Archive for June, 2009

A new book on the UN and Nuclear Disarmament

Posted on: June 26th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr

The United Nations and Nuclear Orders is a new volume of essays edited by Jane Boulden, Ramesh Thakur, and Thomas G. Weiss.

In his Foreword to this volume, Jayantha Dhanapala, whose extraordinary diplomatic career included his widely acclaimed service as UN Under Secretary General for Disarmament Affairs, attributes the current return of nuclear weapons to the place of prominence  they held in international relations during the Cold War to four factors:

  • the emergence of global terrorism (as distinct from national terrorism);
  • the nuclear “renaissance”, or growing interest in nuclear energy;
  • instances of attempted weapons proliferation by states within the NPT and actual proliferation outside the Treaty; and
  • the adoption by some nuclear weapon states of doctrines for the actual and pre-emptive use of  nuclear weapons, including against non-nuclear weapon states (pp. xiii-xiv).

The joint opening and context setting chapter by the editors points out that “although the United Nations may not be the central forum for negotiations and discussions concerning nuclear weapons, and it may not be living up to its full potential, it would be wrong to count the United Nations out of the nuclear weapons picture” (p. 4). They go on to set out the three core questions that focus the essays in this volume:

  • “What is the nature of the current environment in which the United Nations is operating on these issues?
  • Who and what are the actors and tools the United Nations has available to it with respect to questions about nuclear weapons?
  • What do the answers to those two questions tell us about whether and how the organization could, or should, play a role in these issues, as well as the kind of role that it might assume?”

The book is in three sections, on the actors, the actual and potential tools, and looming threats and new challenges.

I contributed the chapter on the Security Council in the section on actors, and the following is taken from the introduction:

“It was never part of a formal plan that the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the P-5) should also be the five nuclear weapon states (NWS), later to be recognized and accepted as such under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). By now, however, these two distinct attributes have been so fully fused in the multilateral consciousness that it seems as if nature intended it that way. Indeed, permanent membership in the Council could only have added to the drive by the United Kingdom, France, and China to follow the United States and the then Soviet Union to acquire credible nuclear arsenals. Possession of nuclear weapons was seen as a desirable if not essential accoutrement of the global gravitas attaching to any States assuming the mantle of ultimate custodians of international peace and security. And though this commingling of the P-5 with the nuclear five (N5) now seems normal, it is an arrangement that has bedeviled the Council’s performance in one key part of its assigned job of keeping the peace and enforcing global norms.

“The focus of this chapter is the Security Council’s attention to vertical non-proliferation, that is, nuclear disarmament, rather than horizontal non-proliferation. It begins by laying out the framework provided by the UN Charter before discussing the multilaterally defined disarmament agenda – the principles, objectives, and practical steps toward disarmament – that the P-5/N-5 have fully endorsed in forums or contexts outside the Council. The chapter then discusses the importance of disarmament efforts to curb horizontal proliferation. Next, two specific Council engagements – on negative security assurances and the response to Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons developments – are addressed. They provide valuable insights into considering ongoing impediments to the P-5/N-5 giving attention to the imperative of nuclear disarmament within the practical and more demanding business of the Security Council. The chapter concludes by exploring what the Council might realistically do to advance the agreed nuclear disarmament agenda” (pp. 31-32).

Other authors include the editors, David Cortright of the Joan B. Krock Institute (at Notre Dame), Randy Rydell of the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs, Nicole Evans of Canada’s DFAIT, Rita Grossman-Vermas of the US Department of the Treasury, Ian Johnstone of Tufts University, and Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu.

The United Nations and nuclear ordersBoulden, Thakur and Weiss (eds), United Nations University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-92-808-1167-4.

To order contact:

UNITED NATIONS PUBLICATIONS

2 United Nations Plaza,

Room DC2-853, Dept 174

New York, NY 10017

Tel: 212 963-8302,

800 253-9646 (credit card orders)

Fax: 212 963-3489

E-mail: publications@un.org

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Arming Repression? Military Exports to Countries that Violate Human Rights

Posted on: June 15th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr

There is a clear global norm, if not yet enforceable international law, against supplying arms to states engaged in serious and persistent human rights violations. To what extent is it a norm that arms suppliers, including Canada, honor in practice?


