Extract from the report of the Secretary-General on the work of the organization

I have frequently said that the United Nations cannot hope to function effectively on the basis of the Charter unless there is major progress in the field of disarmament. Without such progress world order based on collective responsibility and international confidence cannot come into being. The question of disarmament lies at the heart of the problem of international order, for, in an environment dominated by the international arms race, military and strategic considerations tend to shape the over-all relations between States, affecting all other relations and transactions and disturbing the economy. We have become used to living in a highly unnatural state of affairs where the shadow of nuclear weapons and of vast and increasing arrays of conventional armaments has virtually come to be accepted as the normal light of day. In this profoundly unhealthy situation there can be no guarantee .that national independence and sovereignty, equality of rights, non-resort to force or to the threat of force, and the right of every people to decide its own destiny will in fact be honoured as the principles on which we have long agreed that the international order should be based. And yet it is all too obvious that the world is still ineffectively groping for the key to this problem of life and death.

Related Subject(s): Disarmament