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What is ARMS DOWN!

CAMPAIGN FOR SHARED SECURITY

Rissho Kosei-kai is a founding member of the World Conference of Religions for Peace (WCRP). Religions for Peace, for short, is the world’s largest multi-religious coalition advancing common action among religious communities for peace. The Religions for Peace Global Youth Network is advancing disarmament for shared security in a year-long campaign launched in November 2009.

Shared security is a new political paradigm. It echoes the holistic notions of peace that are found in the world’s great religions. It recognizes that each person’s vulnerability is an invitation to approach others with compassion. Our interrelatedness calls us to cooperate to protect all persons and our earth. Today, my security depends on yours and no one is safer than the most vulnerable among us. Shared security was advanced by 800 senior religious leaders from over 100 countries at the Religions for Peace's Eighth World Assembly in Kyoto, Japan in 2006.

This ARMS DOWN! campaign - led by youth from the world’s religions - will work to engage religious leaders and believers around the world to unleash the power of multi-religious cooperation through shared action. It will also reach out to international organizations, governments, national assemblies and parliaments, municipalities, media, and all men and women of good will. Through education, mobilization and advocacy, the campaign will advance shared security by working to reduce nuclear and conventional weapons and to reallocate military spending to support urgently needed development, as set forth in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

VISION
Youth representing the world’s religions work together for an arms-free world and a shared future.

MISSION
Youth representing the world’s religions advance common action for disarmament toward shared security.

GOALS
Youth call on the world’s religious believers and all people of goodwill to:

1. Abolish nuclear weapons.

• Development of a universal Nuclear Weapons Convention.
• Adoption of measures that strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in the 2010 Review Conference to achieve complete nuclear disarmament by 2020.

2. Stop the proliferation and misuse of conventional weapons.

• Passage of a global Arms Trade Treaty.
• Full support and implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty and the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

3. Redirect 10% of military expenditure to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.

• Reduction of arms expenditure in each state and re-allocation of those funds to support completion of the MDGs.
• Implementation of United Nations General Assembly resolutions that commit member states to disarmament and support development.