Archive for September, 2009

The evolution of P5 disarmament language

Posted on: September 25th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr

The five permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council are of course also the five nuclear weapon states that are recognized as such by the NPT. They have made few collective disarmament commitments, but there are some important ones and it is worth looking at the evolution of their collective disarmament language, up to and including yesterday’s (24 Sept 09) historic Security Council resolution.[i]

The foundational collective commitment is obviously in Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). All the P5 are now signatories, although they weren’t when the NPT first entered into force in 1970, and in it they say: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

For the P5 the operative word was “pursue,” and in the wake of their new commitment they embarked on the most intense arms race in human history, a nuclear arms race which led to their collective acquisition of some 70,000 nuclear weapons by the mid-1980s (up from just under 40,000 when the Treaty entered into force in 1970, and compared with the roughly 24,000 that remain today). Throughout, the P5 have argued they are in compliance with their Treaty obligations inasmuch as they are “pursuing” nuclear disarmament but that the conditions haven’t favored it. In fact, the P5 tended to argue that the Article VI reference to “general and complete” disarmament was really intended to mean that nuclear disarmament could be accomplished only in the context of general and complete disarmament.

Of course, other signatories to the NPT, the non-nuclear weapon states, argued that it was nuclear disarmament that would enhance global peace and security and thus both precede and contribute to the more distant goal of general and complete disarmament.

In 1992 the P5, through a formal Statement approved by the Security Council, went some way toward acknowledging that nuclear disarmament has a higher priority than general and complete disarmament, when the Council declared that “the proliferation of all weapons of mass destruction constitutes a threat to international peace and security,”[ii] assuming that “proliferation” can be understood as “vertical” proliferation as well.

In 1995, through the NPT Review Conference, the P5 strengthened its language further in acknowledging that a requirement for implementing Article VI is the “the determined pursuit by the nuclear-weapon States of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goals of eliminating those weapons, and by all States of general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

The implication that nuclear disarmament must await general disarmament is not present in that formulation.

Then in 1996 the World Court, in its formal opinion on the Treaty, said that the obligation was not only to “pursue” negotiations, or presumably the “determined” pursuit of negotiations, toward nuclear disarmament, but that the obligation is to actually “conclude” negotiations and to achieve the goal of nuclear disarmament.[iii]

In 2000 the P5, along with all other NPT signatories, agreed to 13 “practical steps” – these were described as “systematic and progressive efforts to implement article VI of the Treaty” – and the sixth of these steps was, and is, “an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament, to which all States parties are committed under article VI.”

This formulation obviously affirms the Court’s interpretation of Article VI as imposing an obligation on NWS to actually achieve or accomplish, not just pursue nuclear disarmament. It also separates nuclear disarmament from the general and complete disarmament effort. In other words, in 2000 the P5 said that they had an obligation to eliminate their nuclear arsenals and that they intended to fulfill that obligation.

In 2008 the P5 said through another Security Council statement that nuclear disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation are “necessary,” among other measures, “to strengthen international peace and security.”[iv]

That brings us to yesterday’s action. UN Security Council Resolution 1887, is a genuinely historic achievement for many reasons,[v] but it explicitly reverts to the language of pursuing, rather than accomplishing, nuclear disarmament. In the first preambular paragraph it says: “Resolving to seek a safer world for all and to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons….” In the main operative paragraph on disarmament, as approved by the P5, the Security Council “calls on the Parties to the NPT, pursuant to Article VI of the Treaty, to undertake to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to nuclear arms reduction and disarmament….”

It is important to resist the temptation toward excessive negativity about what is a major and positive diplomatic move to light a fire under nuclear disarmament, but it is hard to avoid the thought that the language here is the definition of equivocation. First, it is a “call” rather than a commitment. Second, it is a call, not to accomplish disarmament, and technically not event to pursue it, but to “undertake” to pursue it – in other words, we are back at the 1970 NPT formulation without the benefit of the subsequent clarifications.

And by once again using the Article VI formulation that includes the reference to general and complete disarmament, the P5 invite a glass-half-empty interpretation that has them once again implying that nuclear disarmament must await conditions of global peace – rather than, as has been gradually clarified through the statements in 1992, 1995, 2000, and 2008 and through the World Court opinion, that nuclear disarmament is essential to and a means toward greater global peace and security.

