UN chief says Conference on Disarmament leads to ‘no meaningful disarmament’ year after year

GENEVA

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday that the Conference on Disarmament has led to “no meaningful disarmament” year after year, emphasizing the need for urgent reform.

“For some time now, the conference on disarmament has not functioned as intended. In fact, this Conference has failed,” Guterres said in Geneva.

He repeated his call to accelerate the implementation of all nuclear disarmament commitments, including under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and to bring the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty into force.

“The great tragedy is that in the midst of these crises, the failure of this Conference to work as intended has contributed to a growing sense of cynicism about multilateral solutions,” he said. “Indeed, something is fundamentally wrong if a disarmament conference leads to no meaningful disarmament, year after year.”

“This Conference must be reformed, urgently,” he added.

The Conference on Disarmament is a multilateral disarmament forum to negotiate arms control and disarmament agreements. It meets annually in three separate sessions in Geneva.