The proposed “arms trade treaty” that is now the subject of UN-mandated[i] multilateral negotiations is expected to confirm and reinforce the illegality of supplying arms to countries in which there is a credible risk that those arms will be used to attack civilians and violate the rights of their people. In support of that norm, Canada’s current export guidelines discourage, but do not prohibit, military exports to countries “whose governments have a persistent record of serious violations of the human rights of their citizens, unless it can be demonstrated that there is no reasonable risk that the goods might be used against the civilian population.”[ii]

One way to measure the extent to which Canada follows that principle is to compare its performance with that of the rest of the world (a recent Ploughshares report offers a detailed analysis of Canada’s military export performance).[iii] There is currently not enough transparency in the international arms trade system to reliably monitor particular transfers with a view to assessing their likely contribution to human rights violations, but there are compilations of the overall volume of weapons sold worldwide that make it possible to get a good sense of how much of that total volume goes to countries guilty of serious and persistent human rights violations and to identify the comparative records of various suppliers.

For example, Freedom House, a well-established American non-governmental organization that monitors political rights and civil liberties, publishes an annual global survey. For 2005, the last year for which Canadian military export figures are available, the Freedom House survey ranks 192 countries and defines 89 as “free”, 54 as “partly free”, and the remaining 49 as “not free”.[iv] The latter category correlates strongly with states identified by human rights monitoring groups as among the worst offenders.

By that measure, roughly 25 percent of all states are serious and persistent human rights violators – so, the question is, do arms suppliers avoid arms shipments to such countries as a way of reducing the likelihood that their products will be used for illegal purposes (human rights violations) and thus generally honor the norm against supplying repression?

Canada’s most recent report on military exports covers the three years 2003-2005,[v] and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) register of international transfers[vi] of major weapons systems provides figures for the global trade during the same period. In the three years 2003-2005 worldwide exports of major weapons went to 131 countries, of which 36 were in the Freedom House “not free” category. So 27 percent of arms recipients in that period were major human rights violators – roughly the same proportion of countries that regularly and seriously violate the rights of their citizens according to the Freedom House measure.

That suggests there was no particular effort by suppliers as a group to avoid sales to such countries. Furthermore, roughly one-third of the volume of major arms transferred in those three years went to human rights violating countries, indicating rather a strong willingness – even a modest preference – to sell to repressive regimes.

The US record, according to the SIPRI figures, is actually better than that of the global supplier group. The US sold major weapons to 60 countries during those three years (2003-2005), of which 10, or 16 percent, were in the “not free” category. At the same time, 20 percent of the total volume of its export, almost $20 billion worth, went to “not free” countries – generally indicating a slight bias against supplying arms to human rights violators.

Canada’s record is both better and worse than the US record. Canadian reporting on arms sales (excluding the United States because Government reporting does not include sales to the US) includes all military commodities, major weapons systems as well as small arms, other military equipment, and parts and subcomponents. With all of these categories included, Canada sold to 72 countries during the same three years, of which 9, or 13 percent, were in the “not free” category, indicating a stronger than average record of avoiding sales to repressive regimes. However, when measuring volume, fully 25 percent of all Canadian exports went to “not free” countries. And since 25 percent of all countries in the world fit that category, the record suggests that Canadian policy does not result in any real avoidance of shipments to repressive regimes.

But that is not quite the full story. Canadian exports are heavily concentrated, so what the figures show is not so much that Canada has a tendency to sell to repressive regimes generally, but that it has a rather strong tendency to sell to Saudi Arabia. The repressive Saudi kingdom – by the Freedom House measure it is among the eight most repressive regimes on the planet – has become a favorite customer of Canadian military commodities, especially light armored vehicles. If sales to Saudi Arabia are removed, the proportion of Canadian military goods going to repressive regimes drops to just over 2 percent (the primary customers being Egypt, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates) – showing a significant inclination to avoid military sales to repressive regimes.

Lloyd Axworthy’s 1996 instruction, as Minister of Foreign Affairs,  that the permit approval process pay more rigorous attention to security issues and to threats of hostilities in recipient countries called for “a strict interpretation of human rights criteria”[vii] in military export permit decisions. That strictness seems to have been generally applied during the period 2003-2005, but it has clearly not produced any reluctance to export armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia.

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As a result, the King and his extended family remain vulnerable to any internal opposition that stands a chance of winning the support of the country’s lavishly funded armed forces. Of course, the Royals have not survived this long by ignoring the obvious. The King has in fact taken care to employ divide and rule tactics to create a splintered military – tactics that have included building up the Saudi Arabia National Guard as a tribal force to protect the Royal family from both internal rebellion and the regular Saudi Army. For more than a decade Canada has been a steady supplier of military commodities to Saudi Arabia, primarily light armored vehicles for that same National Guard.

