On 11 May 2022, the VCDNP and the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) hosted a public panel discussion on global challenges and opportunities for multilateral disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control with UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu, moderated by VCDNP Executive Director Elena Sokova. The event was attended by ambassadors, diplomats and the Vienna expert community as well as a diverse online audience.
While acknowledging the additional strain which Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and loose rhetoric about the use of nuclear weapons inflicted upon the global disarmament and arms control system, Ms Nakamitsu stressed that disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation are not utopian ideals but important tools for restoring and protecting international peace and security. Crises like this are key moments to reconsider the role we want disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation to play in the new security architecture emerging after a conflict, she recalled. According to the High Representative, a key objective for disarmament and arms control efforts is to dismantle the dangerous rhetoric around the effectiveness of nuclear weapons for defence, including false narratives claiming that Ukraine would not have been attacked had it not surrendered its nuclear weapons after the end of the Soviet Union.
Ms Nakamitsu also highlighted that the global disarmament and arms control system had already been suffering under rising tensions, growing defence budgets, and the emergence of novel conflict domains in cyber and outer space before the war in Ukraine. Because of this, maintaining existing disarmament and arms control regimes and redoubling all efforts to expand on them have utmost priority, especially for the upcoming first Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and the 10th Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
The full recording of the event is available below.
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