CHALLENGING MILITARIZED SECURITY: DELEGITIMIZATION OF WAR

2014 Commission on Status of Women (CSW 58):
CHALLENGING MILITARIZED SECURITY:
DELEGITIMIZATION OF WAR
Violence against women is and always has been integral to war and all armed conflict. It pervades all forms of militarism. It is likely to endure so long as the institution of war is a legally sanctioned instrument of state, so long as arms are the means to political, economic or ideological ends. To reduce violence against women ; to eliminate its acceptance as a “regrettable consequence” of armed conflict; to exorcize it as a constant of the “real world” requires the abolition of war, the renunciation of armed conflict and the full and equal political empowerment of women as called for by the UN Charter.
– Betty Reardon, International Institute on Peace Education

BACKGROUND

For many years the member states of the United Nations incurred obligations and made commitments to reallocate military expenses and to embrace disarmament
AWARE THAT the States Members of the United Nations in 1969 called for:
The achievement of general and complete disarmament and the channeling of the progressively released resources to be used for economic and social progress for the welfare of people everywhere and in particular for the benefit of developing countries (article 27 (a) XX1V of 11 December 1969 Declaration on Social Welfare, Progress and Development)
AWARE AS WELL that the States Members of the United Nations in 1975 made a commitment that “Scientific Technological Progress should be in the Interests of Peace and for the Benefit of humanity.”
RECALLING THAT the States Members of the United Nations In1996 affirmed:
“The waste and misuse of resources in war and armaments should be prevented. All countries should make a firm commitment to promote general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control, in particular in the field of nuclear disarmament. Part of the resources thus released should be utilized so as to achieve a better quality of life for humanity and particularly the peoples of developing countries.” (II, 12 Habitat 1).
COGNIZANT THAT the States Members of the United Nations solemnly proclaimed:
“The peoples of our planet have a sacred right to peace.” (1. Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace approved by General Assembly resolution 39/11 of 12 November 1984)
RECALLING THAT the States Members of the United Nations in 1984 affirmed:
their determination to make further collective efforts aimed at strengthening peace and international security and eliminating the threat of war, and agreed that in order to facilitate the process of disarmament, it was necessary to take measures and pursue policies to strengthen international peace and security and to build confidence among states. (Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace approved by General Assembly resolution 39/11 of 12 November 1984)
AWARE THAT the States Members of the United Nations in 1985 affirmed:
the first special session devoted to disarmament encompassing all measures thought to be advisable in order to ensure that the goal of general and complete disarmament under effective international control is realized. This document describes a comprehensive programme of disarmament, including nuclear disarmament; which is important not only for peace but also for the promotion of the economic and social development of all, particularly in the developing countries, through the constructive use of the enormous amount of material and human resources otherwise expended on the arms race. (Para. 13, The Nairobi Forward Looking Strategy, 1985)
RECALLING THAT the Member States of the United Nations in 1985 at Nairobi stated that
safeguarding world peace and averting a nuclear catastrophe is one of the most important tasks today in which women have an essential role to play, especially by supporting actively the halting of the arms race followed by arms reduction and the attainment of a general and complete disarmament under effective international control… (Para. 25 Nairobi Forward Looking strategies for the Advancement of Women, 1985)
NOTING THAT the Members of States the United Nations in 1986 reaffirmed that:
there is a close relationship between disarmament and development and that progress in the field of disarmament would considerably promote progress in the field of development and that resources released through disarmament measures should be devoted to the economic and social development and well-being of all peoples and, in particular, those of the developing countries. (Declaration on the Right to Development, General Assembly resolution 41/128 of 4 December 1986)
NOTING THAT the States Members of the United Nations, In 1992, made a commitment
“to reallocate resources presently committed to military purposes” (Agenda 21, 33.16) UNCED)
REMINDED THAT States Members of the United Nations in 1995 made a commitment
to …work actively towards general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control… (143(f) (i) Beijing Platform) and support negotiations and conclusions, without delay, of a universal and multilateral and effectively verifiable comprehensive nuclear-test ban treaty…nuclear disarmament and the prevention of the proliferation of nuclear weapons in all its aspects. (143 (f) (ii), Beijing Platform)
REMINDED ALSO THAT States Members of the United Nations made a commitment
to take positive steps to ensure peace for the advancement of women and, recognizing the leading role
that women have played in the peace movement (Art. 28 Beijing Platform) and “to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls.” (Art. 29 Beijing Platform). And the important role, for women under UNSC1325, to prevent war.

AWARE THAT States Members of the United Nations made a commitment
to consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them. (Article 19 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007)

AWARE THAT the global annual military budget is 700 years of the UN regular budget or almost 3,000 years of the new UN women’s agency, UN Women THAT true security is NOT “human security” (Iraq 1991), “Humanitarian intervention” (Kosovo, 1999), “Responsibility to Protect”, “Pre-emptive/ preventive” attack (Iraq, 2003) (Haiti, 2004, Libya, 2011) or “will to intervene” (Mali, 2013) BUT common security.
Common security was a concept initiated by Olof Palme, a former president of Sweden, and has been extended to embody the following objectives:
* to achieve a state of peace, and disarmament; through reallocation of military expenses and
delegitimization of war
• to create a global structure that respects the rule of law and the International Court of Justice;
• to enable socially equitable and environmentally sound employment, and ensure the right to development and social justice;
• to promote and fully guarantee respect for human rights including labour rights, women’s rights civil and political rights, indigenous rights, social and cultural rights – right to food, right to housing, right to safe drinking water and sewage, right to education and right to universally accessible not for profit health care system;
• to ensure the preservation and protection of the environment, the respect for the inherent worth of nature beyond human purpose, the reduction of the ecological footprint e move away from the current model of unsustainable and excessive overconsumption furthering the cult of war
Common security through the adherence to the rule of international law will lead to the fulfillment, under Security Council 1325 – of the important role of women, to prevent war. And end the violence against women that is both a result and a tool of war.
RECOMMENDATIONS
IN THE LIGHT OF THESE PRECENDENTS AND POSSIBLITIES:

WE CALL FOR the years of international rhetoric to be translated into action.
WE CALL FOR the delegitimization of war. Given the social, economic, ecological, health and psychological consequences of war, under no circumstance or condition is war legal or just.
WE CALL FOR the 1.7 trillion dollars global annual military budget to be reduced by at least 50% and for the savings to be reallocated to promoting true global security
WE CALL FOR the United Nations , to agree that all States will reform their domestic laws and judicial procedures so that they provide effective and meaningful protections for the rights of indigenous women within their jurisdictions, and to take steps, immediately, to ensure the elimination of the direct and indirect impacts that militarization and the development and utilization of nuclear processes/ byproducts have on indigenous people, particularly indigenous women and girls*(using the transfer of capital money no longer being used to fund war) *Note., who are the most severely impacted, as a result of various States intentionally identifying and locating industries related to militarization, nuclear facilities and related waste disposal sites on their legally protected homelands.
WE CALL UPON all governments to help prevent war by invoking the UN charter’s chapter VI; the peaceful resolution of disputes.
WE CALL FOR the United Nations to promote common security and call upon the member states to sign and ratify international covenants and conventions which embody obligations and commitments related to common security.
WE CALL UPON the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to calculate the contribution of militarism to greenhouse gas emissions.
WE CALL FOR the disbanding of NATO and the relying on UN Peacekeeping instead
WE CALL FOR the conversion, to peaceful purposes, of military bases (including those on foreign soil).