New Report: Common Security For Our Shared Future

‘Common security’ can be summed up as the simple but elusive idea that “security is for all of us, or it is for none of us”. It is basic common sense but requires a large dose of good sense to be realised. We publish this dossier to encourage such realisation.

For Our Shared Future: Common Security 2022 was launched forty years after publication of the Palme Commission’s Common Security: A Programme for Disarmament. The new report addresses concerns not included in the original, not least questions of gender and climate change, but in fundamental respects it grapples with the same key question: how to avoid annihilation of humankind in a nuclear inferno?

Here we republish Anna Sundström’s foreword to the report. The full version with further analysis is included in the current issue of The Spokesman: Our Common Security.

Looking at the news in the morning we are faced with pictures showing the terrible cruelty of war, extreme weather events leaving people homeless, and reports on rising poverty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The international order, which enables us to prevent wars, stop global warming, fight a pandemic and tackle global challenges, simply does not work well enough. We have to fix it. For our shared future.

In times of acute crisis, there must be those who can look ahead and give a vision of a better future. Forty years ago, the relationship between the superpowers was at rock bottom. The risk of a devastating nuclear war was high. In that situation, an international commission led by Olof Palme presented a report showing that security is something we create together. More and more powerful weapons are not the answer. The concept of common security was established. That way of thinking came to play a role in future negotiations for disarmament and detente.

By taking the concept of Common Security as its starting point, the Common Security 2022 initiative has analysed the world we live in today and some of the great challenges facing humanity. When reading this report, I hope that you will feel an increased optimism about the future. It is possible to make the world better, if we do it together. The idea for this project came from a conversation in February 2020 between myself and Philip Jennings, Co-President of the International Peace Bureau. Common Security 2022 has worked with limited financial and human resources. But because many have shown an enthusiasm and a willingness to contribute their knowledge, we have created this document together. The International Trade Union Confederation, the International Peace Bureau and the Olof Palme International Center are three organisations different in nature, but we all share a vision of a more peaceful world. When starting this journey, little did we know of the situation we would find ourselves in when presenting this report. Some may say it is naïve to even talk about peace, disarmament and common security when the world is on the brink of a new world war. But, on the contrary, now more than ever, we need a stronger discourse for peace.

I would like to extend a deep thank you to all the members of our High-Level Advisory Commission for the time you have spent attending meetings and providing input to the report. The Commission consists of a highly qualified and hugely experienced group of people from all over the world. The collective knowledge within the Commission is what makes this initiative unique. I would also like to thank everyone who participated in the Common Security 2022 webinar series. The webinars provided us with valuable expertise and insights that are reflected here in the report. To my fellow Steering Committee members, thank you for your time, dedication, and engagement. But there are two people I would like to give an extra heartfelt thanks to: Björn Lindh, our coordinator, and Clare Santry, our editor. Without the two of you we would never have pulled this off.

This initiative does not end with the presentation of this report. Rather, it should be seen as the beginning of work that must continue for a long time to come. Our world is in danger, but together we can build our common security.

Anna Sundström

Secretary General,

Olof Palme International Center

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The following recommendations are taken from the Introduction to the report:

To turn the tide, we must:

• Reaffirm the UN Charter based on the rights and obligations of “we the peoples”. International cooperation and respect for international law must be fundamental to all states.

• Revitalise and implement the call by the UN Secretary General for a worldwide ceasefire as the starting point for peace processes in different regions of the world.

• Reinforce respect for International Humanitarian Law as a matter of urgency, given the increasing harm to civilians in recent conflicts.

• Realise that global peace and security are created jointly – that when your counterpart is not secure, you will not be secure either. There must be respect for the UN Charter’s prohibition against the use of force and the inviolability of borders.7

• Recognise that the threat of nuclear war and climate change are both existential threats to humanity.

• Strengthen trust between states and peoples, so that countries with different systems, cultures, religions and ideologies can work together on global challenges.

• Build a world order based on human needs. There is no development without peace, nor peace without development. And neither is possible without respect for human rights.

• Ensure inclusive governance at all levels in society, to safeguard democratic principles and the inclusion of women, young people and minorities.

Forty years on from the original Palme Commission, the challenges of our interdependent global society demand, more than ever, collaboration and partnership rather than isolation and distrust. Common Security is about human beings, not just nations. Now, in 2022, it is time to consider whether Common Security can help bring us back from the brink.

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From Olof Palme’s introduction to Common Security: A Blueprint for Survival

Our report expresses our deep concern at the worsening international situation, and at the drift towards war that so many perceive today. We are totally agreed that there is no such thing as a nuclear war that can be won. An all-out nuclear war would mean unprecedented destruction, maybe the extinction of the human species. A so-called limited nuclear war would almost inevitably develop into total nuclear conflagration …

On the basis of this strategy of common security, we discussed practical proposals to achieve arms limitation and disarmament. The long-term goal in the promotion of peace must be general and complete disarmament. But the Commission sees its task as being to consider a gradual process in that direction, to curb and reverse the arms race. We do not propose unilateral action by any country. We clearly see the need for balanced and negotiated reduction in arms.

Our aim has been to promote a downward spiral in armaments. We have elaborated a broad programme for reducing the nuclear threat, including major reductions in all types of strategic nuclear system[s]. We propose the establishment of a battlefield-nuclear-weapon-free zone starting in Central Europe. We also propose a chemical-weapon-free zone in Europe. Even the process of beginning to negotiate such limitations, we consider, would reduce political tension in Europe …

We also emphasize the importance of regional approaches to security. We propose to strengthen regional security by creating zones of peace, nuclear-weapon-free zones, and by establishing regional conferences on security and cooperation similar to the one set up in Helsinki for Europe. We believe that regional discussions – including negotiations leading to chemical-weapon and battlefield-nuclear-weapon-free zones in Europe – can play an important role in achieving common security in all parts of the world.