One’s disappointment in the language is somewhat mitigated by subsequent paragraphs which reaffirm the 1992 and 2008 statements, but silence on the 1995 and 2000 commitments is telling.

None of this means that Resolution 1887 is not hugely important. It profiles nuclear disarmament as a global priority, it formally envisions a world without nuclear weapons, and it acknowledges at least implicitly that non-proliferation, that is, stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, cannot be de-linked from disarmament. It is future action which will determine whether Resolution 1887 reflects a new and vigorous political will for disarmament among the P5, or whether the language of re-equivocation betrays a commitment to business as usual.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] The resolution was heavily focused on controlling the spread of nuclear weapons, measures that bear further discussion, but for now, a look at the more limited disarmament commitments.

[ii] Statement by the President of the Security Council, S/23500, 31 January 1992.

[iii] The Court’s Opinion is summarized by John Burroughs in, “The Legality of Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons:  A Guide to the Historic Opinion of The International Court Of Justice.” International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, Lit Verlag, 1997, Muenster. Available athttp://lcnp.org/wcourt/adlegalintro.htm.

[iv] Statement by the President of the Security Council, S/PRST/2008/43, 19 November 2008.

[v] See previous posting here, Sept 15, http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2009/9/first-ever-un-security-council-resolution-nuclear-disarmament.

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A first ever UN Security Council Resolution on Nuclear Disarmament

Posted on: September 15th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr

September 24 promises a couple of encouraging firsts. It will be the first time a US President has chaired a session of the UN Security Council, and for the first time the Council is expected to pass a resolution that will include substantive disarmament elements relevant to the nuclear arsenals of its five permanent members – all of which are nuclear weapon states. It is an important new start for the Security Council, even if on matters of practical substance it will be a fairly modest effort.

The UN Security Council has certainly not been shy about pronouncing itself on nuclear nonproliferation, or about imposing strict conditions on states viewed to be in violation of nonproliferation requirements, but it has been essentially silent on nuclear disarmament.[i] That will change when President Barack Obama chairs a session of the Security Council on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.

The US has now circulated a draft resolution[ii] which strongly affirms nuclear disarmament and the objective of “a world without nuclear weapons.” It recalls the Council’s 1992 Presidential Statement,[iii] not a resolution, which asserts that “the proliferation of all weapons of mass destruction constitutes a threat to international peace and security,” and both the 1992 statement and the draft resolution for the 24th “underline the need for all Member States to fulfill their obligations in relation to arms control and disarmament.”

The draft resolution for the September 24 session affirms the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as “the essential foundation for the pursuit of nuclear disarmament,” again “underlining the need to pursue further efforts in the sphere of nuclear disarmament, in accordance with Article VI of the NPT.”

A major virtue of the resolution, and it is a big one, is that it marks a sharp American departure from the style, rhetoric, and substance of the Bush Administration’s approach to nuclear weapons and nuclear disarmament. In the Bush years the US was focused on denying that the NPT’s disarmament Article, Article VI, actually requires disarmament,[iv] but the current draft states clearly that the NPT rests on three pillars – disarmament, nonproliferation, peaceful uses. And it says there is a need to strengthen all three. Indeed, the draft resolution sees disarmament as a means “to enhance global security” – a formulation that harkens back to the 1992 statement that identified proliferation (including, implicitly, vertical proliferation) as a threat to security.

So far so good[v] – but then the focus clearly shifts to the nonproliferation pillar. Disarmament is the focus of only five of the 25 operational paragraphs of the draft. To be sure, many of the nonproliferation references and measures have important and positive disarmament implications, but direct commitments or calls for disarmament are confined to calls for further disarmament of existing arsenals, for the entry into force of the nuclear test ban Treaty, negotiation of a treaty on the production of fissile materials, a call for all states outside the NPT to join it, and a reaffirmation of negative security assurances.

All are important, but one unnamed European diplomat is quoted on Politico.Com as emphasizing that this resolution “should contain no wording that could be seen as weaker than what was agreed in previous resolutions.”[vi] It is a test the draft resolution does not pass. Inasmuch as the Security Council has not passed previous resolutions referencing disarmament by nuclear weapon states, this resolution is an important step forward, but the language here is certainly much weaker in important instances than that contained in commitments made by nuclear weapon states in the context of the NPT review process.

