Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations on October 19, 1960.

Mr. Chairman,

The survival of mankind is a race between disarmament and catastrophe. The race is heading towards a dangerous and accelerating crisis. We face the awesome possibility of a nuclear war. Should it break out, civilization will be in shambles. Ideologies and social systems will be swept away in common ruin.

For fifteen years world leaders have demonstrated a signal lack of political and moral courage to lead the world towards disarmament, to deliver it from the fear of war. They have placed their hopes for peace and security in a nuclear stalemate supported by a continuing race in armaments. Yet, in the present state of technology, an arms race is the most unstable of all forms of security. It is evident to all of us that the present military balance is a precarious one. It is contingent on the capability of either side to keep abreast of the other in the deadly competition for weapons systems of ever increasing destructive power. There can be no assurance that one side may not gain a decisive, even though transitory, advantage by a break-through in technology. Should this occur, the equilibrium will be upset and the world threatened with the destruction of all the values and systems that man has been able to build for himself and posterity through the blood and toil of a hundred generations.

Many of us here, who represent the smaller nations of the world, take it that the heads of governments of the great armed powers, who have taken an active part in the present session of the General Assembly, came in search of a more permanent and secure basis for peace than that of the present temporary and precarious balance of terror. They have set forth their proposals for general and complete disarmament. It has now fallen to member states of the United Nations, large and small, to give earnest consideration, as specifically requested by the Disarmament Commission in its resolution of August 19, 1960, to the substantive aspects of this question and to the results of the negotiations held in the Ten-Nation Disarmament Committee in Geneva this year. By doing so, we shall not only be exercising the right, but also discharging the directed responsibility, of the General Assembly under the Charter of the United Nations for achieving disarmament and fortifying the edifice of peace.

It is not the intention of my delegation to enter into a discussion of the technical details of the various plans and principles that are relevant to the present status of the disarmament problem. The Political Committee is not an appropriate body for the consideration of technical matters,. We shall, therefore, confine our intervention to the political aspects of the problems. While doing so, we shall be guided by the thought that the issues involved are so fateful for the future of all nations that only an objective and non-partisan approach can do justice to the treatment of a subject of such importance as disarmament. At the same time, my delegation will not hesitate to express its views as to the merits of the stands taken by the East and by the West in the course of the Geneva negotiations.

The gravity of the situation that the General Assembly has been facing for the past few years and the urgency of finding a solution to the problem of disarmament have been emphasized with such frequency that they dominate our debates. Nevertheless, my delegation considers it necessary to remind once again that, while our efforts to find solutions to the problem have been making little progress, the problem itself has not stood still. The difficulties of control over new weapons of mass destruction and the means of their delivery are being compounded by the march of science and technology. When the negotiators meet again, their previous work becomes out of date for the rte of technological change is continually out-stripping the pace of negotiations.

It is tragic that the elimination of nuclear weapons should have been so delayed as to evade present attempts to devise techniques of detection. It is no less tragic that time has been lost in reaching agreement on measures to control the missile race in its early stages when it might have been possible to arrest the proliferation of rockets through a ban on testing or through a severe limitation of production, or both. Today measures to control missiles infinitely more complicated.

Likewise, to guard against surprise attack, inspection measures as originally conceived were intended to provide tactical warning. The advent of missiles has made such a quest extremely dubious. The additional warning time may now be so short that the deterrence may well have been weakened.

These somber examples of lost opportunities tell us that there is a critical point in the development of any weapon after which arms control becomes impossible or extremely intricate.

What is the conclusion? Is it not that we must consider it of crucial importance to control new weapons in the very early stages of their development?

We have read with great concern a report in the New York Times of October 12, 1960, of the refinement in Germany and the Netherlands of a technique for the separation of enriched uranium which would make it feasible for any technologically advanced nation to produce atomic weapons without large financial expenditures. This knowledge which is bound to spread will, in a few years, enable many nations to become nuclear powers. If agreements to prohibit, under international control, the test explosions of nuclear weapons and also the prevention of the wider dissemination of nuclear weapons, are not reached without delay, the inevitable advances in science and technology are bound to inject complicating new factors into the problem of atomic arms control.

