General and complete disarmament

The United Nations realized, almost from its inception, that the subject of disarmament was both one of its major concerns and a question requiring solution on a comprehensive basis. The importance of the subject is recognized implicitly in Article 26 of the Charter of the United Nations, which refers to a system for the regulation of armaments and states that the establishment of international peace and security should be promoted with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources. From the outset, the question of disarmament proved to be an immensely intractable one. So far, all attempts to deal with disarmament, in various forums and involving numerous approaches, both within and outside the United Nations, have met with little success.

Related Subject(s): Disarmament