There is a welcome call for the Conference on Disarmament (CD) to negotiate a treaty banning the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes, but of course this is a call that is now decades old. There is almost universal agreement that there should be such a treaty, but it is largely the peculiarity of the CD process that keeps negotiations from happening.[vii] Paul Meyer’s recent review of this collective failure says it is time “to challenge CD member states’ apparently infinite capacity to tolerate stalemate at the [CD],” and he challenges nuclear weapon states, perhaps using the forthcoming Security Council session, to finally take action, for example by convening a diplomatic conference dedicated to a fissile materials treaty and focused on how best to get around the still moribund CD.[viii]

And even though the nuclear weapon states have all indicated that they are no longer producing fissile materials for weapons purposes, the draft does not call for a universal moratorium on such production pending the negotiation of a treaty (a call that would be directed toward India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan). The draft’s call for the test ban treaty to finally enter into force does call for a testing moratorium in the meantime.

The draft resolution refers to the Security Council resolutions on North Korea and Iran, but is silent on Resolution 1172 (1998), which called on India and Pakistan, in the wake of their 1998 test explosions of multiple nuclear devices, to end their nuclear weapons programs. Ignoring Resolution 1172 is a way of implicitly acquiescing to the nuclear weapon state status of India and Pakistan, yet, at the same time, the resolution calls on them, as well as Israel and North Korea, to join the NPT. That would mean joining as non-nuclear weapon states – again, it is an old call that has been, and will continue to be, utterly ignored. Yet another such call has little meaning. Promoting universality of the NPT is obviously welcome, but given that it is not about to happen, the urgent task now is to find ways of bringing the outliers meaningfully into the collective pursuit of the envisioned “world without nuclear weapons.”

The draft resolution notably makes no references to the substantial agreements reached in the 1995 and 2000 NPT review conferences. At those events nuclear weapon states not only committed to total nuclear disarmament, they promised interim measures to enhance transparency related to their arsenals, to undertake regular reporting to NPT member states on progress made in implementing Article VI, to de-alert deployed systems, to undertake unilateral disarmament initiatives, to make disarmament irreversible, to pursue more effective verification measures, to place surplus fissile materials under IAEA inspections, and so on – none of these pre-existing promises receive acknowledgement in the draft resolution.

The UN Security Council’s attention to nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation is to be celebrated, and that it will be led by the United States is doubly worthy of celebration. On matters of substance it will be a modest start, but on the political level it promises a genuinely new beginning.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] For an account of the UNSC’s approach to disarmament, see: Ernie Regehr, “The Security Council and nuclear disarmament.” Jane Boulden, Ramesh Thakur, and Thomas G. Weiss, eds. The United Nations and Nuclear Orders, United Nations University Press, 2009, pp. 31-51.

[ii] The September 14 draft by the US is available at Politico.Com:   http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27123.html.

[iii] “Note By The President Of The Security Council, S/23500, 31 January 1992.

[iv] Christopher A. Ford, “Debating Disarmament: Interpreting Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 14, No. 3, November 2007.http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol14/143/143ford.pdf.

[v] A good statement on what the UNSC resolution should include is offered by the Middle Powers Initiative (September 2009). http://www.gsinstitute.org/mpi/archives/UNSC.pdf.

[vi] Laura Rozen, “Obama’s UN nonproliferation resolution,” 14 September 2009.http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0909/Obamas_nonproliferation_resolution_to_the_UN_the_text.html?showall.

[vii] Two recent postings here focus on the CD stalemate:  “Finally, the UN’s Geneva disarmament forum gets to work,” 1 June 2009. http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2009/6/finally-un%E2%80%99s-geneva-disarmament-forum-gets-work. “Has the stalemate returned?” 13 August 2009.  http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2009/8/has-cd-stalemate-returned.

[viii] Paul Meyer, “Breakthrough and Breakdown at the Conference on Disarmament: Assessing the Prospects for an FM(C)T. Arms Control Today, September 2009. http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_09/Meyer.

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Canada and a nuclear weapons convention

Posted on: September 12th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr

“We call on all member States of the UN – including Canada – to endorse, and begin negotiations for, a nuclear weapons convention as proposed by the UN Secretary-General in his five-point plan for nuclear disarmament.”

