|
Disarmament DocumentationBack to Disarmament Documentation Report by the UN Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters, September 25'Work of the Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters', Report of the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, A/58/316, August 25; released September 25. Note: the two sessions of the UN Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters in 2003 were chaired by Konstanytyn Gryschenko, Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States. For a full list of the Board's 23 members, and the full text of the report, see the website of the UN Department of Disarmament Affairs (DDA), http://disarmament.un.org. SummaryThe Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters held its fortieth and forty-first sessions, respectively, in New York from 5 to 7 February 2003 and in Geneva from 16 to 18 July 2003. The Board focused its deliberations on: (a) compliance, verification and enforcement of multilateral disarmament treaties; (b) disarmament and human security; (c) disarmament and development; (d) rising military expenditure; (e) review of the functioning and effectiveness of the Board; and (f) open-source data for promoting disarmament and non-proliferation. The Board recommended that the United Nations identify the best way to preserve the expertise and knowledge of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission with regard to conducting monitoring and inspection activities, with a view to maintaining the Organization's readiness to address future non-compliance cases. The Board also recommended that the United Nations convene a group of experts to examine and establish due procedures for the Security Council in dealing more effectively with future non-compliance cases. The Board made several recommendations on the issue of disarmament human security: (i) human security perspectives should be included when future disarmament programmes are designed; (ii) with a view to preventing conflicts or the recurrence of conflicts and sustaining peace, reconciliation and disarmament measures should be given prominence in peace-making and peace-building pacts and various measures should be designed to promote the reconciliation process; (iii) greater efforts should be made by the international co9mmunity to prevent and eradicate the illicit circulation and trading of weapons, including small arms and light weapons, particularly in local communities; and (iv) disarmament education should be enhanced. The Board further recommended a more comprehensive examination of the disarmament-development relationship to include the exploration of the relationship between disarmament and human security; disarmament and community economic development; and new approaches to the partnership between developing countries and the donor community. The Board agreed on several measures aimed at improving its own functioning and effectiveness in advising the Secretary-General on disarmament matters. ... © 2003 The Acronym Institute. |