Arms Reduction Coalition

[1] ARC campaigns to encourage the United Nations member states to 'Implement Article 26 of the UN Charter' by reducing the diversion for armaments of the world's human and economic resources by a set percentage each year.

This policy is or has been advocated by other organisations such as the International Peace Bureau, World Bank,[3] some members of the United Nations (such as France in 1955, The Soviet Union in 1956, Brazil in 1964, by Romania in 1975 and 1977 and Senegal in 1978) and The General Assembly (in 1973 as Resolution 3093); usually under the principle of Disarmament for Development.

[4][5] The idea can be traced back [4] to 1955 when the French Prime Minister Edgar Faure tabled a plan at a meeting of the UN Disarmament Commission[5]; proposing the "progressive reduction of military expenditures and the potential reallocation of the resources thus released to tasks of 'development' and 'mutual assistance' in order to improve the standard of living of the developing countries".

[6] Similar resolutions have been adopted by other groups[7] such as United Nations Association UK,[8] The Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century,[9] German Party of Democratic Socialism and Greenpeace.

The Arms Reduction Coalition (ARC): "Concerned by the obstacles, threats and difficulties that the large amounts of arms in circulation pose to the maintenance of peace and security and to Non-Governmental Organisations and UN departments in carrying out their work; Concerned by the disproportionately large amount of the world’s human and economic resources being expended on arms; Recalling that Article 26 of the United Nations (UN) Charter calls for "the least diversion for Armaments of the world’s human and economic resources"; Calls upon the United Nations General assembly, to agree, and for all signatory States of The United Nations to ratify, a legally binding instrument: a) to reduce the diversion for Armaments of their State's human and economic resources by between one and five percent per year; b) to establish and maintain systems that enable annual independent verification and auditing of their States compliance; c) to establish a United Nations mechanism to facilitate implementation; dealing with such matters as non-compliance, concessions, reporting and auditing standards, and the publication of targets and achievements annually; d) that specifies how amounts diverted from Armaments are to be used on State and UN programmes such as poverty reduction, sustainable development, conflict prevention, peaceful resolution of conflict, protecting the vulnerable, maintaining the environment; and effective and efficient implementation of the legally binding Instrument; e) that gives full opportunities to non-governmental organisations and other non state actors to make their contributions in implementation, compliance and allocation of resources; f) that requires review and re-commitment by the States to the legally binding Instrument after a period of between 10 and 25 years."