Making Nuclear Arms Race Come to Its End

Analysis by Anastasia Shavrova *

This article appears in cooperation with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), as part of the initiative ‘Youth for CTBTO’. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the CTBTO. – Editor

MOSCOW (IDN) – The year 2016 is an important milestone for the international nonproliferation regime. It marks the 20th anniversary of opening for signature of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Back in 1996, after two years of intense negotiations, the then UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali announced that the opening for signature of CTBT could unleash a new era. And the Treaty, regardless of many differences that arose among States during the negotiation process, “meets the demand of the great majority of the world’s people for a clear signal that the nuclear arms race is coming towards its end”.

Kazakhstan Vows to Fight the ‘Virus of War’

Analysis by J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed. This argument remains pertinent 70 years after the UNESCO Constitution came into force. Because “the virus of war is still prevalent in the minds of people”, said Kazakh Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov, quoting President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Representing Kazakhstan at the high-level forum titled Religions for Peace at the UN General Assembly on May 6, Idrissov said: “In the 21st Century, which is considered to be the most advanced century, with the most advanced achievements of human kind in its entire existence we still face the danger of global annihilation. . . As my president has formulated it, it is unfortunate that this virus of war is prevalent among many political elites.”

Kazakh President proposed such a forum at the 70th session of the General Assembly in September 2015, and at a meeting with UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova in Paris in November 2015. In doing so, he wanted to boost UN efforts to combat violent extremism and promote peace and security.

A Tale of UN Bureaucracy

By Franz Baumann * | Reproduced courtesy of PassBlue

The author is a former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations and special adviser on environment and peace operations. This article originally appeared with the headline: UN Bureaucracy? No, Thanks.

NEW YORK – After more than 30 years of service, I retired from the United Nations as an assistant secretary-general, Special Adviser on Environment and Peace Operations, at the end of 2015, but to officially conclude my tenure with the UN, there was bureaucratic paperwork to contend with, to which Bartleby the Scrivener, Melville’s reluctant clerk, might have said, “I would prefer not to.”

During my last week in the office, between Christmas and New Year’s Day, and despite the new information-technology system, Umoja, I had to fill out by hand myriad forms. Originals of my marriage certificate (from 1987) and our daughter’s birth certificate (2000) needed to be submitted, even though the UN had moved us as a family across oceans a few times.

UN Group Explores Ways Out of Nuclear Stalemate

Analysis by Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – The United Nations General Assembly has tasked an Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) to create a blueprint for constructing a world free of nuclear weapons. The Group’s two sessions – February 22-26 and May 2-13 – failed to agree on a draft plan. But the final three-day session in August was slated to negotiate a final report with recommendations for the United Nations General Assembly.

The report would be justified in stating – as Beatrice Fihn, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) told the OEWG on May 13 – that “a majority of the world’s governments are ready and want to start negotiations of a new legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons”. And this even without the participation of the nuclear weapon states.

Some 100 governments joined over the course of two weeks in May and many more contributed their support through a joint working paper from the Humanitarian Pledge group comprising 127 States.

Bonn Meet to Take Forward Historic UN Climate Agreement

By Rita Joshi

BONN (IDN) – Just weeks after 176 countries and the 28-nation European Union signed the landmark Paris Climate Change Agreement at the United Nations headquarters in New York, governments are gathering at the Bonn UN Climate Change Conference from May 16 to 26, 2016 in Germany.

Bonn is the seat of the UN Framework Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) secretariat. The former West German capital also hosts the secretariat of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the UN Volunteers (UNV) together with 15 other United Nations organizations, programmes and offices.

While signing the Paris Climate Change Agreement – which sets out a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius – on April 22 in New York, several key economies indicated that they are ready to join the treaty this year (2016), and 16 States already depositing their instruments of ratification.

The latest round of UN climate change negotiations gets underway on May 16 “with governments looking to the next steps needed to accelerate” the implementation of the Paris Climate Change Agreement and “continue the unprecedented momentum forged in 2015”, says a UNFCCC press release.

UN Concerned Over Implementation of Development Goals

By J C Suresh

TORONTO (IDN) – Less than five months since the official coming into force of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in January, United Nations has warned that persistent weak global growth is posing a challenge to achieving the target to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind.

Economic activity in the world economy remains lacklustre, with little prospect for a turnaround in 2016, says the United Nations World Economic Situation and Prospects as of mid-2016 report.

Launching the mid-year report at United Nations Headquarters in New York, Lenni Montiel, Assistant Secretary-General in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) said: “The report underscores the need for a more balanced policy mix to rejuvenate global growth and create an enabling environment to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”

NEWSBRIEFS: Canadian Initiative – UN Peace Fund – ESCAP

OTTAWA – The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, announced May 9 that Canada will host the Fifth Replenishment Conference of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Montréal, Québec, on September 16, 2016.

The Prime Minister also announced that Canada is pledging CAD785 million to the Global Fund for the next three years, a 20 per cent increase from its previous pledge three years ago. This investment will make a significant contribution to the ultimate goal of saving an additional 8 million lives and averting an additional 300 million new infections by 2019.

UN Launches Global Awareness Campaign on Climate Action

By Rita Joshi

BONN (IDN | UNFCCC) – In run-up to 2016 UN Climate Conference in Morocco, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is focusing on ‘Global South’, and has launched a global public awareness campaign to spotlight these game-changing commitments, including the many which are happening in the developing world.

According to the UNFCCC, based in former West German capital Bonn, climate action by cities and companies and by regions and investors is continuing strongly since the December 2015 Paris climate change conference with some 50 new actions posted on the UN portal which was set up to showcase private sector and local authority ambition.

Ranging from South African hospitals group Netcare Ltd to Dutch banking group ING, the new commitments join over 11,000 already registered on NAZCA — the Non-State Actor Zone for Climate Action, established in 2014 at the request of the Government of Peru.

G77 Wants More in South-South Cooperation in Climate Change

Analysis by J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The Group of 77 (G77) and China, comprising 134 developing nations, has welcomed a new United Nations initiative that will build partnerships to help developing countries to assist other developing countries implement the Paris Agreement on climate change and the 2030 Development Agenda.

But the G77 and China chairperson Virachai Plasai, Thailand’s Permanent Representative to the UN, has stressed that “South-South and Triangular Cooperation are not a substitute for, but rather a complement to, North-South Cooperation”.

He added: “As South-South and Triangular cooperation are dear to the heart of the Group, we wish to see the momentum created by this initiative to promote South-South and Triangular cooperation be carried forward in other important areas apart from climate change.”

Termed the Southern Climate Partnership Incubator (SCPI), the UN Secretary-General’s new initiative aims at fostering partnerships among the ‘Global South’ in the areas of renewable energy, climate resilience, smart cities and big data application.

Enabling Civil Society to Monitor Development Agenda

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN (IDN) – Strategies to support and protect civil society to engage in the implementation and monitoring of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development were the centerpiece of discussions at a conference in Berlin.

Jeffery Huffines, UN Representative of CIVICUS World Alliance for Citizen Participation, questioned the extent of civil society engagement in preparation of the first set of voluntary national reviews to be presented at the High-level Political Forum (HPLF) on Sustainable Development July 11-20. He stressed the 2030 Agenda’s participation rights should be used to open up spaces for civil society at the regional and national levels. 

HPLF is UN’s central platform for the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, adopted at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit on September 26, 2015.

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