To these technical difficulties of finding a solution to the disarmament question has now been added a new and formidable political obstacle. Only last year, the Pakistan delegation had expressed its satisfaction that the Western powers, at long last, had implicitly abandoned their insistence on linking progress in disarmament to political conditions and to the preliminary solution of certain political problems. But now, the Soviet Union insists on linking disarmament with far-reaching political and constitutional changes in the basic structure of the United Nations, aimed at modifying the composition of two of its principal organs, namely, the Security Council and the Secretariat.

Mr. Chairman, these facts underscore more forcefully and eloquently than words the dangers of wasting time which only serve to so compound the political and technical difficulties of the disarmament problem as to make them well-nigh insoluble. Time is of the essence, yes Sir, of the essence, if the quest of general and complete disarmament is not to prove a will-of the-wisp.

It is against this background of urgency, arising from the fact that technology is continually creating new difficulties more rapidly than the ability of negotiators to resolve old ones, that we must review the present status of disarmament negotiations between the Western powers and the Eastern bloc.

The unanimous adoption by the General Assembly at its fourteenth session of resolution 1378 (XIV) on November 20, 1959, revived our hopes that the great powers would make every effort to achieve a constructive solution of the problem of general and complete disarmament, under effective international control, and measures leading towards this goal would be worked out in detail and agreed upon in the shortest possible time.

From a study of the records of the Geneva meetings held from March to June this year, it becomes only too painfully clear that the positions of the East and the West did not come close enough to begin drafting specific provisions of a treaty on general and complete disarmament under effective international control. During these months, the negotiators did not come to grips with concrete measures either on disarmament or control. They could not even agree as to whether discussion of a specific measure should begin with its disarmament aspect or its control aspect. Negotiations between the two sides were confined to exchanges of views on certain basic principles of disarmament and control on which their respective proposals were based.

This notwithstanding, the Pakistan delegation is not altogether disappointed with the results of the Geneva negotiations. We note that the debates of the Ten-Nation Disarmament Committee on the proposals of the Western powers on general and complete disarmament of March 16,1960, and the proposals by the Soviet Government concerning the basic clauses of a treaty on general and complete disarmament of June 2, 1960, led to a significant measure of rapprochement between the two sides on certain basic principles of which this committee is well aware.

The negotiations were encouraging because of a reconciliation of views of the two sides on these important general principles. In particular, the elaboration in much greater detail of the organization, under effective international control, of phased measures of disarmament to be carried out in stages, and the clarifications given by the Soviet representative of the relevant provisions of the Soviet proposals of June 2, met to a large extent the views of the Western powers in regard to control measures,. It is to be noted that the two sides agreed to the chronology of control measures in the following sequence:

(i) negotiation of disarmament measures and the corresponding control measures, both general and practical;
(ii) signature of a treaty embodying both kinds of measures;
(iii) entry into force of the treaty, and, simultaneously, the setting up of the control bodies to implement control measures in step with disarmament measures.

Nevertheless, the positions of the two sides did not entirely converge. The Soviet concessions fell short of willingness to agree to the verification of armed forces and armaments of all types remaining at the disposal of states after reduction. The Eastern powers could give no satisfactory assurance in regard to the inclusion of this “major preliminary”, as the French representative called it, within the provisions of a disarmament treaty under international control.

It seems to my delegation to be misleading to characterize any proposal for the verification of armaments remaining at the disposal of states after reductions are carried out as “control of armaments”. To our thinking such verification may well become an essential condition of disarmament. The Soviet representative maintained that such matters could not be dealt with in the abstract, but must be solved in a concrete way. We feel that disagreements of this nature require careful examination at a technical level by experts before the General Assembly can be expected to experts itself on the merits of the opposed stands of the two sides.

