Part 3: PROMOTING SECURITY

The concept of global security must be broadened from the traditional focus on the security of states to include the security of people and the security of the planet. The following six principles should be embedded in international agreement and used as norms for security policies in the new era:

All people, no less than all states, have a right to a secure existence, and all states have an obligation to protect those rights.

The primary goals of global security policy should be to prevent conflict and war, and maintain the integrity of the environment and life-support systems of the planet, by eliminating the economic, social, environmental, political, and military conditions that generate threats to the security of people and the planet, and by anticipating and managing crises before they escalate into armed conflicts.

Military force is not a legitimate political instrument, except in self-defence or under UN auspices. The concept of global security must be broadened from the traditional focus on the security of states to include the security of people and the security of the planet. The following six principles should be embedded in international agreement and used as norms for security policies in the new era: All people, no less than all states, have a right to a secure existence, and all states have an obligation to protect those rights. The primary goals of global security policy should be to prevent conflict and war, and maintain the integrity of the environment and life-support systems of the planet, by eliminating the economic, social, environmental, political, and military conditions that generate threats to the security of people and the planet, and by anticipating and managing crises before they escalate into armed conflicts. Military force is not a legitimate political instrument, except in self-defence or under UN auspices.

The development of military capabilities beyond that required for national defence and support of UN action is a potential threat to the security of people.

Weapons of mass destruction are not legitimate instruments of national defence.

The production and trade in arms should be controlled by the international community.

Unprecedented increases in human activity and human numbers have reached the point where their impacts impinge on the basic conditions on which life depends. Action should be taken now to control these activities and keep population growth within acceptable limits so that planetary security in not endangered.

The principal of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of state should not be taken lightly. But it is necessary to assert as well the rights and interests of the international community in situations within individual states in which the security of people is extensively endangered. A global concensus exists today for a UN response on humanitarian grounds in such cases. We propose an amendment to the UN Charter to permit such intervention, but restricting it to cases that in the judgment of a reformed Security Council constitute a violation of the security of people so gross and extreme that it requires an international response on humanitarian grounds.

There should be a new 'Right of Petition' for non-state actors to bring situations massively endangering the security of people within states to the attention of the Security Council. The Charter amendment established the right of Petition should also authorize the Security Council to call on parties to an intrastate dispute to settle it through the mechanisms listed in the Charter for the pacific settlement of disputes between states. The Council should be authorized to take enforcement actions under Chapters VII if such efforts fail, but only if it determines that intervention is justified under the Charter amendment referred to in the previous paragraph on the grounds of a gross violation of the security of people. Even then, the use of force would be the last resort.

We suggest two measures to improve UN peacekeeping. First, the integrity of the UN command should be respected; for each operation a consultative committee should be set up including representatives of the countries contributing troops. Second, although the principal that countries with a special interest in relation to a conflict should not contribute troops should be upheld, the earlier view that the permanent members of the Security Council should not play an active part in peacekeeping should bediscarded.

New possibilities arise for the involvement of regional organizations in conjunction with the UN in resolving conflicts. We support the Secretary General's plea for making more active use of regional organization under Chapter VIII of the Charter.

The UN needs to be able to deploy credible and effective peace enforcement units at an early stage in a crises and at short notice , it is high time that the UN Volunteer Force was established. We envisage a force with a maximum of 10.000 personnel. It would not take the place of preventive action, of traditional peacekeeping forces, or the large-scale enforcement action under Chapter VII of the Charter. Rather, it would fill a gap by giving the Security Council the ability to back up preventive diplomacy with a measure of immediate and convincing deployment on the ground. Its very existence would be a deterrent; it would give support for negotiation and peaceful settlement of disputes.

The international community must provide increased funds for peacekeeping, using some of the resources released by reductions of defense expenditures. The cost of peacekeeping should be integrated in to a single annual budget and financed by assessments on all UN member countries, and the peacekeeping reserved fund should be increased to facilitate rapid deployment.

The international community should reaffirm its commitment to progressively eliminate nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction from all nations, and should initiate a ten to fifteen year programme to achieve this goal.

- the earliest possible ratification and implementation of existing agreements on nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction;
- the indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty;
- the conclusion of a treaty to end all nuclear testing; and
- the initiation of talks among all declared nuclear powers to establish a process to reduce and eventually eliminate all nuclear arsenals.

All nations should sign and ratify the conventions on chemical and biological weapons, enabling the world to enter the twenty-first century free of these weapons.

For the first time, the dominant military powers have both an interest in reducing world-wide military capabilities and the ability to do so. The international community should make the demilitarization of global politics an overriding priority.

Donor institutions and countries should evaluate a country's military spending when considering assistance to it. A Demilitarization Fund should be set up to help developing countries reduce their military commitments, and global military spending should be reduced to $500 billion by the end of the decade.

States should undertake immediate negotiation of a convention on the curtailment of the arms trade- including provision for a mandatory arms register and the prohibition of state financing or subsidy of arms export.

QUOTED FROM: A Call To Action, Summary of Our Global Neighbourhood, the report of the Comiision on Global Governance