Global Disarmament

When the Cold War ended, a new world order was supposed to emerge -- one marked by cooperation rather than confrontation. Many thought the world would become a place where peace would reign and the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction would be confined to the scrap heap of history.

Hans Blix, the former chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, said at an international conference in Berlin this week that the recipe for a better and safer world was still there.

"Humankind has not become any kinder or wiser, but greater proximity between nations and their accelerating interdependence are factors that make effective multilateral cooperation in disarmament indispensable and inevitable," Blix said at the meeting being held in Berlin on Monday and Tuesday.

But new threats to regional and global peace had emerged, he said, especially after the terrorist attacks on the United States and the increasing number of countries who are achieving or aspiring to nuclear power status.

More important now than ever

A question heatedly discussed at the conference, which is being hosted by Germany's Foreign Office, was whether or not multilateral treaties such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) were still relevant today.

Patricia Lewis, head of the United Nations Disarmament Institute, said she believed they were.

"In a world of uncertainty, one of the things we have to fall back on is the rule of law and norms that have been set," Lewis said. "These treaties form that framework and have given us a structure to work within in these uncertain times."

Lewis said the importance of such treaties had increased rather than decreased.

However, she said their relevance depended on the fact that all major political players in the world were united in their goals. The US-led war in Iraq, participants said, as well as China's recent shooting down of a satellite in outer space were examples that indicated that national interests still prevailed.

EU has to pull together

Peter Stania from the International Institute for Peace in Vienna criticized the fact that not even the European Union was able to show unity among its members.

"It's not only that Britain has special interests, France as well has a different position, and Germany is trying to play a more united European card," Stania said. "As long as we march divided, we will not have disarmament and less conflicts."

Over the past decade, reviews of existing disarmament treaties have revealed an bleak picture. Iran, Pakistan and North Korea have violated the NPT; the United States continues to defy a ban on nuclear testing; and a treaty banning the development of chemical and biological weapons is under permanent threat from a number of countries.

Even so, Lewis said she was confident that the issue of global disarmament would soon make a comeback on the world political stage. Even a problem such as Iran's nuclear ambitions could be resolved, she said.

"I'm actually very optimistic," Lewis said. "I think if you imagine that the world can continue having five states that are allowed to possess nuclear weapons and no one else, then that is unsustainable."

Lewis said there was only one path to take -- toward a world without nuclear weapons.