Major differences could not be reconciled in the Ten-Nation Disarmament Committee over the question of the time limit for implementing the entire programme of general and complete disarmament and the quantum of reduction of armed forces and armaments, nuclear as well as conventional, appropriate to each of the three stages of the Western proposals of March 16 and the Soviet proposals of June 2, 1960.

Nevertheless, even in these areas, we are happy to observe both sides have shown a certain flexibility of approach. We note that the Eastern powers are ready to relax their stand on the four year time table provided the Western powers agree to fix time limits for each of the three stages of general and complete disarmament and for all of them as a whole.

We also note that the Western powers showed their willingness to fix a reasonable time limit for the implementation of disarmament measures in the first stage, but rejected a time table for the succeeding two stages as impracticable and unrealistic.

On the question of the quantum of reduction of actual armed forces and armaments, conventional and nuclear, appropriate to each of the three stages of disarmament, no real common ground could be established. The Soviet proposals of June 2 contemplated too drastic disarmament in the first two stages, considering the fact that tension between the East and West was rising and deep distrust has permeated their international relations since the Second World War. While the Soviet proposals postponed initial measures of conventional disarmament from the first to the second stage to accommodate the Western powers, they went to the extreme in calling for the complete elimination of all vehicles and means of delivering weapons of mass destruction, the withdrawal of foreign troops, and other such measures as the very first steps in the first stage of a disarmament treaty. Furthermore, the Soviet proposals called for the complete elimination of weapons of mass destruction as the first step in the second stage. The Western powers, on the other hand, have persistently maintained that the final elimination of such weapons and the means of their deliver should be carried out only in the third and last stage of any programme of general and complete disarmament under effective international control.

It is not only fear and distrust that interpose themselves as obstacles to the elimination of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in an early stage. All of us are only too conscious of the fact that for the last few years, both sides have acknowledged that no known scientific techniques of inspection have yet been evolved to detect stockpiles of nuclear weapons that may be concealed by either side to evade international control. It was for this reason that the approach to the problem of disarmament was shifted by the General Assembly from comprehensive measures to those of a partial nature as set forth in resolution 1148 (XII) of November 14, 1957, until such times as a scientific break-through would make a more effective detection system feasible. The claim implicit in the Khrushehev plan of general and complete disarmament of September 18, 1959, and its subsequent revisions as presented to the Ten-Nation Disarmament Committee on June, 7 1960, and to the present session of the General Assembly on September 23, 1960, is that in these schemes, the difficulties of control, such as the detection of clandestine stocks of nuclear weapons, will disappear because all means of delivering them to their targets will have been eliminated.

Mr. Chairman, the Pakistan delegation is in no position to express any opinion on the validity or otherwise of this claim, and of the Soviet approach to the problem of eliminating all obstacles to the establishment of an effective international control system. This subject bristles with technicalities into which it would be fruitless for my delegation to enter. We do consider, however, that the importance of the problem of control is such as to be of decisive significance to any scheme of general and complete disarmament. It is therefore a question which needs to be referred without delay to experts –scientific, military, and administrative –for their examination and report, if the goal of a disarmed world is to be reached with the shortest possible delay.

In view of the uncertain outlook for an effective system of international control the Pakistan delegation is not surprised that the Western proposals including the United States programme for general and complete disarmament under effective international control of June 27, 1960, (which could not be submitted to the Ten-Nation Disarmament Committee at Geneva because it was broken up before this could be done) envisage a too modest measure of disarmament in the earlier stages. In regard to the reluctance of the Western powers to agree to any definite time limit in advance for the implementation of the entire programme of general and complete disarmament, we consider that this question should be examined in the light of the conclusion of experts on the feasibility of devising an effective inspection system to guard against the possibility of concealment of nuclear weapons.

