Although the United Nations has achieved much since its creation in 1945, one of its worst failures has been its inability to implement article 26 of the Charter. This has resulted in the widespread proliferation of arms (both military and private), an excessive amount of resources being spent on arms, poverty, destruction, and millions of deaths.

The Arms Reduction Coalition(ARC) is calling for the United Nations (UN) to agree a legally binding instrument requiring UN member States to reduce the amount of resources spent on arms by between 1 and 5 percent per year for a period of 10 to 25 years. This is based on Article 26 of the UN Charter 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 Security Council 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".

Action for UN Renewal exists to campaign for the United Nations to agree a legally binding instrument to reduce resources spent on arms and realise the spirit and meaning of Article 26 of the Charter. We are defined and guided by the ARC Resolution.

We believe our proposal is reasonable, achievable and presents a pragmatic way of implementing Article 26 from where the world is today. Essentially the proposal is for all the Member States of the UN to make a legally binding commitment to reduce the amount of the world's human and economic resources diverted to armaments by a small (one to five) agreed percentage each year. The resources saved can be used for poverty reduction, sustainable development. peaceful resolution of conflict systems, maintaining the environment etc. A strong emphasis is placed on implementation; requiring Members to have systems in place so that their resource figures can be independently verified / audited each year. Members will be required to recommit every ten to twenty years, so that if the proposal does not work they can revert back to spending the world's precious resources making things to kill people.

We hope to publish comments / papers and keep you informed on the progress of the proposal in future. Support, comments and input for you and all interested parties are welcomed so that the proposal can be evaluated, analysed, debated, refined and a consensus reached before submission to the United Nations General Assembly.

The ARC 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) for reducing 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;

Means to include:

• Addressing decision-makers, particularly in Government and Parliament.
• Working with journalists.
• Working with academics, teachers and other educators.
• Addressing the public directly, through meetings, articles and leaflets.
• Co-operating with organisations working for peace, disarmament, human rights, development, the environment, international law and other issues related to the Arms Reduction.

Also refer to Some ARC resolutions. for various resolutions such as
People's Assembly resolution
Armaments Resolution at the 2006 UNA-UK Conference.
The Dresden Appeal
We the Peoples Millennium Forum Declaration and Agenda for Action.
The Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century
UNA Policy 2001
Charter of the Economic Rights and Duties of States
Greenpeace at UN Summit 2006

We are asking for any support you can give. This could include :
1) Endorsing the ARC resolution and / or becoming a member of ARC.
2) Offer of resources (human, financial, physical)
3) Invite us to speak at a local meeting.
4) Write or approach academics, experts, policy makers etc. to write papers (that we can publish) on ARC's resolution and aims.
5) Informing others of ARC (e.g. discussing ARC with friends, distributing our leaflet to your organisation's members, hold local meeting).

Set up a Local ARC.
ARC is an international campaign. Please contact us for details of similar organisations in your country or if you are interested in setting up a national or local Arms Reduction Coalition.