represented by Anastasia Albert and Maria Schuld

The General Assembly First Committee (GA 1st) addresses issues like the disarmament of conventional weapons and related international security questions. Constituting one of the main committees of the GA, every UN Member State has a right to be represented in the GA 1st. Currently there are 192 Member States sitting in the committee. Entities with observer status include Palestine, the European Union, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

The agenda of every meeting is set out by the General Assembly and cannot be introduced by the committee itself. The committee is entitled to give recommendations on the regulations of weapons as they relate to international peace and security. However, resolutions passed by the GA 1st are considered to be merely proposals and must be passed by the GA Plenary in order to become UN resolutions. In its voting procedures the GA 1st is similar to the GA as every state has one vote and the majority of votes in favour of a resolution confirms it.

The agenda proposed by the General Assembly for the NMUN conference was the following:

1. Illicit Arms Sales;

2. The Control of Conflict Minerals;

3. The Privatization of War: Employing and Arming Independent Militias.

Spain sought to adopt the agenda as it stood, since the first two topics were of high priority, whereas the third topic was slightly controversial for the country. During the first informal caucus session the EU bloc met in one corner of the conference room in order to work out a common position on the agenda. However, it was soon clear that this would be more difficult than expected, since co-ordination was almost impossible due to the fact that every country wanted to take the leading role. Nevertheless, there were a lot of African and Asian countries with the preference to discuss the topic of illicit arms sales as the first topic, which made advocating for the preferred agenda in other blocs easier. Fortunately, the agenda was adopted as it originally was and debating started with countries exchanging their positions and trying to co-ordinate themselves.

With regard to the first topic of illicit arms sales Spain was active in all relevant initiatives, such as the United Nations Programme of Action (PoA) to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. It was therefore important for us to stress the successful implementation of the PoA and support steps taken towards a legally binding International Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) based on existing regional regulations to eradicate the illicit trade of Conventional Arms. Additionally, Spain wanted to promote the UN Register of Conventional Arms, and undertake efforts to include a separate category on SALW. Close co-operation within international and regional organisations concerning this issue was another important aspect to ensure that efforts in border control as well as capacity building could be successful in the future. This meant that existing initiatives, such as the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Sales, the Forum for Security Cooperation (FSC) and the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies needed to be included in the different working papers.

During the conference, we worked out another initiative we tried to promote. This idea included the establishment of a separate Fund for Financing Capacity Building in Developing Countries, which would be part of the Official Development Assistance (ODA). We even worked on a separate working paper dealing with the financial aspect of capacity building activities with countries like Myanmar and Laos. Unfortunately, we did not manage to introduce this working paper, since there were 15 other papers already in the process of being introduced to the chair and time was elapsing.

Within the EU bloc it was again very difficult to work together, though Spain holding the EU Presidency tried to co-ordinate the whole group by splitting it in three working groups, which would then work on different aspects of the topic and later merge their work into one large working paper. In the end, the EU working paper was a long document that simultaneously merged with parts of the African bloc and parts of the Asian bloc. Spain managed to include almost all relevant aspects, though in the beginning it was not very easy to be taken seriously by certain countries taking the lead in the writing process. In the end, however, Spain succeeded in deleting one controversial aspect from the working paper, namely stockpile management as a condition for monetary aid from the World Bank and the IMF in order to build capacity.

Overall, the working paper included almost all relevant aspects relating to illicit arms sales, including capacity building for developing nations, education and raising public awareness in conflict-affected areas, the creation of export control systems, improving stockpile management, strengthening tracing systems, the destruction of arms and the reporting on SALW by every Member State to the UN Register of Conventional Arms, to name just the most important points. This draft resolution managed to gain broad support and was adopted with a vote of 120 member states voting in favour.

Another successful contribution of Spain was the working paper sponsored by France, Italy, Spain and others. This working paper approached the problem from a different angle by stating that peace negotiations in conflict areas are a precondition of disarmament and the elimination of illicit arms sales. The paper strengthened the role of NGOs in fostering peace and engaging in DDR programmes. Spain was active in gaining broad support for this working paper by lobbying within the Latin American country bloc. In the end, this draft resolution also passed like most of the 15 draft resolutions, which had been introduced. Spain was in favour for those that gained broad support from Member States, which built on consensus and included the main aspects for combating illicit arms sales.

However, we voted against a resolution in cases of existing controversies or ambiguities, for example one draft resolution, which would establish a development project occupied with building schools in exchange for disarmament. We certainly considered that this is already done by Peacekeeping Missions and needed a mandate in the affected country.

One Spanish initiative we managed to include in a draft resolution dealing with public awareness and education was the Alliance of Civilisations (‘Proclaims 2020 to be the year of SALW awareness beginning with the Knotting the Gun Campaign to include: Formulation of school curriculum and educational campaigns, as conducted through the Alliance of Civilisations initiative by Spain and Turkey’). This resolution was also supported and in the end adopted by the majority of Member States.

All in all, the whole debate and lobby work was very fruitful and we were amazed by the high quality of working papers and the level of debate. Despite the large size of the committee, Spain had the chance to speak once in front of the Member States and in doing so reminded all nations to work together and become the ‘United Nations, not the Divided Nations’. The main strategy was to present ourselves as a mediator talking to all countries and bringing countries together in order to merge their working papers. This strategy was very successful since we always knew, which countries were working on which papers and could therefore include Spain’s position and point out similarities between certain papers. It was especially satisfying to see that two draft resolutions Spain supported as a signatory were selected for the voting procedure in the General Assembly Plenary and finally adopted by the majority of states. Due to the complexity of the first topic, the durability of debate and the large size of the committee there was unfortunately no time left to discuss the other two topics.