Disarmament efforts of UN:
1. It was thought that the production and stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction would ensure peace by deterring the opponent. Far from securing peace these weapons have made the world a dangerous place to live in.
2. Nuclear and other dangerous weapons threaten the very survival of mankind. If full fledged nuclear war breaks out, not only the population of the warring countries would die but also the rest of the population spread over the globe would suffer.
3. Those who survive the nuclear war would die a slow and painful death. Thus, the preservation of life on the planet is the first and foremost consideration for disarmament. Equally important, disarmament offers the possibility of diverting huge funds from the arms production for improving the living conditions of the poor and needy people of the world.
4. Right from the inception, the United Nations has taken active interest in disarmament. Several disarmament treaties resulted from UN efforts. Some of them are no doubt controversial. For example, the Treaty on the Non-proliferation (NPT) of Nuclear Weapons of 1968. This treaty required non-nuclear states not to acquire nuclear weapons, while leaving the nuclear weapon powers free to increase their stocks.
5. Many countries like India refused to sign the treaty to protest against the discrimination.
6. The UN General Assembly convened three special sessions to focus world attention on the need for disarmament. Those sessions mobilised world opinion to press reduction of nuclear and conventional weapons. But no concrete results were evident, because of cold war tensions.
7. The ending of the Cold War raised hopes of serious moves to control and reduce nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). The General Assembly adopted a text of resolution of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in September, 1996.
8. The chances of CTBT coming into force are considered remote because many countries,including India, described it a defective treaty and refused to sign it until the five nuclear powers had disarmed.
9. On the positive side, UN efforts in disarmament led to banning of landmines (1997) and prohibition and destruction of existing stocks of chemical weapons under international supervision (1993).
10. The UN also made progress in actually removing several lakhs of landmines in Asia and Africa, supervising elimination of existing stocks of chemical weapons. Also the UN played its part in the destruction of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq in the 1990s.
