Address by the UN Secretary-General

The initiative by the Secretary-General, António Guterres, to develop his agenda for disarmament was motivated by the deteriorating international security environment, including a return to Cold War tensions, internal armed conflicts in some regions with devastating impact on civilians, and the seeming neglect of arms control as a means for building trust, mitigating risk and ensuring sustainable peace and security. These developments have underscored an urgent need to restore disarmament in all its aspects as an integral component of the peace and security agenda of the United Nations.

The Secretary-General’s disarmament agenda will be comprehensive, addressing weapons of mass destruction and other strategic weapons, conventional weapons and their impact on civilians, and future technologies and weapon systems. His agenda will be comprised of practical and implementable actions with the aim of re-energizing the international discourse, offering new perspectives on the traditional agenda in order to mobilize new constituencies, and identifying areas where more coherent and collaborative efforts of the United Nations system can better support Member States’ responsibilities for advancing disarmament.