• Raise global awareness of the negative impact of armed violence on sustainable development
• Further support the work of governments, international organisations, and civil society organisations that are committed to reducing armed violence within a development perspective
• Strengthen efforts to achieve a measurable reduction in the burden of armed violence and tangible improvements in human security by 2015.

The Geneva Declaration and its follow-up activities are both a diplomatic initiative and a framework for concrete action. While the Declaration is global in nature, its sponsors make determined efforts to test its global objectives through concrete measures such as regional meetings on armed violence and development and establishing focus countries in which the objectives of the the Geneva Declaration – and subsequent regional declarations – can be tested on the ground.

This seminar introduced the Geneva Declaration and the steps it has taken since 2006. The speakers illustrated the three programmatic “pillars” of this effort – advocacy, measurability and research, and programming – and demonstrated why each is essential to the goal of achieving measurable reductions in the burden of armed violence and improvements in human security by 2015, the year that has been set for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. The seminar also invited discussion about how this ambitious effort can be promoted, particularly by Geneva-based actors.

Nanotechnology concerns itself with the analysis and structuring of matter at the scale of molecules and even individual atoms; where the boundaries between physics, chemistry and biology break down. It is generally accepted that nanotechnology, together with biotechnology and information technology, will revolutionise the way human beings produce, communicate and live. Its predicted benefits include stronger but lighter materials, markedly smaller computers with immensely increased power, large and small autonomous robots, and targeted intervention within cells.

Like any scientific advance, nanotechnology can also be employed for military purposes. In ten to twenty years, military applications of nanotechnology could include micro combat-robots, missiles, satellites and sensors. Nanotechnology could also provide revolutionary materials for military vehicles and weapons, implants in soldiers’ bodies, metal-free firearms, autonomous fighting systems, and smaller chemical and biological weapons. Of course, such developments would also create qualitatively new possibilities for terrorist attacks. On the other hand, nanotechnology could also provide more effective ways of verifying arms control agreements.

The seminar thus highlighted the challenges for arms control posed by military applications of nanotechnology and identified options at the multilateral level for preventing a potential nanotechnological arms race.

Complex social phenomena – such as armed violence – involve a large number of individuals, who interact and influence each other’s perceptions and decisions. These phenomena are also influenced by many interdependent and interacting external factors. Traditional analytical approaches fail to reflect the full complexity of such systems, whose behaviour at the global level can be deeply counterintuitive.

We live in a world that is becoming ever more interconnected. Increasingly, contemporary international security problems are frequently complex rather than just complicated, something the DHA project has explored in Chapters 7 and 8 of its third volume of research, Thinking Outside the Box in Multilateral Disarmament and Arms Control Negotiations (2006). The spread of infectious disease; the diffusion of potentially dangerous dual-use technologies; terrorist networks; as well as trafficking in people, guns and drugs are just some examples of this.

There is a difference between what is complicated and what is complex. Grasping this difference would allow multilateral practitioners to move beyond received diplomatic wisdom regarding interdependence toward a real conceptual understanding about the characteristics and implications of complex social phenomena. While such insights are not solutions in themselves, they can suggest effective policy responses outside the realm of orthodox thinking.

In this light, the symposium addressed the following key questions:

• Why is complexity science relevant to disarmament practitioners?
• How might diplomats use a better understanding of complexity as a guide towards practical ways in which to (a) better frame human security challenges and (b) make multilateral negotiations more effective?
• What can the features of complex systems suggest to us about effective policy responses, for instance in curbing demand for small arms?
• Which limitations of complexity science approaches should multilateral disarmament practitioners be especially aware of?

This symposium provided a small group of participants with an opportunity to reflect upon and seek answers to these questions in a relaxed, informal atmosphere. To stimulate our thinking, and to provide a backdrop for the discussions, the meeting drew upon the innovative research being undertaken by the DHA project and by the speakers.

