United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
-based
non-profit
A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...
non-governmental organisation
A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...
which campaigns for a reduction in the resources spent on arms and the military and for those resources to be diverted to programmes that benefit humanity and the earth; such as
poverty reduction
Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty. Measures, like those promoted by Henry George in his economics classi ...
,
sustainable development
Sustainable development is an approach to growth and Human development (economics), human development that aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.United Nations General ...
, protecting the vulnerable, systems for peaceful
Conflict resolution
Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of Conflict (process), conflict and Revenge, retribution. Committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively co ...
and maintaining the environment.
The Arms Reduction Coalition (ARC) is a calling for the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
(UN) to agree a legally binding instrument requiring
United Nations member states
The United Nations comprise sovereign states and the world's largest intergovernmental organization. All members have equal representation in the UN General Assembly.
The Charter of the United Nations defines the rules for admission of ...
to reduce the amount of resources spent on arms by 1% - 5% per year for a period of 10 to 25 years. This is based on Article 26 of the
United Nations Charter
The Charter of the United Nations is the foundational treaty of the United Nations (UN). It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the United Nations System, UN system, including its United Nations System#Six ...
which states "In order to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources, the
UN Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
shall be responsible for formulating…, plans to be submitted to the Members of the United Nations for the establishment of a system for the regulation of Armaments".
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
in London.
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
The International Peace Bureau (IPB; ), founded in 1891, is one of the world's oldest international peace federations. The organisation was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910 for acting "as a link between the peace societies of the various ...
,
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...
, 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. The idea can be traced back /sup> to 1955 when the French Prime Minister
Edgar Faure
Edgar Jean Faure (; 18 August 1908 – 30 March 1988) was a French politician, lawyer, essayist, historian and memoirist who served as Prime Minister of France in 1952 and again between 1955 and 1956.UN Disarmament Commission/sup>; 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".
According to its official website, the goals of the ARCUK were indirectly accomplished through the creation of the
Arms Trade Treaty
The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is a multilateral treaty that regulates the international trade in conventional weapons.
It entered into force on 24 December 2014. 116 states have ratified the treaty, and a further 26 states have signed but not rat ...
Bruce Kent
Bruce Kent (22 June 1929 – 8 June 2022) was an English Catholic former priest who became a political activist in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), holding various leadership positions in the organisation.
Early life
Born on 22 Ju ...
,
Peter Archer, Baron Archer of Sandwell
Peter Kingsley Archer, Baron Archer of Sandwell, (20 November 1926 – 14 June 2012), was a British lawyer and Labour Party politician. He was a Member of Parliament from 1966 until 1992, when he became a life peer. Between 1974 and 1979 he w ...
,
Alice Mahon
Alice Mahon (; 28 September 1937 – 25 December 2022) was a British trade unionist and Labour politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Halifax from 1987 until 2005.
Mahon was a left-winger who was a member of the Socialist Ca ...
,
Federico Mayor
Federico Mayor Zaragoza (27 January 1934 – 19 December 2024) was a Spanish scientist, scholar, politician, diplomat and poet. He served as the director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) f ...
Zaragoza,
Linda Melvern
Linda Melvern is a British investigative journalist. Early in her career, she worked for ''The Evening Standard'' and then ''The Sunday Times'' (UK), including on the investigative Insight Team. Since leaving the newspaper she has written seven b ...
.
Individuals and organisations from around the world are encouraged to join ARC by endorsing the ARC Resolution or becoming a member. Organisations from all continents have endorsed the ARC resolution. Similar resolutions have been adopted by other groups such as United Nations Association UK, The Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century, German Party of Democratic Socialism and
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by a group of Environmental movement, environmental activists. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its biod ...
.
ARC resolution
ARC's campaign is driven by this United Nations style resolution. Supporters and members are requested endorse this resolution.
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."
* ''The ARC Resolution has been translated into several languages''.
ARC publications
Some publications distributed by ARC (under the
Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
Attribution ShareAlike licence) include:
* ''ARC Petition''
* ''Arms No More'' by Vijay Mehta, is a comprehensive study of small arms, light weapons and weapons of mass destruction – nuclear, biological and chemical. It outlines global efforts to develop and implement effective projects to limit the use and spread of small arms, which stands as a critical challenge to human security.
* ''ARC Music''.
Sources
Doc: DC/71, annex 16. ''France: draft agreement on the financial supervision of disarmament and the allocation for peaceful purposes on the funds made available''