This statement has at last count been signed by more than 300 Canadians named to the Order of Canada.[i]The initiative, led by Ploughshares co-founder Murray Thomson,[ii] himself an Officer of the Order, has won the support of a wide cross-section of Canadians from scientific, cultural, business, NGO, and political communities, including: aerospace engineer Bruce Aikenhead; writer Margaret Atwood; physician Harvey Barkun; NGO leader Gerry Barr; former UN Ambassador William Barton; artist Robert Bateman; theologian Gregory Baum; fisheries scientist Richard Beamish; Senator and musician Tommy Banks; politician and human rights leader Ed Broadbent; singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn; journalist Peter Desbarats; fashion designer Marielle Fleury; business entrepreneur Margot Franssen.

And that is just a brief selection of names from the first quarter of the alphabet.[iii]

While the idea of a nuclear weapons convention (NWC) has wide public appeal, it has yet to be embraced by the Government of Stephen Harper. While it supports the proposal in principle,[iv] Canada says now is not the time. The Government insists that before an NWC can be credibly advanced, other treaties to prohibit the development and production of nuclear weapons should  be in place, thus apparently seeing the convention more as a way of commemorating the completion of disarmament negotiations than as providing a comprehensive guide, as envisioned by the Secretary-General’s approach, to those negotiations.

Officials generally, and with some credibility, argue that the prospects for adopting an NWC are not promising as long as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is not fully effective, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has not entered into force, and negotiations on a fissile materials cut-off treaty (FMCT) remain stalled. But by this very logic, the basic conditions for launching negotiations for a NWC are actually in place.

The NPT, for example, is far from ineffective. It has been and remains a successful bulwark against proliferation. Only one state party to the NPT, North Korea, has persistently violated it and withdrawn from it. Of course, the NPT has proven least effective in producing timely nuclear disarmament as required under Article VI. In this case, serious work toward an NWC and a disarmament road map would significantly enhance the effectiveness of the NPT.

And, while the CTBT is not yet in force, it is no longer a matter of serious contention. Negotiations have been successfully concluded. All of the nuclear weapon states that are party to the NPT (China, France, Russia, UK, US) have signed the treaty, with the US and China yet to ratify it, and are adhering to a moratorium on testing pending the Treaty’s entry-into-force. Of the four other states with nuclear weapons, only North Korea has explicitly rejected a moratorium.

Meanwhile, the international community, through the Geneva-based UN Conference on Disarmament, has agreed to begin negotiations on an FMCT. The nuclear weapon states within the NPT have all already halted production of fissile materials. Negotiations within the perennially-deadlocked Conference on Disarmament still need to overcome procedural hurdles, raised most recently by Pakistan, but basic support for a treaty is in place.

Now is, in fact, the ideal time to begin to frame an NWC. It would consolidate multilateral disarmament gains and set out the full requirements, including verification mechanisms, to secure the goal of a world without nuclear weapons within an agreed time frame.

What could Canada constructively contribute if it were to embrace the immediate pursuit of a nuclear weapons convention?

  1. The first priority would be to reestablish Canada’s active support for a world without nuclear weapons. The Harper Government has certainly not rejected that goal, but neither has it promoted it. So, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister should each make an early and prominent speech in which they address nuclear disarmament and reaffirm Canada’s commitment to a world without nuclear weapons.
  2. The Government should also acknowledge that while progress toward a world without nuclear weapons will obviously involve a variety of key measures (such as the key agreements mentioned above), ultimately all those measures must be brought together in a single umbrella or framework convention. Thus, Canadian policy should explicitly call for the start of negotiations toward such a convention that sets a clear timeline for irreversible and verifiable nuclear disarmament.
  3. Next Canada could and should convene an informal international consultative process involving a core group of like-minded states and representatives of civil society to thoroughly explore the focus, scope, verification, and other elements relevant to a nuclear weapons convention. One outcome of this consultation could be an informal international Contact Group or Nuclear Weapons Convention Action Group to systematically press the issue on the international stage.
  4. In the meantime Canada should be thinking about the particular contribution it could make to the international process. The UK, including some joint work with Norway, has for example been focusing on verification measures linked to a nuclear weapons convention.[v] Canada was once active in this area, and still is involved in CTBT seismic verification. Consideration could be given to reviving the verification unit within Foreign Affairs to work with and bolster the UK-Norwegian initiative.
  5. Canada could also credibly focus on the development of appropriate transparency requirements and identification of the kinds of institutional and governance arrangements needed to ensure an effective and effectively managed nuclear weapons convention. Canada has championed reporting in the NPT review process as a means of promoting accountability, has put forward proposals to overcome the institutional deficit of the NPT, and has supported the institutionalization of enhanced civil society participation in multilateral disarmament efforts.

