Disarmament as Humanitarian Action: Making Multilateral Negotiations Work (DHA) is a research project carried out at the

United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) is a research institute of the United Nations focused on disarmament and international security. It was established in 1980 by the United Nations General Assembly with the stated ...

(UNIDIR). This project, launched in 2004, examines current difficulties for the international community in tackling

disarmament Disarmament is the act of reducing, limiting, or abolishing Weapon, weapons. Disarmament generally refers to a country's military or specific type of weaponry. Disarmament is often taken to mean total elimination of weapons of mass destruction, ...

and

arms control Arms control is a term for international restrictions upon the development, production, stockpiling, proliferation and usage of small arms, conventional weapons, and weapons of mass destruction. Historically, arms control may apply to melee wea ...

challenges.

Research activities

The DHA project's research focuses on two major themes: * Showing how humanitarian perspectives add value to disarmament and arms control work, and how proposing new ways these approaches could assist multilateral processes; * Examining multilateral negotiating processes more broadly to help practitioners "think outside the box" in their work by drawing on interdisciplinary research.

Publications

These themes are explored in three UNIDIR publications drawing from a range of contributors in civil society,

diplomacy Diplomacy is the communication by representatives of State (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, non-governmental institutions intended to influence events in the international syste ...

, and the policy and research fields: * ''Alternative Approaches in Multilateral Decision Making: Disarmament as Humanitarian Action'' (2005) introduced the project and examined difficulties for multilateral practitioners in negotiating effectively in disarmament and arms control; * ''Disarmament as Humanitarian Action: From Perspective to Practice'' (2006) offered practical insights for efforts to reduce human insecurity drawing on lessons learned from humanitarian contexts such as international work on explosive remnants of war, small arms and anti-personnel mines; and * ''Thinking Outside the Box in Multilateral Negotiations'' (2006) offered new practical tools and perspectives to assist the ongoing work of multilateral disarmament practitioners.

Current work

An emphasis of the DHA project's work in 2007 is to communicate its research findings to multilateral practitioners. As one element of these efforts, the DHA project created the Disarmament Insight initiative with the Geneva Forum. This initiative is prompting constructive and creative engagement in the multilateral disarmament community through a range of activities including workshops and online resources building on the previous respective work of both DHA and the Geneva Forum. The DHA project is supported by the Governments of

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

and

the Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

References

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External links

Official site
Arms control Military disbanding and disarmament