4 - Humanitarian Disarmament Rising

Summary

This chapter traces the way in which the destruction in the Vietnam War became a springboard for a renewed humanitarian disarmament discourse. Two major campaigns against particular weapons were waged in this period: the ‘human rights in armed conflict’ initiative spearheaded by states in the Non Aligned Movement through the UN General Assembly, and the ICRC-led campaign to further develop international humanitarian law by limiting or even prohibiting the use of weapons considered by many to be indiscriminate. Although neither campaign was ultimately successful in that no weapons were banned as a result, both campaigns are important instances of attempts to use humanitarian arguments to constrain development and use of weapons. The final section of the chapter analyses the Convention on Conventional Weapons 1980, arguing that it constitutes the first humanitarian disarmament instrument of the post-Second World War era. Although certainly a compromise in terms of its limited scope and reach, it stood as testament to the humanitarian disarmament work of the preceding decades and it set the stage for future breakthroughs.