Abstract
In September 2015, the United Nations adopted a new set of global benchmarks, officially known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and earmarked with a very ambitious achievement-deadline of 2030. The SDGs aim at achieving a better and more sustainable future for all. With this, the international community has now started to speak in a new language at the centre of which lies a renewed commitment to universal peace and larger freedom. Building on the freshness of the theoretical framework of the SDGs, and its peculiar relevance for a world free from human suffering, this Chapter aims at contributing modestly in narrowing an existing knowledge gap about the link between denuclearisation and the SDGs. It does this by critically analysing aspects of the SDGs that are directly related with the on-going global effort of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. This will involve an examination of the suitability of the analytical vocabulary of the SDGs for nuclear disarmament, including interrogation of the extent to which the conceptual resources of the SDGs can add a momentum to contemporary discourse on denuclearization. It is true that the SDGs do not use language, which speaks directly to the danger of global nuclear holocaust, from which there is zero chance of achieving the SDGs themselves. However, the general understanding and the most important departure point is that the SDGs, regardless of any shortcomings they may have, provide a rich analytical framework that can be appositely utilised in strengthening the global call for the eradication of nuclear weapons.
Sustainable development cannot be realized without peace and security; and peace and security will be at risk without sustainable development.
Agenda 2030
United Nations, Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, A/RES/70/1, 2015, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20web.pdf (hereinafter ‘Agenda 2030’), para 35.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1 July 1968), 729 UNTS 161.
- 2.
Nigel D. White, ‘The UN, Great Power Security Governance, and Nuclear Deterrence’, presentation made at the ‘Nuclear Disarmament Colloquium’, organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Geneva, 15 April 2019. See Chap. 12 ‘Understanding Nuclear Deterrence within the International Constitutional Architecture’.
- 3.
United Nations, Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, A/RES/70/1, 2015, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20web.pdf (hereinafter ‘Agenda 2030’), Preamble.
- 4.
Id.
- 5.
Id., para 35.
- 6.
A concept borrowed from Mikhail Gorbachev, ‘A Farewell to the Nuclear Sword of Damocles’, The Moscow Times, 17 October 2011, available at https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2011/10/17/a-farewell-to-the-nuclear-sword-of-damocles-a10214. The expression is attributed to former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who is quoted to have said: ‘every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment.’
- 7.
International Peace Bureau, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, and the World Future Council, ‘Move the Nuclear Weapons Money: A Handbook for Civil Society and Legislators’, 2016, available at http://www.nuclearweaponsmoney.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Move-the-Nuclear-Weapons-Money.pdf, p. 4.
- 8.
UN Secretary-General, Securing Our Common Future: An Agenda for Disarmament (United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs: New York, 2018) (hereinafter ‘An Agenda for Disarmament’), p. 4.
- 9.
This is the term used by the report itself [emphasis added]. See An Agenda for Disarmament, note 8 above, p. ix and p. 73.
- 10.
UNDP, Millennium Development Goals, 2015, https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sdgoverview/mdg_goals.html.
- 11.
Kumar and Roy 2018.
- 12.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Knowledge Platform, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300.
- 13.
Kumar and Roy 2018, note 11 above, 1153.
- 14.
SDGs Knowledge Platform, note 12 above.
- 15.
- 16.
Agenda 2030, note 3 above.
- 17.
Note 8 above.
- 18.
Such previous reports include: Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-keeping, 17 June 1992, A/47/277–S/24111); Kofi Anan’s The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies, 23 August 2004, S/2004/616; Ban Ki-Moon’s Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: Accountability for Prevention, 10 August 2017, A/71/1016–S/2017/556.
- 19.
UN News, ‘UN Chief Launches New Disarmament Agenda “to Secure Our World and Our Future”’, 24 May 2018, https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/05/1010551 .
- 20.
Id. An Agenda for Disarmament, note 8 above, p. 4.
- 21.
An Agenda for Disarmament, note 8 above, p. vii.
- 22.
Id., p. ix.
- 23.
Id., p. vii. This argument has a strong resonance with the so-called ‘humanitarian initiative’ on denuclearisation, as discussed, for example, by Mekonnen 2019a, pp. 175–176.
- 24.
An Agenda for Disarmament, note 8 above, p. ix.
- 25.
Id., p. 5.
- 26.
See in general Weiss 2003.
- 27.
Guterres 2018.
- 28.
The full version of the resolution is available at the online depository of the UN General Assembly Resolutions: https://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/1/ares1.htm.
- 29.
Fleck 2019, p. 404.
- 30.
White 2019.
- 31.
- 32.
- 33.
Guterres 2018.
- 34.
Id. Guterres further remarks: ‘We are one mechanical, electronic or human error away from a catastrophe that could eradicate entire cities from the map.’
- 35.
An Agenda for Disarmament, note 8 above, p. ix.
- 36.
Id., p. vii.
- 37.
Id., pp. 64–65.
- 38.
- 39.
An Agenda for Disarmament, note 8 above, p. 65.
- 40.