All of this leads to at least three basic conclusions. First, there is no evidence that global arms suppliers collectively now make a point of avoiding arms sales to countries engaged in serious and persistent human rights violations. Second, as long as Canada sees Saudi Arabia as a legitimate arms customer its record of controlling arms to human rights violators is not much better than that of the rest of the world. Third, since the record of global arms suppliers suggests indifference to repression in recipient countries, an Arms Trade Treaty that tries to put some teeth into a global norm against the supply of arms to human rights violators will have to have clear enforcement mechanisms and compliance standards.[viii]

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] Resolution A/63/240, voted on December 24, 2008 (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/ga10804.doc.htm).

[ii] Report on Exports of Military Goods From Canada, 2003-2005, (Export Controls Division, Export and Import Controls Bureau, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, 2007) http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/trade/eicb/military/miliexport07-en.asp.

[iii] For a detailed analysis of Canadian military export control performance see this special report from Project Ploughshares: Kenneth Eppsand Kyle Gossen, On the Record: An audit of Canada’s report on Canada’s military exports, 2003-05 (Project Ploughshares. January 2009), http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Control/Audit2003-05MilitaryExports.pdf.

[iv] “Combined Average Ratings – Independent Countries 2005” (http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=193&year=2005).

[v] Report on Exports of Military Goods From Canada, 2003-2005, (Export Controls Division, Export and Import Controls Bureau, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, 2007) http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/trade/eicb/military/miliexport07-en.asp.

[vi] SIPRI’s Arms Transfer Database, http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/transfers, searched for data on years 2003 through 2005.

[vii] “Annual Report on Canada’s Military Goods Exports Tabled in Parliament Today, Press Release No. 205, December 11, 1997, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (http://w01.international.gc.ca/minpub/PublicationContentOnly.asp?publication_id=376245&Language=E&MODE=CONTENTONLY&Local=False).

[viii] An imperative endorsed by a recent UK House of Commons (Foreign Affairs Committee) Report on nonproliferation: Global Security: Non–Proliferation, Fourth Report of Session 2008–09, 3 June 2009.http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmfaff/222/222.pdf.

Finally, the UN’s Geneva disarmament forum gets to work

Posted on: June 1st, 2009 by Ernie Regehr

The UN’s Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament (CD) has for the first time in 12 years agreed on a program of substantive work. So now, as of the genuinely historic agreement on May 29, negotiations can begin on a key element of that program, the patiently pursued yet persistently resisted agreement to ban the production of fissile material for weapons purposes.

The pursuit of a fissile materials treaty really dates back to the dawn of the nuclear age. In 1946 the Atomic Energy Commission’s first annual report to the Security Council recommended the establishment of an international agency to, among other things, provide for the disposal of fissile material and ensure that the “manufacture and possession” of atomic weapons was prohibited.[i]

Countless UN resolutions since then, including the explicit 1963 General Assembly call for negotiations on a Treaty,[ii] along with two basic agreements on procedure reached more than a decade ago, the “A-5 formula” and the “Shannon mandate,” reflect an enduring global consensus on the importance of ending the production of fissile materials for weapons. Two Review Conferences of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) also called for negotiations on a Treaty.

The majority voice in the CD has long insisted, however, that substantive work on banning fissile materials production should be carried out in the context of parallel attention to three other issues:

-pursuit of a legally-binding instrument to assure non-nuclear weapon states that they will not be subjected to the threat or use of nuclear weapons against them;

-multilateral negotiations or discussion to advance global nuclear disarmament; and

-prevention of an arms race in outer space.

For years, various states have declared their support of one or some of these agenda items, while refusing support for others. Then in 2003 a group of Ambassadors to the CD developed a basic formula which would mandate “negotiations” on fissile materials but only “discussions” on the other three items (leaving open the possibility for moving towards negotiations in the future). This A-5 formula[iii] is incorporated into the May 29 agreement and it honors the basic principle that the international community will not permit certain groups of states to determine that multilateral attention will focus only on their priority issue, to the exclusion of the priorities of others.

Another seemingly insoluble dispute that has hounded the fissile materials issue is the question of whether a proposed treaty should address only a ban on future production or whether it would deal with existing stocks as well.

A fissile materials cut-off treaty (an FMCT) would ban all future fissile material production after a negotiated cut-off date, thus it would formalize the existing moratoria on production in the UK, US, Russia, France, and China, and it would ensure that fissile material production by India, Israel, and Pakistan would be capped. A fissile materials treaty (an FMT), on the other hand, would deal with existing stocks as well as future production, including provisions to limit the weaponization of existing materials produced for weapons purposes.

