The Ten Nation Committee on Disarmament (TNCD) was designed to address the issue of

nuclear disarmament Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: * Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics * Nuclear space * Nucle ...

during the Cold War. Created through the combination of a

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...

resolution and an agreement between the Big Four powers, the TNCD began work in March 1960. It remained intact from March - June 1960.

History

The 1960 Ten Nation Committee on Disarmament grew out of the 1959 Big Four meeting in

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

. At the meeting, the Big Four powers (United States, United Kingdom, France, Soviet Union) decided to resume previously halted disarmament talks and establish a new international negotiating forum. Blacker, Coit D., Duffy, Gloria, Stanford Arms Control Group. ''International Arms Control: Issues and Agreements'',
Google Books link
, Stanford University Press, 1984, pp. 109, (). Out of this agreement came the authority for a September 7, 1959

(UN) resolution of the UN Disarmament Commission, which created the Ten Nation Committee on Disarmament.LeGault, Albert and Fortman, Michel. ''A Diplomacy of Hope: Canada and Disarmament, 1945-1988'',
Google Books link
, McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 1992, p. 170-73, (). The short-lived TNCD officially began its work in

Geneva, Switzerland Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situ ...

on March 15, 1960. The TNCD's work was divided into two short sessions. The first spanned the period from March 15 - April 29, 1960, on the 29th the committee halted work because of the concurrent Paris Summit. The hiatus lasted until June 7, 1960 when the TNCD reconvened, once again in Geneva. The TNCD's second session was also short. On June 28, 1960 the committee adjourned indefinitely in the aftermath of the failure at the Paris Summit and the U-2 spy plane incident. Singh, Nagendra and McWhinney, Edward. ''Nuclear Weapons and Contemporary International Law'',
Google Books link
, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1989, p. 231, ().

Members

The committee was based on equal representation and included five

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republi ...

nations and five

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

nations.Schaerf, Carlo, and Barnaby, Frank. ''Disarmament and Arms Control: Proceedings, Volume 1970'',
Google Books link
, Taylor & Francis US, 1972, p. 80, (). Original members of TNCD: (

Western Bloc The Western Bloc, also known as the Free Bloc, the Capitalist Bloc, the American Bloc, and the NATO Bloc, was a coalition of countries that were officially allied with the United States during the Cold War of 1947–1991. It was spearheaded b ...

) -

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. (

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

) -

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Mac ...

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, a ...

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

.Legault, p. 170.

Results and legacy

The TNCD (1960) was one of several predecessors to the current UN disarmament organization, the

Conference on Disarmament The Conference on Disarmament (CD) is a multilateral disarmament forum established by the international community to negotiate arms control and disarmament agreements based at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. The Conference meets annually in ...

(CD).Disarmament
, The United Nations Office at Geneva, United Nations, 2009, accessed June 7, 2010. The TNCD preceded the

Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament The Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament (ENCD) was sponsored by the United Nations in 1961. The ENCD considered disarmament, confidence-building measures and nuclear test controls.Conference of the Committee on Disarmament The Conference of the Committee on Disarmament was a United Nations disarmament committee authorized by a General Assembly resolution. It began work in 1969 as the successor to the Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament. History The Conference ...

(CCD) (1969–78) until the CD was formed in 1979.

References

{{Authority control Arms control Diplomacy Cold War organizations 1960 in international relations