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

nuclear disarmament Nuclear disarmament is the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons. Its end state can also be a nuclear-weapons-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated. The term ''denuclearization'' is also used to describe the pro ...

during the

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. Created through the combination of a

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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

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. 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'',
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, McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 1992, p. 170-73, (). The short-lived TNCD officially began its work in

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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

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nations and five

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

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

Western Bloc The Western Bloc, also known as the Capitalist Bloc, the Freedom Bloc, the Free Bloc, and the American Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of countries that were officially allied with the United States during the Cold War (1947–1991). While ...

) -

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. (

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...

) -

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Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

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.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 (ENDC) was sponsored by the United Nations in 1961. The ENDC 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