Mekonnen 2019b. As a scholar originating from the developing world, for obvious reasons, this author has peculiar interest in promoting the agenda of increased level of participation in disarmament talks by the developing world (in particular Africa). In promoting this idea, the author takes additional inspiration from, among other things, the following stated objective of The Ethiopian Yearbook of International Law (EtYIL), a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Springer. In explaining its main objective of publishing ‘scholarly works of the highest standard’ in the field of international law, the journal asserts that:
International law presents both opportunities and challenges to developing countries; however, their role in the making of the law and the scholarly analysis and debate that informs and underpins its evolution remains marginal. By choosing Ethiopia as its geographical focus, this Yearbook aims to contribute towards filling this gap and the long-term goal of rebalancing the narrative of international law in a manner that better reflects the diversity of its actors and subjects.
See the stated objective of the journal here: https://www.springer.com/series/15093; see also Yihdego et al. 2016, pp. 1–4 (the editorial of the journal’s maiden issue).
- 41.
An Agenda for Disarmament, note 8 above, p. 7.
- 42.
Id., p. 39.
- 43.
Id., p. 66.
- 44.
White 2019.
- 45.
An Agenda for Disarmament, note 8 above, p. ix.
- 46.
Id., p. 67.
- 47.
Agenda 2030, note 3 above.
References
Braithwaite R (2017) Armageddon and Paranoia: The Nuclear Confrontation. Profile Books, London
Coonrod J (2014) MDGs to SDGs: Top 10 Differences. 8 August 2014. https://advocacy.thp.org/2014/08/08/mdgs-to-sdgs/ (written for The Hugger Project)
Fleck D (2019) The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: Challenges for International Law and Security. In: Black-Branch JL, Fleck D (eds) Nuclear Non-Proliferation in International Law: Human Perspectives on the Development and Use of Nuclear Energy—Volume IV. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague, 395–415
Gorbachev M (2011) A Farewell to the Nuclear Sword of Damocles. The Moscow Times, 17 October 2011. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2011/10/17/a-farewell-to-the-nuclear-sword-of-damocles-a10214
Guterres A (2018) Remarks at the University of Geneva on the Disarmament Agenda. 24 May 2018 https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2018-05-24/launch-disarmament-agenda-remarks
International Peace Bureau, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, and the World Future Council (2016) Move the Nuclear Weapons Money: A Handbook for Civil Society and Legislators. 2016. http://www.nuclearweaponsmoney.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Move-the-Nuclear-Weapons-Money.pdf
Krause K (2007) Disarmament. In: Daws S, Weiss TG (eds) The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Kumar R, Roy P (2018) War and Peace: Is Our World Serious about Achieving Sustainable Development Goals by 2030? 7(6) Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, 1153–1156
Kumar S, Kumar N, Vivekadhish S (2016) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Addressing Unfinished Agenda and Strengthening Sustainable Development and Partnership. 41(1) Indian Journal of Community Medicine, 1–4
Mekonnen D (2019a) African Perspectives on Denuclearisation and the Use of Nuclear Energy for Peaceful Purposes. In: Black-Branch JL, Fleck D (eds) Nuclear Non- Proliferation in International Law: Human Perspectives on the Development and Use of Nuclear Energy—Volume IV. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague, pp. 167–187
Mekonnen D (2019b) The Role of Regional Collective Security Arrangements in Nuclear Disarmament: A Case Study of the African Union. Presentation made at the ‘Nuclear Disarmament Colloquium’, organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Geneva, 15 April 2019
Simpson G (2004) Great Powers and Outlaw States. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Sustainable Development Goals, Knowledge Platform (undated). https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300
UNDP (2015) Millennium Development Goals. https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sdgoverview/mdg_goals.html
United Nations (2015) Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, A/RES/70/1. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20web.pdf
UN News (2018) UN Chief Launches New Disarmament Agenda ‘to Secure Our World and Our Future’. 24 May 2018. https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/05/1010551
UN Secretary-General (1992) An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-keeping, 17 June 1992, A/47/277–S/24111
UN Secretary-General (2004) The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies, 23 August 2004, S/2004/616
UN Secretary-General (2017) Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: Accountability for Prevention, 10 August 2017, A/71/1016–S/2017/556
UN Secretary-General (2018) Securing Our Common Future: An Agenda for Disarmament. United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, New York
Weiss TG (2003) The Illusion of UN Security Council Reform. 26(4) The Washington Quarterly, 147–161
White ND (2019) The UN, Great Power Security Governance, and Nuclear Deterrence. Presentation made at the ‘Nuclear Disarmament Colloquium’, organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Geneva, 15 April 2019
Yihdego Z, Desta MG, Merso F (2016) Towards Rebalancing the Narrative of International Law. Ethiopian Yearbook of International Law 2016 (1)1, pp. 1–4
Acknowledgements
Research work for this chapter was conducted during my visiting fellowship at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. The institutional support of the Geneva Academy is gratefully acknowledged. Opinions expressed in this chapter are attributable only to the author.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 T.M.C. Asser Press and the authors
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mekonnen, D. (2020). The Link Between Nuclear Disarmament and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals. In: Black-Branch, J., Fleck, D. (eds) Nuclear Non-Proliferation in International Law - Volume V. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-347-4_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-347-4_14
Published:
Publisher Name: T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague
Print ISBN: 978-94-6265-346-7
Online ISBN: 978-94-6265-347-4
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)