2021 UN Disarmament Yearbook

Welcome to Part II of the 2021 United Nations Disarmament Yearbook. Since 1976, this annual flagship publication of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs has provided comprehensive, objective information for diplomats and the interested public on multilateral efforts to advance the cause of peace through the regulation, control and elimination of weapons.

In 2021, those efforts continued to face significant headwinds from the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond significantly limiting the ability of intergovernmental forums to tackle pressing concerns related to disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control in formal, in-person meetings, the pandemic complicated the delivery of humanitarian aid to conflict-scarred communities while eroding gains made in recent years towards greater economic and gender equality. Furthermore, even as COVID-19 underscored the urgent need for societies around the world to direct additional public resources into critical sectors such as public health, global military expenditures surged to a new, record-breaking high while armed clashes persisted.

Against that backdrop, 2021 nonetheless saw important moments of progress. The year’s landmark developments included, on 22 January, the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. That seminal accomplishment was followed, in early February, by a five-year extension of the Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START Treaty). The decision of the United States and the Russian Federation to extend their only bilateral, legally binding agreement on nuclear arms control within days of its scheduled expiration further highlighted the need to expeditiously lay the foundation for the next generation of arms control.