Mr. Chairman, to turn from this retrospective analysis to the prospect before us, the General Assembly is now confronted with a situation in which the principal parties to the disarmament negotiations remain deeply divided in their approach to this most serious of all problems, namely, general and complete disarmament. The Eastern powers have been insisting that the entire range of general and complete disarmament must be negotiated as a whole, from the first stage to the last, before anything concrete can be done about specific disarmament measures. They have shown no disposition to consider any alternative to this global approach such as that suggested by the Western powers to adopt certain partial or initial measures, not in iso0lation, but as integral parts of continuous programme of general and complete disarmament.

From a comparison of the Western proposals of June 27, 1960, circulated by the United States, and those of the Soviet Union of June 2, 1960, as well as the latter’s revised version presented by Chairman Khrushehev to the General Assembly earlier in the present session, it would appear to my delegation that the most hopeful prospects of early implementation of disarmament measures under effective international control as integral parts of a programme of general and complete disarmament, relate to the following:

One Cessation of the production of fissionable material for weapons purposes and the transfer of agreed quantities of such material from past production to non-weapons uses;

Two Prior notification of proposed launching of missiles as an immediate step to reduce the risk of war by accident or miscalculation;

Three Appropriate measures to give greater protection against surprise attack as an initial step towards safeguarding the world against such attack;

Four The prevention of the wider dissemination of nuclear weapons in accordance with General Assembly resolution 1380 (XIV) of November 20.1959.

Mr. Chairman, my delegation feels that the immediate implementation of the initial steps that I have just mentioned would not by any means militate against the continuance of parallel negotiations between the principal parties on the more substantial and important measures which are central to the proposals for general and complete disarmament. We believe that in the prevailing climate of fear and distrust of motives and intentions between the East and the West, a modest approach would seem to have a better chance of bearing result. Initial agreements on peripheral issues would act as a catalyst in the process of promoting some degree of confidence between the parties and thereby improve the prospects of wider agreements on problems which lie at the heart of general and complete disarmament. If, on the other hand, we reject this approach in the situation confronting us when the two sides have failed to evolve a mutually agreed basis for further negotiations, the process of disarmament is not likely to even get started.

In addition to the above initial steps, the Pakistan delegation ventures to express the opinion that certain other measures relating to the reduction of armed forces and conventional armaments could well be added to those that I have enumerated. We feel that greater substance could well be given to the content of the first stage of disarmament in the United States proposal of June 2 without violating the principle of balance between nuclear and conventional measures, and also the basic rule that no country or group of countries shall obtain, at any stage, a significant military advantage over the others, as a result of disarmament. Hence we would appeal to both sides to find a basis for compromise between their respective proposals for the reduction of the armed forces of the United States and the Soviet Union in the first stage and also for the reduction of conventional armaments to related levels and the elimination of stocks thus released. The Soviet Union now proposes that the armed forces of the two powers should be reduced to 1.7 million each in the first stage. The United States has agreed to this figure in the second stage. Since the Western powers regard the first two stages of their disarmament plans as not so much separate than a single continuing process, would it be too much to expect that an agreed figure between 2.7 and 1.7 million could be mutually agreed upon by the two sides to achieve a measure of real disarmament at the very outset?

Mr. Chairman, the Pakistan delegation has consistently maintained since 1955 that meaningful disarmament to all the member states of the United Nations except, perhaps, top the three nuclear powers connotes the reduction of armed forces and conventional armaments to enable them to reduce their military expenditures and to divert the greater part of their financial resources into productive channels. In particular, the under-developed countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America which account for two billion people or two thirds of the po0pulation of the world, have no foreseeable prospects of being able to raise the living standards of their peoples to decent levels except through the diversion of the resources of the richer nations of the world as well as of their own from armaments to development. Hence the universal importance of a substantial measure of immediate worldwide conventional disarmament under effective international control needs no emphasis as an economic measure, quite apart from its intrinsic merit in a disarmament scheme.

