Global, regional and other approaches to conventional weapons issues

While questions of the regulation and reduction of conventional arms and armed forces have been on the disarmament agenda of the United Nations since its creation, the need to address conventional disarmament in a comprehensive fashion was increasingly recognized during the 1980s. Despite the continued threats posed by nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the end of the cold war and the onset of a wave of intra-State conflicts in the 1990s have focused renewed attention on the issue of conventional weapons and particularly small arms and light weapons. In efforts to address the issue of conventional arms, the international community has taken two basic approaches: the banning, reduction or placing of restrictions on arms through treaties, on the one hand, and the promotion of transparency and confidence-building on the other. These approaches have been applied at the subregional, regional and global levels.

Related Subject(s): Disarmament