Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez called on Wednesday for a global reduction of military spending as a matter of international security.
The UN Security Council later adopted a non-binding resolution inviting other countries to follow this path.
“The perverse logic that leads a poor nation to spend excessive sums on its armies, and not on its people, is exactly the antithesis of human security, and a serious threat to international security,” said Arias in an address before the council, over which Costa Rica presides this month.
Although Costa Rica has no military, “it is not a naive nation,” stressed Arias, a 1987 Novel Peace Prize laureate. “We have not come here for the abolition of all armies. We have not even come to urge the drastic reduction of world military spending, which has reached US$3.3 billion a day.”
He proposed instead that “a gradual reduction is not only possible, but also imperative, particularly for developing nations.”
The Costa Rican president decried the limited application of Article 26 of the UN Charter, which advocates international arms control as a means to avoid diverting human and economic resources.
“Article 26 has been, until now, a dead letter in the vast cemetery of intentions for world peace,” he argued, promoting stronger multilateralism instead. “As long as nations do not feel protected by strong regional organizations with real powers to act, they will continue to arm themselves at the expense of their people’s development — particularly in the poorest countries — and at the expense of international security.”
Arias urged the Security Council to apply the Costa Rica Consensus, which forgives debt and provides aid for developing countries that spend more on human resources than the military.
He also pressed the international body to support the Arms Trade Treaty, which would control international arms sales to prevent the illicit use of weapons.
“The destructive power of the 640 million small arms and light weapons that exist in the world, 74 percent in the hands of civilians, has proven to be more lethal than nuclear weapons, and is one of the primary threats to national and international security,” he said.
The Security Council’s non-binding text expressed concern over “increasing global military expenditure.”
The statement stressed “the importance of appropriate levels of military expenditure in order to achieve undiminished security for all at the lowest appropriate level of armaments” and called on countries to “devote as many resources as possible to economic and social development.”
Speaking to reporters after the statement was unanimously adopted, Jorge Urbina, UN permanent representative for Costa Rica, said he was satisfied with the outcome.
“We are happy that the Council, after almost 60 years, has retaken Article 26,” he said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition