Disarming our world

Disarmament calls for ending the use of all kinds of arms – from firearms to landmines, and from nuclear bombs to chemical and biological weapons. It’s about a safer world. Having fewer arms helps to prevent and mitigate conflict, and reduces terrible human costs.

The United Nations has supported disarmament and arms control from its founding. In 1946, the very first resolution of the UN General Assembly established a commission to address concerns around atomic energy.

Unfortunately, the world today is still awash in weapons. Global military spending, already $2.4 trillion in 2023, continues to rise, with devastating effects. Illicit arms trading destabilizes regions, violates arms embargoes and feeds human rights abuses.

In 2021, small arms and light weapons, such as firearms, killed 260,000 people – one person every two minutes. In 70 countries and territories, some 110 million landmines and other explosives remain a painful, persistent legacy of conflicts. And at a moment of geopolitical tensions, the 12,500 nuclear weapons stockpiled around the world make the risk of a nuclear attack higher than at any moment since the Cold War.

Twenty-seven disarmament treaties cover different weapons and jurisdictions. They include the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and the Arms Trade Treaty. Since a popular movement successfully pushed for the passage of the Anti-personnel Landmine Treaty in the 1990s, for example, more than 55 million landmines have been destroyed. Over 30 countries have become mine-free. Although much more remains to be done, such agreements have guided steps towards disarmament.