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The 22-23 September Summit for the Future opened with a hard fought consensus agreement on the 61-page Pact for the Future, reaching consensus, but with weak language on nuclear disarmament.
Described as a once-in-a-generation meeting designed to meet the challenges of a changing world, the Summit for the Future and agreed Pact look at a number of key issues- from a reaffirmation of the goals outlined in the Paris Agreement, to agreement to move towards UN Security Council reform. The Pact contains 56 actions to address issues from sustainable development, to transforming global governance.
Action 25 of the Pact focuses explicitly on nuclear weapons and nuclear war and commits all states to “make every effort to avert the danger of such a war”. While Action 26 is a recommitment to “uphold disarmament obligations and commitments.”
UN Secretary General António Guterres called the Pact the “first recommitment to multilateral nuclear disarmament in a decade”.
The language on nuclear weapons contained in Action 25 did not refer to any specific treaty, rather it recommitted to the goal of the total elimination of nuclear weapons and to “strengthening the disarmament and non-proliferation architecture and work to prevent any erosion of existing international norms and take all possible steps to prevent nuclear war”. This compromise language changed significantly from the zero draft of the document (PDF), which had much more specific calls to the nuclear armed states for concrete actions to increase transparency, reduce the role of nuclear weapons in security strategies, and engage in dialogue on strategic stability. The final draft was not nearly as explicit, though it does bear “in mind that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”.
After the adoption of the Pact, Enrique E. Manalo, Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the Philippines said “The Pact brings new vigor to our unfinished business of eliminating nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.”