“Weapons Development and Disarmament: Challenges and Opportunities”, organised by the Strategic Concept for the Removal of Arms and Proliferation – SCRAP

Thank you Ambassador [H.E. Mrs. Zhanar Aitzhanova]
Excellencies,
Distinguished panelists,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

For as long as people have fought wars, they have sought to gain an edge by improving their armaments, by leveraging innovation to defeat their enemies. As a result, the nature of warfare changed dramatically over the centuries.

And every such change was greeted with a mistaken sense of euphoria.

In 1621, the poet John Donne predicted that cannons – then a breathtaking military innovation – would mean that wars would, and I quote: “come to quicker ends than heretofore, and the great expense of blood is avoided.” We now know of course that cannons have neither made wars less bloody, nor less expensive. And views have not changed today, when many now talk about robots as if they will solve the ethical issues of war.

The opposite is true. Revolutionary technologies are game-changers not because they solve all problems, but because they force new questions upon us that a generation earlier people did not imagine we would be asking ourselves.

To explore these questions is the purpose of today’s event and I am grateful to SCRAP (the Strategic Concept for the Removal of Arms and Proliferation Project) for organizing this timely discussion with such a distinguished panel of experts.

Although we are at a turning point where new technologies require such discussions, this is not happening – and it is not happening because, to put it bluntly, disarmament is in crisis. This crisis is the result of four distinct but related developments:

̶ First, the threat posed by conventional weapons of mass destruction remains and, indeed, seems to be gathering force.
̶ Second, the arms race in robotics and artificial intelligence is gaining speed. In many instances these are technologies developed for commercial use and repurposed as features to existing or new weapons technologies.
̶ Third, the spectre of superpower confrontation is no longer unimaginable.
̶ And fourth, the architecture and instruments we put in place to deal with these issues are not working as intended – including, most worryingly, the Conference on Disarmament, which is entering its 22nd year of deadlock.

This deadlock is a function, primarily, of the difficulty in reaching consensus between states with deeply rooted national security positions. However – and this is important to recognize – the challenge of the Conference is not so much the absence of political will, but rather the confrontation of political wills.

Despite this bleak picture, there is momentum that we can leverage.

First, our Secretary-General has clearly re-affirmed the importance of disarmament as a key priority firmly embedded in the UN prevention agenda. To explore new avenues for achieving progress on disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control, the UN is currently preparing a report for the 73rd General Assembly in September. This report will explicitly include recommendations on new weapons technologies.

Second, inspired by the 2030 Agenda’s new spirit of collaboration across disciplines and professions, there is a growing recognition that we cannot leave disarmament to states alone. A new mindset is gaining currency that we need to elevate the voice of civil society; that we need to solicit input from the private sector; and that we need to listen to academics and scientists.

This is true for conventional disarmament, but it is absolutely indispensable when dealing with new weapons technologies.

Take cyberspace: It has become a battlefield co-equal with combat on land, sea or air. But cyberspace is essentially owned and operated by the private sector. It is often private property, whether it’s submarine cables or datacenters or servers or laptops or smartphones. It is simply inconceivable to develop effective security governance for these technologies without at least consulting those who operate and own it.

And regarding civil society: the last year has clearly demonstrated their potential to instill new direction and incubate new thinking in the disarmament debate. I am thinking in particular about the Nobel Peace Prize recipient ICAN, but I could name many more actors throughout International Geneva that deserve credit.

Indeed, I am grateful to everyone in this room – particularly the young students among you – for being part of our collective effort, for taking a stand for peace and security. Neither will be sustainable without a strengthened disarmament machinery.

Thank you again for being here today – I wish you productive discussions.