The UN General Assembly First Committee on Disarmament and International Security will begin on 8 October 2025. Over the past year, genocides and armed conflicts have intensified, some countries have violated international laws restricting the arms trade while others have withdrawn from critical humanitarian disarmament treaties, and the introduction of artificial intelligence into weapon systems is already causing grave harm. 

Urgent action is needed to protect people and the planet from weapons and war. The First Committee is a key place for this work. The United Nations, after all, was established to prevent war and demilitarise the world after the butchery of World War II. Since then, the UN has facilited the adoption and implementation of many commitments and constraints against international violence. The UN’s current flailings and failures are not an excuse for inaction but a motivation to do better.  

The First Committee, through its discussions and resolutions, has the opportunity to confront and dismantle the structures of power and violence that cause grave suffering around the world. Delegations need to not get trapped in the fracturous dramas created by the violent, militarised states, but instead work among the majority to generate new collective diarmament projects. We need commitments to enact real policy changes outside of the conference room. We need negotiations on new treaties and implementaton of existing ones, and consequences for those who treat international law as a constraint only on others.  

Disarmament Demands at the First Committee 

Ahead of the First Committee, the Reaching Critical Will team has coordinated a Briefing Book containing background information, analysis of current contexts, and recommendations for governments. Each chapter is written by an organisation or coalition leading the work on the issue. Among others, the Briefing Book includes recommendations to: 

• Abolish nuclear weapons and support victim assistance and environmental remediation efforts to communities affected by nuclear weapon production, testing, and use; 

• Bolster international efforts to prevent the use of biological weapons and strengthen the biological weapons legal and inspection regimes; 

• Condemn any use of chemical weapons and ensure full implementation and compliance with relevant treaties and investigations; 

• Acknowledge the harms and challenges of armed drones and strengthen legal regimes and norms against their proliferation, acquisition, and use; 

• Develop policies on autonomous weapons and other forms of militarised AI that enshrine meaningful human control over the use of force and prohibit systems that target people, and push for negotiations of an internationally legally binding treaty to do the same;  

• Avoid the use of explosive weapons in populated areas and endorse and implement the relevant political declaration; 

• Condemn any use of landmines and withdrawals from the Mine Ban Treaty, and fully implement the Treaty and victim assistance and remediation commitments; 

• Condemn any use of cluster munitions, fully implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and provide for victim assistance and remediation; 

• Work for a ban on depleted uranium weapons; 

• Condemn the use of incendiary weapons and develop stronger international standards against them; 

• Support the implementation of UN instruments on small arms and ammunition, and establish prohibitions and controls over the transfer, civilian ownership, and acquisition of small arms and ammunition; 

• Rigorously implement the Arms Trade Treaty to prevent human suffering and condemn arms transfers that violate international law; 

• Condemn and refrain from actions that weaponise outer space, including the development or deployment of systems designed to damage, disable, or destroy space objects; 

• Halt the development and use of malicious cyber capabilities; 

• Increase gender diversity in disarmament and explore the impact of gender norms on weapons and war; 

• To significantly reduce military spending, divest from the military-industrial complex, and invest instead in peace, economic and envionrmental justice, gender equality, and other social goods; 

• Implement the principles on the protection of the environment in relation to armed conflicts and support their implementation and reduce military greenhouse gas emissions; 

• Promote action on disarmament education and youth, and financially support peace and disarmament education; 

• Develop a new resolution on “disability, disarmament, and non-proliferation;” and 

• Support efforts for the development of legally binding norms on torture-free trade. 

The Reaching Critical Will team will coordinate and publish the weekly First Committee Monitor, which will provide reports on discussions and action on resolutions. We will also coordinate civil society statements to the First Committee and post all available statements, documents, resolutions and voting results, and other information on our website. 

How Can You Get Involved?

You can use our latest First Committee Briefing Book to find out more information and specific demands from various campaigns and coalitions working across all disarmament issues, and share this resource and its recommendations with your government. 

If you want to watch the First Committee, UN Web TV should be streaming live at https://media.un.org—check out the draft programme of work for a timetable of meetings. RCW will also publish weekly reports in the First Committee Monitor—be sure to subscribe to Reaching Critical Will’s mailing list today!