This symposium underlined the need to consider what cognitive and social characteristics common among all human beings mean for multilateral negotiations and human security. Not least, multilateral environments that promote and facilitate human contact, as well as the development of trust between practitioners enabling more flexible arrangements for dialogue and the emergence of cooperation, are more likely to be productive. This is something the DHA project described as cognitive ergonomics in its third volume of research, entitled Thinking Outside the Box in Multilateral Disarmament and Arms Control Negotiations (2006). Moreover, such thinking could generate new and more practical alternative approaches to alleviating human insecurity at the multilateral level than exist at present.

The symposium was aimed to encourage disarmament practitioners to think differently about human security in order to be more successful in their work. In line with that aim, this symposium provided a small group of participants with an opportunity to reflect upon this topic in a relaxed, informal atmosphere.

Prof. Paul Seabright
Professor of Economics, University of Toulouse

Dr. Robin Coupland
Adviser on armed violence and the effects of weapons, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

Over the last year-and-a-half, four Review Conferences related to disarmament and arms control have taken place: the 7th Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (May 2005); the 1st Review Conference of the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms (June/July 2006); the 3rd Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (November 2006); and the 6th Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention (November/December 2006).

What can we learn from these meetings? Why were some more successful than others? To what extent did they contribute to advancing multilateral work in their respective fields? What lessons should the international disarmament community draw from these Review Conferences in order to make progress on these and other issues in the future?

This symposium provided a small group of participants with an opportunity to reflect upon and seek answers to these questions in a relaxed, informal atmosphere. To stimulate our thinking, and to provide a backdrop for the discussions, the meeting was drawn upon the innovative research being undertaken by UNIDIR’s Disarmament as Humanitarian Action project and, in particular, on its forthcoming book entitled, “Thinking Outside the Box in Multilateral Disarmament and Arms Control Negotiations,” copies of which were available at the symposium

Mr. Eric Berman
Managing Director, Small Arms Survey

Mr. Richard Lennane
Secretary for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Political Affairs Officer, UN Department for Disarmament Affairs (UNDDA)

Mr. Louis Maresca
Legal Advisor, Mines/Arms Unit, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

Mr. Tim Caughley
Deputy Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament; and Director, Geneva Branch of the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs (UNDDA)

Dr. Patricia Lewis
Director, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR)

While non-state armed groups have always existed, there is still, despite some useful attempts, no clear consensus on how to describe or define them, or on what should be expected from them. Most armed conflicts today are intra-state and involve one or more non-state armed groups fighting government forces or each other. As parties to these conflicts, armed groups are often implicated in activities that undermine human security -- e.g. the use of anti-personnel mines and child soldiers, the misuse of small arms and light weapons, and the conduct of kidnapping and torture. Consequently, the humanitarian and human rights communities constantly struggle with ways to bring armed groups into the basic normative frameworks that bind states.

Prof. Keith Krause,
Programme Director, Small Arms Survey

Mr. Eric Berman,
Managing Director, Small Arms Survey

Dr. David Atwood (Chair),
Director, Quaker United Nations Office

This orientation seminar on the security, disarmament and arms control work conducted in Geneva, was aimed particularly at recently arrived diplomats and those that might have taken over responsibility for security and disarmament issues, but was open to all interested diplomats.

Prof. Keith Krause
Director, Programme for Strategic and International Security Studies, Graduate Institute of International Studies (PSIS)

Dr. Patricia Lewis
Director, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR)

Dr. Peter Batchelor
Team Leader, Small Arms & Demobilisation Unit, Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Mr. Richard Lennane
Political Affairs Officer, Secretary for the BTWC, UN Department for Disarmament Affairs

Mr. Peter Kolarov
Political Affairs Officer, Secretary of the CCW Group of Governmental Experts, UN Department for Disarmament Affairs

Mr. Kerry Brinkert Manager
Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention Implementation Support Unit, Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining

Dr. David Atwood
Director, Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO)

Mr. Alex Yearsley, Senior Manager, Investigations, Global Witness.