There is no shortage of things to do and no credible reason to wait. The pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons requires Canada’s energetic engagement.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] Jeff Davis, “Order of Canada Recipients Demand Worldwide Ban on Nuclear Weapons,” Embassy (Ottawa, 26 August 2009). http://www.embassymag.ca/page/view/ban_weapons-8-26-2009.

[ii] He is supported by former Senator and Ambassador for Disarmament Douglas Roche and Nobel Prize laureate John Polanyi. The author is a signatory.

[iii] There are plans for the complete list to be available online soon.

[iv] At the UN Canada was one of only two NATO countries to abstain (generally indicating agreement in principle but objection to specific details) on resolution A/Res/63/49 in the General Assembly which calls on states to immediately begin “multilateral negotiations leading to an early conclusion of a nuclear weapons convention prohibiting the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nuclear weapons and providing for their elimination.” All other NATO states voted “no.” Canada joined its NATO colleagues to vote “no” on another resolution calling for negotiations on such a convention (A/Res/63/75) – in this case the resolution also affirmed that any use of nuclear weapons would be in violation of the Charter (a legitimate affirmation but not one likely to be supported by members of a military alliance whose doctrine claims nuclear weapons are essential to their security).

[v] The UK together with Norway is undertaking research, for example, on the verification of nuclear warhead reductions and hosted a meeting of nuclear weapon states (September 3-4, 2009) to “discuss confidence building measures including the verification of disarmament and treaty compliance.” Seehttp://www.fco.gov.uk/en/fco-in-action/counter-terrorism/weapons/nuclear-weapons-policy/disarmament.

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Military spending as “weaponized Keynesianism”

Posted on: September 12th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr

The inimitable Barney Frank had it about right when he allowed that he “would be very happy if there was some way to make it a misdemeanor for people to talk about reducing the budget without including a recommendation that we substantially cut military spending.”[i]

The Massachusetts Congressman’s wishful thinking came to mind when President Barak Obama warned in his health care speech to a joint session of Congress that if nothing is done “to slow [their] skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined.  Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem.  Nothing else even comes close.”[ii]

But, given the “skyrocketing” costs of the US security establishment and its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, there actually is something that comes close.

At the moment the annual rate of US Defence spending, $726 billion (including costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), is well ahead of the $687 billion for Medicare and Medicaid, but the President is right inasmuch as federal US health spending is projected to grow at almost four times the rate of defence spending. US Government budgetary projections see defence growth of 25% by 2019, compared with a projected 40% growth over the same period in overall federal government spending and a whopping 95% jump in Medicare and Medicaid spending.[iii]

There seems little doubt that US health care costs require attention, but that ought not to suggest business as usual at the Pentagon. The comparatively modest 25% projected rise in US defence spending over the next 10 years (substantially lower than the rate of overall government spending increases) is misleading because it is calculated on a base year that comes at the end of eight years of extraordinary defence spending increases.

As US defence analyst William Hartung of the New America Foundation put it in testimony to the US House Armed Services Committee:

“The Pentagon’s baseline budget rose by 82% between FY 2002 and FY 2009, after adjusting for inflation. Add to that the costs of the wars, and we are now spending more in real terms than we have spent at any time since World War II – more than at the height of the Vietnam War, more than at the height of the Korean War, and more than at the peak of the Reagan buildup of the 1980s. In light of the current economic crisis and the competing demands to fund health care, alternative energy, civilian infrastructure, more robust diplomacy, and other domestic and foreign policy priorities, these levels of military spending are no longer sustainable.”[iv]

The Stockholm International Peace Research institute also reports and confirms that current US defence spending outstrips all the excesses of the Cold War and is at its highest level (in real terms adjusted for inflation) since World War II.[v] So not only do the next 10 years not promise a retreat from the extreme heights of the Bush global war on terrorism, but the expectation is that the extreme will grow by a quarter.

