Topic: 2024-Indiscriminate Weapons
Country: Ireland
Delegate Name: Alexander McBride
Country: Ireland
Committee: DISEC
Topic: Private Military Contractors
Delegate: Alex McBride
School: Williamston High School
Indiscriminate Weapons are weapons that cannot be targeted at specific military targets, like anti-personnel mines, as they cannot determine if the target is military or civilian, or attack them indiscriminately. Nuclear bombs could be an indiscriminate weapon, as they can harm the surrounding civilian areas when detonated. Chemical Weapons and Landmines are also indiscriminate weapons. These weapons are bad as the inability to differentiate military and civilian targets can cause unnecessary death and damages to a country and their economy.
Ireland has supported Nuclear disarmament since it joined the UN in 1955. They stand to free the world from the threat of nuclear weapons. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) prohibits the undertaking to develop, test, stockpile, possess, acquire, produce and threaten and/or to use the force of nuclear weapons. Ireland ratified this treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (PNW) into Irish law on August 6, 2020. Ireland is in the New Agenda Coalition (NAC) with Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, New Zealand, and South Africa. The NAC’s goal is to achieve complete international nuclear disarmament. The NAC has no parliament or secretariat, its decisions are made by consensus, but unanimity. The NAC formed in response to the difference between Nuclear Weapon States and Non-Nuclear Weapon States. (NWSs and NNWSs). NNWSs believed that NWS weren’t upholding Article VI in the NPT, which is “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” Ireland has been a party in the Chemical Weapons Convention since its inception in 1997. Ireland also is part of the Biological Weapons Convention since it was founded in 1977, and helped shape The EU’s contribution to the Third Review Conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Ireland hosted a conference in Dublin to talk about Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas (EWIPA), and 83 countries adopted the EWIPA, and this number continues to increase. This declaration’s focus is to address the devastating and lasting effects that EWIPA have on the humanitarian crisis.
In the future, Ireland will follow similar steps that the EU and other nations in other organizations they are in. The EU helps control the distribution of weapons material and enforce the ban on chemical and biological weapons. They are also the second largest donor in mine-action, by helping clear mines, helping mine victims, and much more. Ireland supports all these actions, and would look to continue their implementation and further improve their efficacy.