In 1994 Canadian Ambassador Gerald Shannon was asked to find a way through this dispute and his March 1995 report set out a basic compromise. The formal mandate for fissile materials negotiations would focus on a “ban on the production of fissile material,” but it would also allow delegations to raise other issues, including controls on and destruction of existing stocks, during the course of negotiations. This compromise became known as the Shannon mandate[iv] and is now part of the May 29 agrement. The principle embedded in the Shannon mandate is that the international community will not permit a single state or a small group of states to define in advance the parameters of multilateral negotiations on a particular issue.

Of course, all non-nuclear weapon states that are party to the NPT are already prohibited from producing or possessing fissile material for weapons purposes, so a FMCT/FMT would in effect universalize that ban. As of now, only eight states are not legally prohibited from producing fissile materials for weapons purposes: the five acknowledged nuclear weapon states (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States), and the three states that have never signed the NPT (India, Israel, Pakistan). North Korea, the only other state that is currently known to possess fissile materials for weapons purposes, has withdrawn from the NPT, but because it was in violation of the Treaty when it withdrew, most states argue that it is still bound by the provisions of the NPT).

Of course, Iran is suspected, or at least has not given sufficient verifiable assurances to the contrary, of intending to produce fissile materials for weapons purposes, and the issue remains before both the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

To say that the negotiations will be long and arduous is obviously an understatement, but at the same time the five official nuclear weapon states and the three non-NPT states with nuclear weapons all have persuasive reasons for joining the negotiations.[v] The US and Russia, as well as the UK and France, have large stocks of materials on hand and so have no reason to resist a ban on future production, and they would clearly welcome a Treaty that would cap production in China, as well as in North Korea, India, Israel, and Pakistan. They, of course, are rather less inclined to support an agreement that would place controls over their existing stocks.

China has suspended production and supports a permanent and collective ban on further production, and it would of course welcome a cap on Indian production. India, on the other hand, which would welcome a cap on Pakistani production, is confident that it will be able to build up its own stocks during the time it takes to negotiate a production ban.
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India has already signaled that it will resist efforts to place controls over existing stocks – it wants a “cut-off” treaty. Pakistan, however, wants the Treaty to cover stocks as well. Pakistan is pretty much resigned to asymmetry with India on nuclear arsenals, but it will still look to the Treaty to keep the imbalance within some limits.

Israel probably feels it has little to gain from such a Treaty, although a simple ban on future production would probably be acceptable. Other states in the Middle East, however, are unlikely to find it acceptable to support a Treaty that bans only future production and thus implicitly accepts, even blesses, Israel’s existing stocks.

For the rest of the world, at a minimum a fissile materials treaty, whatever its final shape and scope, will:

-reinforce the ban on fissile material production that already applies to non-nuclear weapon states within the NPT,

-prevent the expansion of nascent arsenals, such as that of North Korea,

-limit the development of arsenals in states like India, Israel, and Pakistan, and

-extend safeguards and inspection arrangements to key nuclear facilities in all states with nuclear weapons.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] Lauren Barbour, Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty: A Chronology, Institute for Science and International Security, http://www.isis-online.org/publications/fmct/chronology.html.

[ii] A brief review of the tortuous process that has finally led to the decision to begin negotiations is also provided in what is probably the very best available background material on fissile materials, and that is the work of the International Panel on Fissile Materials. Its 2008 report, the third annual, is focused on the “Scope and Verification of a Fissile Materials (Cutoff) Treaty.” Global Fissile Material Report 2008: Scope and Verification of a Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty, Third Annual Report of the International Panel on Fissile Materials.www.fissilematerials.org.

[iii] Initiative of the Ambassadors Dembri, Lint, Reyes, Salander andVega. Proposal of a Programme of Work revised at the 932nd plenary meeting on Thursday, 26 June 2003. CD/1693/Rev.1, 5 September 2003. http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/A5.pdf.

[iv] Report of Ambassador Gerald E. Shannon of Canada on Consultations on the Most Appropriate Arrangement to Negotiate a Treaty Banning the Production of Fissile Material for Nuclear Weapons or Other Nuclear Explosive Devices. CD/1299, 24 March 1995. Available athttp://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/shannon.html.

[v] Jenni Rissanen, “Time for a Fissban – or Farewell?”, Disarmament Diplomacy, Winter 2006, p. 16.