or reduction of one or more categories of weapons and other measures limiting the acquisition, possession, or deployment of one or more categories of weapons. The Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and some of the U.S.-Soviet bilateral treaties (e.g., ABM and Strategic Arms Limitation Talks I and II) fall into the category, as does the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which stands out as the major example of an international treaty reducing conventional armament. As well, the Outer Space Treaty, the Sea-Bed Treaty, the Antarctic Treaty, the Tlatelolco Treaty (for Latin America), and the Rarotonga Treaty (for the South Pacific Ocean) protect specific areas from deployment of certain weapons, while the NPT recognizes only five states as legal nuclear powers and prevents nuclear proliferation. Additionally, measures that prevent or hinder weapons development (e.g., the Partial Test Ban Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which is not in force, or the Cutoff Treaty, which is under negotiations in the Conference of Disarmament in Geneva) are more often considered a form of arms control.
SEE ALSO Arms Control and Arms Race; Weaponry, Nuclear
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Milagros Alvarez-Verdugo