Of course, the defence lobby, or to use Dwight Eisenhower’s more descriptive phrase, the military-industrial-complex, insists that defence spending ought to be regarded, not as an economic burden but as an economic stimulus. As Barney Frank sums it up, it is a kind of “weaponized Keynesianism that says military spending is important because it provides jobs and boosts the economy.”

In Canada military Keynesiansim has an enthusiastic advocate in Senator Colin Kenny: “If the Harper government wants to create jobs, it would be far better off to invest more in Canadian Forces….By honouring [the] promise [to modernize the Canadian Forces], the government could go a long way toward solving the jobs crisis it is currently faced with”[vi] (emphasis added!).

Happily, more sober voices are available. A 2007 University of Massachusetts paper found that while $1 billion in US defence spending generates 8,555 jobs, the same amount spent on mass transit and education generates 19,795 and 17,687 jobs respectively – in other words, more than twice as many jobs could be created by cutting defence spending and using the money on civilian programs that would return a long-term benefit to society.[vii]

The Massachusetts study[viii] concludes:

“…[T]here is a great deal at stake as policy makers and voters establish public policy spending priorities….[B]y addressing social needs in the areas of health care, education, mass transit, home weatherization and infrastructure repairs, we would…create more jobs and, depending on the specifics of how such a reallocation is pursued, both an overall higher level of compensation for working people in the US and a better average quality of jobs.”

Another study compares spending on environmental cleanup and combating global warming, routinely understood as drains on an economy, with spending on the Iraq war and military spending generally.[ix] The measured conclusion is:

“The long-run effects of increased military spending are likely to have a comparable impact on the economy as similar sized spending increases devoted to environmental purposes. One important difference is that the environmental spending may have the character of investment. For example, if increased insulation leads to reduced demand for energy at some future point, then this will mean that spending on energy will drain less money from the economy. This will free up money to be spent on other purposes, which should mean that the economy will be stronger than would otherwise be the case. There is no comparable economic dividend from military spending. (It is possible that both environmental and military spending will lead to spin-off inventions that could have substantial economic benefits for other sectors, but there is no reason in general to expect more such spin-offs with one type of spending than the other.)”

In the case of Canada, SIPRI’s 2009 Yearbook still ranks this country as the 13th highest military spender on the planet, and the current level of military spending at about $20 billion is more than 60% higher (after inflation)[x] than it was in 2001. Of course, US military spending is a few, make that many, orders of magnitude beyond Canadian spending, but both the US and Canada face unsustainable budgetary deficits – so here’s hoping that, in both cases, budget reductions will follow a Barney Frank formula rather than that of the military Kenyesians.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] Barney Frank, “Cut the Military Budget,” The Nation, 2 March 2009.http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090302/frank.

[ii] Remarks by the President to a joint session of Congress on Health Care. U.S. Capitol, Washington, 9 September 2009. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-to-a-Joint-Session-of-Congress-on-Health-Care/.

[iii] Updated Summary Tables May 2009. Budget of the US Government, Fiscal Year 2010. Table S-3. Baseline Projection of Current Policy by Category.http://www.gpoaccess.gov/USbudget/fy10/pdf/summary.pdf.

[iv] William D. Hartung, Congressional Testimony, 2 April 2009 (House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities.http://www.newamerica.net/publications/resources/2009/terrorism_and_new_age_irregular_warfare_challenges_and_opportunities.

[v] SIPRI Yearbook 2009: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security,  Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 184.

[vi] Colin Kenny, “Don’t touch defence spending,” Canwest, 14 November 2008.http://www.liberalsenateforum.ca/In-The-Senate/Publication/1928_Dont-touch-defence-spending.

[vii] Reported by Winslow T. Wheeler, a longtime security affairs analyst on Capitol Hill, in “Save the Economy by Cutting the Defense Budget,” counterpunch, 27 January 2009.http://www.counterpunch.org/wheeler01272009.html.

[viii] Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier, The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities, Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, October 2007.http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/other_publication_types/PERI_IPS_WAND_study.pdf.

