International Women's Seminar on "Terrorism, the Global Order, Arms and Missile Defence": Palais des Nations, Geneva, March 6-8, 2002.

Since 1984, women have come together at the Palais des Nations on March 8th to celebrate the International Women's Day. This year they focused on "Terrorism, the Global Order, Arms and Missile Defense ".

From the perspective of women, the desired goal is to reduce arms and military budgets, to refrain from building new weapons systems and to invest the resources in economic and social development. The seminar provided a space for non-governmental organizations (NGO) and the NGO Working Group of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) to consider these issues and bring conclusions to the public and to the Conference on Disarmament.

A statement was initiated by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Protocol allowed that it could be read aloud by the President's colleague in the plenary--a man--to all the representatives at the United Nations on disarmament negotiations on the occasion of the International Women's Day!

This does not only shows an emblematic question on gender issue in the UN, but also the peak of the iceberg of a far more dramatic situation.

Despite their major concerns regarding the world situation on nuclear weapons, biological weapons, arms and missile defence, Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have virtually no official role in the work of the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, the sole global multilateral disarmament negotiating forum. This means that official relationship between multilateral disarmament institutions and NGOs is badly out of tune with current realities in international relations and with current needs. A key-note speaker during the seminar also expressed that the relative lack of formal NGO "access" to multilateral disarmament badly distorts the reality of the many important roles that civil society should play in disarmament affairs.

A statement was prepared with the view that the participants, at the Plenary of the Conference on Disarmament (CD), would have the chance to bring in women's concerns. It reads as follows:

"Distinguished Members of the Conference on Disarmament,

Thank you for giving the annual International Women's Seminar the opportunity to address you on the occasion of International Women's Day. This Day, which actually falls tomorrow, the 8th of March, has its roots in the centuries-old struggle of women, for the right to participate equally with men in making the decisions that determine the economic and social conditions of our societies, and having input in the question of war or peace.

As decades pass, women, particularly those living in regions of conflict, see ever more clearly how necessary peace and disarmament is to improving their working and living conditions and the achievement of gender equality. They see disarmament as a necessary means to limit conflict and prevent war, and to free resources to enable the improvement of economic and social conditions for themselves, their families and their communities.

Both female and males need and have a right to a stable and secure environment: women and their children in particular need resources for the full development of their potential. In turn, the fulfillment of their potential will strengthen security and stability for all, and they will contribute still more to the wealth of nations. In this spirit we wish to say here today the following:

When we addressed this Conference on 8th March last year (2001), we believed that you would break the stalemate that had beset this negotiating forum for several years. We were confident that the conditions were such that would allow you to proceed with the work plan set out in document CD/ 1624 of 24 August 2000--the "Amorim" proposal. We are deeply disappointed and much concerned that today, one year later, the Conference remains deadlocked. From what we heard and read then and what we had heard and read now, there is agreement that document CD/1624 is a good basis for consultations with a view to advancing disarmament talks and negotiations. Why then does the deadlock in this forum persist when there is such an obvious need for talks and genuine negotiations for nuclear disarmament, for preventing an arms race in outer space, and for a treaty on the fissile material cut-off, as well as for a comprehensive program for disarmament? Civil society has the right to an answer from this Conference. Disarmament issues are of concern to all people not only to governments and civil servants. That kind of security is everyone's concern, and to be informed is the people's democratic right.

Following the terrible events of 11th September in the USA, the international community rallied to the USA to join it in its response to the terrorist acts. Taking this collective stand kindled hopes for a return to genuine multilateral disarmament efforts. But the opposite is happening. The response to terrorism is primarily in military terms, resulting in demands for increased military expenditures to develop and produce more and newer arms; the insistence on developing a missile defence system risks setting off a new arms race and undermining a long-standing disarmament treaty. Sophisticated weaponry cannot protect us against these new kinds of terrorist acts. Perhaps sharing, and a better use of resources to improve peoples' lives would be a more effective means to eliminate terrorism.