It was our great stake in the beneficial economic consequences of disarmament that prompted Pakistan to introduce jointly with Mexico and Costa Rica and amendment to the draft resolution on disarmament in this committee during the tenth session of the General Assembly which is to be found in operative paragraph 3 of resolution 914 (X). This paragraph calls for a study of the proposals originated by the Prime Minister of France for the allocation of funds resulting fro disarmament for improving the standards of living throughout the world, and in particular the under-developed countries.

I need not dilate on the need to start some measure of real disarmament without delay, if the great and growing disparities between the rich and the poor nations of the world are not to develop into a new source of international tension. This potential North-South conflict, as it is sometimes called, may, if not prevented in time, add new dangers to those of the cold war.

Mr. Chairman, in endorsing the proposition that general and complete disarmament must start with those measures which are capable of early implementation under effective international control, the Pakistan delegation is by no means suggesting an approach that is reflected in the earlier resolutions of the General Assembly, notably 1148 (XII) of November 14, 1957, adopted at its twelfth session. This resolution shifted the perspective of disarmament from comprehensive to partial measures. What we now submit is that while parallel negotiations take place with the object of concluding a treaty on general and complete disarmament, such disarmament measures as may be immediately capable of implementation like those mentioned by my delegation earlier should not be delayed until complete agreement is reached on the whole complex of measures within the scope of such a treaty.

In the statements that have been made in the course of the general debate, many distinguished statesmen including certain heads of state and government have expressed similar views. My delegation has been impressed by the general consensus which has emerged in favor of negotiations on disarmament measures progressively according to the possibility of their early implementation.

We are well aware that in respect of even these measures much remains to be done in the way of studying the complex technical and administrative aspects of their implementation under effective international control. The time has, therefore, come to appoint panels of technical experts to study and report to an appropriate organ of the United Nations on the intricate and inter-related scientific, technical, and administrative aspects of implementation. In particular, the General Assembly needs to know whether the effectiveness of control will be seriously impaired if verification is restricted to reductions of armed forces and armaments and not extended to what remains at the disposal of states after reductions are carried out. Furthermore, even in regard to measures which do not, strictly speaking, involve reductions, for example, the question of minimizing the possibility of surprise attack, technical military studies need to be resumed from the point at which they were discontinued in the experts conference which suspended its meetings on December 18, 1958. It is the task of technical-military experts to assemble the facts necessary for evaluating the effectiveness of various systems of inspection and observation and to draw the necessary conclusions.

More especially, my delegation considers it absolutely essential for the General Assembly to be given objective and authoritative findings by experts of recognized competence as to the feasibility or otherwise of effective control over the initial measures of disarmament. Only in this way will the Assembly be able to exercise its judgment on the issues involved and play a useful role in finding solutions to the manifold and complex problems of which it is seized in the disarmament field.

In this context, may we be permitted to recall that three years ago, at the twelfth session of the General Assembly, the delegations of Norway and Pakistan sponsored an amendment in this committee, to the twenty-four power joint draft resolution on disarmament, recommending the establishment of groups of technical experts to study inspection systems for disarmament measures on which the five-power sub-committee of the then Disarmament Commission might reach agreement in principle, and to report to the sub-committee within a fixed period. The amendment envisaged that the groups would include not only experts drawn from the major powers, but also from wherever the most qualified persons were available among member states of the organization. The Norway-Pakistan amendment was accepted by the twenty-four sponsors and is to be found in paragraphs 3 and 4 of resolution 1148 (XII). In the thirteenth session, my delegation suggested in this committee that the great powers should extend the technical approach which had been initiated, earlier in 1958, on the problems of suspension of nuclear weapons tests and the measures to prevent surprise attack, also to the study of the technical problems involved in the possible reduction of armed forces and conventional armaments. Resolution 1252 (XIII) of November 4, 1959, again recommended the technical approach with a view to contributing to a balanced and effectively controlled world-wide system of disarmament.

