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1 The Conference on Disarmament and Engagement with Civil Society 1 (2011)

handle is hein.unl/unaady0001 and id is 1 raw text is: The Conference on Disarmament and Engagement with Civil Society February 2011 The following paragraphs are a brief discussion of engagement with civil society on the part of the Conference on Disarmament, taken from the article Getting the Conference on Disarmament back to substantive work: food for thought, Disarmament Forum, no. 1, 2009, pp. 15-16. Engagement with civil society has long been a divisive issue in the Conference. The rules of procedure contemplate only limited interaction with organizations and bodies of any kind,' and warrant updating to bring them more into line with other disarmament forums. In the case of NGOs, a re-examination took place in 2004 but in practical terms gave NGOs little more than was already available to them as members of the public, offering the prospect of addressing one informal plenary meeting per annum once the Conference had adopted a programme of work.2 Constructing an approach more in line with other multilateral disarmament practice would enable the CD to take into account civil society perspectives and the value that engagement with NGOs tends to bring, which UNIDIR researchers have recently argued elsewhere is potentially considerable.' This issue is perhaps best illustrated by the annual request of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) to address the CD on International Women's Day by way of reporting on its annual seminar dedicated to the work of the CD (a point that is often overlooked). Unable to agree that WILPF should deliver its own address, the Conference instead witnesses the CD President read it out during a plenary meeting. That the WILPF paper should be read by the chair of the body to which this major disarmament NGO is wishing to report is seen by many as patronizing and demeaning to women and to the Conference itself. Rather than agreeing to treat the Women's Day address as a specific case standing on its own merit (i.e., as an outcome of a seminar specifically focused on the CD), the issue has become symbolic of the need for a broad change in policy toward greater civil society participation. It is not inevitable that the two decisions must be linked; yet the Conference has found itself unable to find a way forward either on this specific case or on the broader one of engagement with civil society. On the issue of interaction with civil society in general, at least two questions warrant attention: * is the 2004 decision of the CD still tenable given that, five years later, no programme of work has emerged? It is arguable that the situation of enduring deadlock in the CD indicates the need for increased contact DEAS FOR PEACE AND SECURIT

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