Addressing the UN Symposium on Terrorism and Disarmament in New York last October, Mr. Jayantha Dhanapala, UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, called for a common strategy in the disarmament area to deal with the global challenge of eradicating terrorism. He pointed out that "weapons-based security not only perpetuates the wrong value system internationally, it also increases weapon stocks and the danger of their diversion to non-state actors and individual warlords with calamitous consequences. The increasing number and sophistication of weaponry and expensive defence systems will not protect us from terrorism just as the derogation from fundamental human rights cannot be justified by the fight against terrorism. Disarmament and non-proliferation norms contribute to the battle against terrorism. Short-term expediency should not lead us to compromise on these [norms] because this [abandoning them] will eventually feed terrorism as we have seen from the legacy of the Cold War."

Everything in the world demands that all states, in particular member states of the Conference on Disarmament, work together to prevent the eruption of a new arms race. Our planet cannot bear it. Money-wise, we can hardly afford the safe destruction of the weaponry that has been agreed to be destroyed. Let us not build more.

We are concerned by the trend to pull out of or dismiss as outdated, international treaties, such as the ABM treaty, or refuse to ratify treaties negotiated with patience over long periods of time, such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. We are deeply disappointed that the lengthy negotiations of a Protocol to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention came to naught.

We fear that the failure of the Conference on Disarmament to break the deadlock and begin genuine talks and negotiations in accordance with a generally acceptable work plan may have very negative repercussions on the review process of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. We fear that the Conference on Disarmament may have become incapable of fulfilling its mandate. What then is the future of disarmament? What is the future of this negotiating forum? We know that there have been periods in the past when the Conference on Disarmament (in its earlier form) was deadlocked. But this does not excuse the lack of movement today when conflicts multiply and arms kill thousands of innocent civilians, whole sectors of populations are massacred, individuals continue to be maimed by landmines still embedded in the soil, and the fear of the use of weapons of mass destruction by non-state actors grows. We understand fully that the Conference on Disarmament is a negotiating forum, but we must not forget that it deals in essence with very human and humanitarian issues. Knowing how women endure these many conflicts, we cannot help but be impatient by what seems to be a lack of a sense of urgency in coming to grips with disarmament and non-proliferation in the interests of all humanity.

Having stated this, we agree with, and join the delegates to the Conference who, while deploring the deadlock in this forum, have given recognition to positive developments in arms control and nonproliferation concerning small arms and light weapons, land mines and implementing the chemical weapons convention. We are also encouraged by the commitment of governments to continue to work on strengthening the biological (toxin) weapons convention, and strengthening the NPT.

We are gratified that the Conference has decided to again appoint Special Coordinators on the Review of the Conference Of Disarmament Agenda, on the Expansion of its Membership and on its improved and effective functioning. An agenda set in 1978 may well need some up-dating. As for the improved and effective functioning of the Conference on Disarmament, we express our hope that the issue of the relationship of Non Governmental Organizations to the Conference on Disarmament will be seriously taken up during this session. In a letter addressed to the President of the CD at the start of this session, the President of the Geneva-based NGO Committee for Disarmament expressed the NGOs desire to meet with the Special Coordinator to discuss how, in an appropriate way, NGOs might fruitfully contribute to the deliberations concerning this relationship. We fully support these proposals.

Distinguished Members of the Conference, it is early in this 2002 session and we maintain our optimism that you will overcome the present stalemate. In this connection we wish to recall the final paragraph of the UN Secretary-General's statement to the opening meeting of this year's first session of the CD: "The UN General Assembly unanimously reaffirmed multilateralism as a core principle in negotiations on disarmament and non-proliferation. The Assembly also emphasized the need for progress in multilateral cooperation on disarmament and non-proliferation, to contribute to global efforts against terrorism. It is my sincere hope that this conference will respond to these challenges with dynamism and determination". We share his hope.

From this year's International Women's Day Seminar, where we looked at Terrorism, the Global Order, Arms and Missile Defence, we call on you, and urge you to act now, in the common interest of all citizens on this planet. It is time to come to grips with the proliferation of arms and take a decisive step toward disarmament. We wish you strength in your work."