We regret that the two-year deadlock since 1957, on the procedure and substance of the disarmament negotiations between the great powers represented in the sub-committee prevented the implementation of the General Assembly recommendations in regard to the panels of experts and the technical approach for finding answers to the technical aspects of disarmament.

I now turn to the task before the General Assembly in the present session. The question of disarmament has become one of transcendent importance to humanity,. The peoples of the world are looking to the United Nations to ease the tensions between the East and the West. It is the duty of all member states, but first and foremost of the great powers, to deflect mankind from a course which can only lead to death or at best to an existence of fear and want.

We cannot, we must not believe that they will fail

As yet, there is no reason for Gespair. We believe that both the East and the West are ready to resume their interrupted negotiations. The General Assembly must, with all the force of its political and moral authority, demand, nay insist, that the two sides undertake further discussions on the proposals for general and complete disarmament under effective international control in order to achieve a constructive solution of this problem within the shortest possible time. The General Assembly must now reinforce the call of the Disarmament Commission in its resolution of August 19, 1960, for the earliest possible continuation of the disarmament negotiations. In our view, neither this nor that great power is morally entitled to make its participation in the disarmament talks conditional on the acceptance of its demands. Such an attitude would be incompatible with its special responsibility under the charter of our organization for the maintenance of world peace.

From the review of the negotiations which took place in Geneva this year, my delegation is persuaded that a start towards the goal of general and complete disarmament should not be held up until complete agreement is reached on the entire range and depth of the measures within its scope. A start must be made even before this stage, and as soon as possible, with those measures which are capable of early implementation under effective international control and are also compatible with the basic principle of balance in order that no country or group of countries will obtain, at any stage, a significant military advantage. We believe that the Ten-Nation Disarmament Committee should give priority to such measures in the performance of its task.

Suggestions have been made to alter the composition of the committee in the expectation that this will yield more profitable results. We for our part are inclined to share the view that the crisis before us is not so much that of procedure as of the substance of the problem of disarmament. Above all, it is a crisis of confidence. Nevertheless, if the general consensus is in favor of enlarging the membership of the Ten-Nation Disarmament Committee so as to make it more fully representative of the geographical regions of the world and of different shades of political opinion, the Pakistan delegation will, of course, support any suitable proposal to this end. More especially, my delegation would again endorse the suggestion made by the Secretary of State for External Affairs of Canada in the Disarmament Commission last August –which we strongly supported in that forum that the committee might benefit from having a neutral chairman who could regularize the order of business. It gives my delegation particular pleasure to reiterate our view that the distinguished Chairman of the Disarmament Commission, Ambassador Padilla Nervo of Mexico would be the most suitable choice for the important office. His experience and knowledge of negotiations on the subject, his qualities as a conciliator and harmonizer of conflicting opinions in this field and his profound interest in, and concern for disarmament, should with advantage to our organization be enlisted in the service of peace.

While in the context of the task before the General Assembly in the present session my delegation deems it necessary to comment briefly on the suggestion made for a special session of the General Assembly in March or April next year to be attended by heads of states and governments to consider the problem of disarmament and also with regard to the demand for fundamental changes in the structure of certain principal organs of the United Nations.

Mr. Chairman, the varieties of disarmament are stubborn facts which cannot be ignored by procedural tactics. They demand respectful recognition. It still remains a fact of international life that no success can be achieved in the field of disarmament unless the great armed powers have the desire and the will to reach agreement. Where these are lacking, nothing positive can be accomplished. The truth of this statement was demonstrated only a few weeks ago, when the General Assembly failed to persuade the President of the United States and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union to resume their interrupted contacts. A special session of the General Assembly to consider the question of disarmament must certainly have its place in the scheme of things when the great powers will have achieved sufficient reconciliation of their conflicting positions to warrant hopes of a constructive outcome from such a meeting. At the present stage, the question is rather premature.

The same must be said of the demand for radical changes in the secretariat of the United Nations. The question of who should command an international peace force in a disarmed world will remain unreal so long as the world refuses to take a single step to disarm.

