A/HRC/27/51 militarization in the foreseeable future. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates that, in the year 2013, approximately 1,747 billion dollars were spent worldwide for the military.19 The biggest spender devoted as much as 40 per cent of tax revenues to the military.20 The Independent Expert joins the United Nations SecretaryGeneral in deploring this situation; “the world is over-armed and development is underfunded”.21 13. The Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University published a study on the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, estimating it at somewhere between four and six trillion United States dollars.22 This study focused on the cost to the United States taxpayer, not to other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the “coalition of the willing”, or to the population of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Much good could have been accomplished if a fraction of those military expenditures had been devoted to the promotion of the Millennium Development Goals. 14. The links between militarism and development as well as the connection between war and the environment must be taken into account. The environment requires protection; the testing of new weapons, their use in war and their continuing polluting effects cause long-term environmental and economic damage that should be factored in when the costs of militarism are computed. It is useful to recall principle 24 of the Rio Declaration of 1992: “warfare is inherently destructive of sustainable development. States shall therefore respect international law by providing protection for the environment in times of armed conflict and cooperate in its further development, as necessary.”23 15. Many international statesmen have already pondered the issue of budgetary priorities. More than 60 years ago, the President of the United States of America, Dwight Eisenhower eloquently addressed the predicament: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”24 Expenditures for military nuclear research and the production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction have been astronomical, exceeding US$100 billion per year.25 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 8 SIPRI, Fact Sheet April 2014, “Trends in world military expenditure, 2013”. See Friends Committee on National Legislation, http://fcnl.org/action/alert/2014/0408/; https://www.warresisters.org/sites/default/files/FY2015piechart-BW.pdf; and https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/. See www.un.org/disarmament/over-armed/. See also Melissa Gillis, Disarmament: A Basic Guide (New York, United Nations, 2012), available from www.un.org/disarmament/HomePage/ODAPublications/AdhocPublications/PDF/Basic_Guide-2011web-Rev1.pdf#page=15. See also www.un.org/disarmament/HomePage/ODAPublications/AdhocPublications/PDF/guide.pdf. See https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/workingpapers/citation.aspx?PubId=8956 Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, “There will be no peace dividend after Afghanistan”, Financial Times, 24 January 2013. See www.un.org/documents/ga/conf151/aconf15126-1annex1.htm. Dwight D. Eisenhower, The Chance for Peace, 16 April 1953, available from www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/ike_chance_for_peace.html. See www.icanw.org/the-facts/catastrophic-harm/a-diversion-of-public-resources/.