UN Conference on Disarmament holds a crucial role as world as already seen two 'wars' which brought the poverty, hunger, displacement and chaos.
After World War II (1939-45) the efforts of the Soviet Union were largely responsible for the inclusion in the UN Charter of provisions stating that disputes between members of the UN would be settled by peaceful means and that all UN members would refrain from the threat or use of force in international relations.
The Soviet Union was also largely responsible for the inclusion in the Charter of special provisions on disarmament (arts. 11, 26, and 47). Thus, disarmament became a generally recognized principle of international law. However, as soon as the war was over, the imperialist forces immediately instigated an arms race and unleashed the Cold War.
With the development of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons, supersonic jet airplanes, ballistic missiles, and other new types of combat matériel, the danger posed by the arms race increased tremendously.
The Nobel Peace
Prize 2017 was awarded to International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear
Weapons (ICAN) "for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic
humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its
ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such
weapons.
The Conference on Disarmament
(CD) is a multilateral disarmament forum It
was established by the international community to negotiate arms
control and disarmament agreements based at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
The Conference meets annually
in three separate sessions in Geneva. The Conference was first
established in 1979 as the Committee on Disarmament as the single multilateral
disarmament negotiating forum of the international community. It was renamed
the Conference on Disarmament in 1984. The Conference succeeded three
other disarmament-related bodies: the Ten-Nation Committee on Disarmament
(1960), the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament (1962–68) and the
Conference of the Committee on Disarmament (1969–78).
Membership: The conference is
currently composed of 65 formal members, representing all areas of the world,
as well as all known nuclear-weapon states. Additionally, members are organized
into a number of informal regional groups to facilitate their preparation for,
and representation in the plenary meetings of the Conference.
Relationship to the United
Nations
The Conference is formally
independent from the United Nations. However, while it is not formally a UN
organization, it is linked to it in various ways. First and foremost, the
Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva serves as the
Secretary-General of the Conference. Furthermore, while the Conference adopts
its own rules of procedure and agenda, the United Nations General Assembly can
pass resolutions recommending specific topics to the Conference. Finally, the
Conference submits a report of its activities to the General Assembly yearly,
or more frequently, as appropriate.