Mr. Chairman, may I, at this stage of my intervention, ask for your indulgence in extending my observations to the three draft resolutions relating to the subject under discussion which have already been circulated by their sponsors.

Document A/C I/L 251 setting forth the draft resolution on the report of the Disarmament Commission and sponsored by the United Kingdom delegation recommends the appointment of technical, scientific, military, and administrative experts, with instructions to submit a progress report on the systems of inspection and control in relation to disarmament measures which must form an integral part of a programme of general and complete disarmament, including those measures which are capable of early implementation. We welcome this constructive initiative on the part of the United Kingdom which was foreshadowed in the statement of “Prime Minister MacMillan to the General Assembly on September 29, 1960. The step now proposed by the United Kingdom delegation has been long overdue. We note in particular that it calls for a study of the technical feasibility of control to ensure the progressive reduction and elimination of weapons of mass destruction and the means of their delivery including the clandestine storage of nuclear weapons which, as I have said earlier, lie at the heart of the problem of general and complete disarmament. We note further that this draft resolution also calls for a study of the problems of control which have arisen in connection with those measures of disarmament which are capable of early implementation. The United Kingdom proposal is thus in line with the general tenor of the observation that I have made earlier.

There are four features in the United Kingdom proposal which should recommend themselves to this committee. First, political negotiations between the principal parties are not to be delayed until the results of the expert studies have been made available. The Ten-Nation Disarmament Committee will be enabled to proceed with its task simultaneously. Second, the experts will be expected to submit a progress report within a definite time limit, six months, in order to ensure that the talks are not prolonged indefinitely. Third, the experts must submit their progress report to the Disarmament Commission. This provision is a significant forward step towards bringing back disarmament discussions within the framework of the United Nations. At the same time, it will provide the commission with an opportunity of playing a much more active role in the future than it has been able to do in the past. Lastly, the entire exercise on the subject of inspection and control has been placed in its proper proportion and perspective by instructing the experts to confine their examination to the scientific, technical, and administrative aspects of control It is thus acknowledged that technical talks are no substitute for political negotiations which alone can ensure agreement between the East and the West on the disarmament problem.

The Pakistan Delegation will vote in favor of the United Kingdom draft resolution, A/C I/L 251.

There are two other draft resolutions before the Political Committee, namely, that of the Soviet Union –A/C I/L 249 and the one sponsored by three Western powers – Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States-A/C I/L 250.

If the two draft resolutions are studied together, it will be seen that the positions of the two sides have come somewhat closer together, notably in regard to the principle of specified time limits for the implementation of disarmament measures. Both the draft proposals attempt a definition of the goal of general and complete disarmament in terms which, in spite of commissions and omissions, are very similar,. Nevertheless, on closer scrutiny, the differences of approach to the common goal which I pointed out earlier still persist. The emphasis in the Soviet draft is definitely on the conclusion of a treaty which will include the entire range of programme of general and complete disarmament. The Western powers on the other hand stress a start towards this goal with those measures which are capable of early implementation under effective international control.

In regard to the general principles which should guide negotiations between the two sides the two drafts have much in common, but important differences remain. In particular, it is very clear that the disagreement in the Ten-Nation Disarmament Committee over the extension of verification to armed forces and armaments remaining at the disposal of states is bought out sharply in the Western draft resolution. There are also other differences. The Soviet draft would have the General Assembly recognize a change in the structure of the United Nations as necessary to create confidence in the correct use of international armed forces when general and complete disarmament becomes and accomplished fact. Furthermore, the Soviet proposal would throw open participation in the international control organization and the international armed forces to all states. On the other hand, the Western draft conceives of them within the framework of the organization.

We consider the the-power western draft resolution as being in accord with the substance of our views on the present status of the disarmament question as set forth by me earlier.

Mr. Chairman, the Pakistan delegation would regard it as a happy augury to the success of the disarmament negotiations if the East and the West would evolve a common text between themselves of a joint draft resolution as they did last year to enable the General Assembly to follow the precedent of adopting it unanimously.

Mr. Chairman, the problem of disarmament has been discussed by the United Nations for fifteen years. All this time, the various principal and subsidiary organs in which the subject has been dealt with have concerned themselves exclusively with its political and military aspects. They have given no thought to its economic and social consequences. And yet the national and international impact of disarmament may be of such dimensions as to revolutionize the world economic situation.

A substantial reduction of military expenditures is bound to set in motion changes in he domestic economies of states and in international economic relations. For example, in respect of the former nations disbanding their armed forces and halting the production of weapons and implements f war will be faced with the problem of maintaining demand at its former level by mobilizing in time the alternative public and private expenditures which theoretically could replace defense expenditures. The under-developed countries may have to bear even greater economic burden from a decline in the demand for their raw materials. Compensatory measures in the form of tax reductions and international economic development would become imperative to bolster national and world economics. There will also rise the transfer problem of absorbing human and material resources released from a war economy into a system of stable peace. The scope and nature of this problem may be quite different in countr4ies enjoying a free economy than in those under central planning systems. Its difficulties would be greater for some countries which maintain large forces in relation to their resources than for those which devote a much smaller percentage of their national product for military purposes. These are some of the economic problems that are merely indicative of the economic impact of disarmament. They pose questions vital to national and international economic life. Yet their study has been neglected for fifteen years.

There are also other important reasons why a scientific and objective analysis of the economic and social consequences of disarmament is both urgent and imperative. Widespread fear exists in many nations lest a reversal of the arms race may lead to a worldwide economic crisis. These fears influence in varying degrees the public policies of the governments of the world and impede the growth of public opinion in favor of disarmament. Such fears need to be dispelled if the full support of the peoples of the world is to be mobilized in the crusade to prevent a nuclear holocaust. Disarmament, like peace, must begin in the minds of men.

The Pakistan delegation firmly believes that the time is ripe for a comprehensive study of the economic and social consequences of disarmament for the world. We have reached a stage in disarmament negotiations when we dare to propose time-limits for implementing measures of partial or complete disarmament. The Pakistan delegation, for one, would repulse the thought that such proposals may not have been introduced with serious intentions. Is it not then timely to devote some thinking to a subject of the most vital importance to the well-being of all the peoples of the world?

The study that we have in mind is not to be confused with the suggestions made in the past in connection with the flow of savings to the under-developed countries for purposes of economic development in the event of disarmament. In as far as these savings are concerned, a study project on their best utilization should await definite information as to the size and time of availability of these funds if it is not to be based on purely hypothetical calculations.

The suggestion which my delegation would like to make must be viewed in a larger perspective. It is of greater scope and depth. It relate not to the economic development of under-developed countries as a result of disarmament but to the economic adjustment of all countries to disarmament. It does not ask for a blueprint but only for broad conclusions. The study must examine whether fears of an economic depression from a reversal of the arms race are or are not justified.

A task of this nature can best be undertaken by the secretariat of the United Nations. So far as we are aware, no comprehensive systematic study exists on the subject of economic adjustments to he impact of disarmament. Its compilation by the United Nations would meet an urgent need of governments and non-governmental organizations throughout the world. The imprimatur o the organization would command wide acceptance of its findings.

In carrying out this task the secretariat will no doubt seek and enlist the active cooperation of governments on which it must necessarily depend for much of the required information and data pertaining to military expenditures and to industries and projects connected with defence. It may engage the services of consultants of recognized competence and representative of the main schools of economic thought.

The Pakistan delegation is fully conscious of the fact that the resources of the secretariat, both in terms of personnel and services, are fully stretched by the existing work programmes to which it is committed, and even more so by the emergency operation in the Congo. But the task which we have suggested is one of vital importance and urgency. It must, therefore, be executed as a matter of priority, with the assurance, if needed of the necessary budgetary support.