[ix] Dean Baker, The Economic Impact of the Iraq War and Higher Military Spending, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington, May 2007.http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/military_spending_2007_05.pdf.

[x] Government of Canada, Department of Finance, Fiscal Reference Tables. http://www.fin.gc.ca/frt-trf/2008/frt08_e.pdf.

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Canada and a nuclear weapons convention

Posted on: September 5th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr

“We call on all member States of the UN – including Canada – to endorse, and begin negotiations for, a nuclear weapons convention as proposed by the UN Secretary-General in his five-point plan for nuclear disarmament.”

This statement has at last count been signed by more than 300 Canadians named to the Order of Canada.[i]The initiative, led by Ploughshares co-founder Murray Thomson,[ii] himself an Officer of the Order, has won the support of a wide cross-section of Canadians from scientific, cultural, business, NGO, and political communities, including: aerospace engineer Bruce Aikenhead; writer Margaret Atwood; physician Harvey Barkun; NGO leader Gerry Barr; former UN Ambassador William Barton; artist Robert Bateman; theologian Gregory Baum; fisheries scientist Richard Beamish; Senator and musician Tommy Banks; politician and human rights leader Ed Broadbent; singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn; journalist Peter Desbarats; fashion designer Marielle Fleury; business entrepreneur Margot Franssen.

And that is just a brief selection of names from the first quarter of the alphabet.[iii]

While the idea of a nuclear weapons convention (NWC) has wide public appeal, it has yet to be embraced by the Government of Stephen Harper. While it supports the proposal in principle,[iv] Canada says now is not the time. The Government insists that before an NWC can be credibly advanced, other treaties to prohibit the development and production of nuclear weapons should  be in place, thus apparently seeing the convention more as a way of commemorating the completion of disarmament negotiations than as providing a comprehensive guide, as envisioned by the Secretary-General’s approach, to those negotiations.

Officials generally, and with some credibility, argue that the prospects for adopting an NWC are not promising as long as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is not fully effective, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has not entered into force, and negotiations on a fissile materials cut-off treaty (FMCT) remain stalled. But by this very logic, the basic conditions for launching negotiations for a NWC are actually in place.

The NPT, for example, is far from ineffective. It has been and remains a successful bulwark against proliferation. Only one state party to the NPT, North Korea, has persistently violated it and withdrawn from it. Of course, the NPT has proven least effective in producing timely nuclear disarmament as required under Article VI. In this case, serious work toward an NWC and a disarmament road map would significantly enhance the effectiveness of the NPT.

And, while the CTBT is not yet in force, it is no longer a matter of serious contention. Negotiations have been successfully concluded. All of the nuclear weapon states that are party to the NPT (China, France, Russia, UK, US) have signed the treaty, with the US and China yet to ratify it, and are adhering to a moratorium on testing pending the Treaty’s entry-into-force. Of the four other states with nuclear weapons, only North Korea has explicitly rejected a moratorium.

Meanwhile, the international community, through the Geneva-based UN Conference on Disarmament, has agreed to begin negotiations on an FMCT. The nuclear weapon states within the NPT have all already halted production of fissile materials. Negotiations within the perennially-deadlocked Conference on Disarmament still need to overcome procedural hurdles, raised most recently by Pakistan, but basic support for a treaty is in place.

Now is, in fact, the ideal time to begin to frame an NWC. It would consolidate multilateral disarmament gains and set out the full requirements, including verification mechanisms, to secure the goal of a world without nuclear weapons within an agreed time frame.

What could Canada constructively contribute if it were to embrace the immediate pursuit of a nuclear weapons convention?

  1. The first priority would be to reestablish Canada’s active support for a world without nuclear weapons. The Harper Government has certainly not rejected that goal, but neither has it promoted it. So, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister should each make an early and prominent speech in which they address nuclear disarmament and reaffirm Canada’s commitment to a world without nuclear weapons.
  2. The Government should also acknowledge that while progress toward a world without nuclear weapons will obviously involve a variety of key measures (such as the key agreements mentioned above), ultimately all those measures must be brought together in a single umbrella or framework convention. Thus, Canadian policy should explicitly call for the start of negotiations toward such a convention that sets a clear timeline for irreversible and verifiable nuclear disarmament.
  3. Next Canada could and should convene an informal international consultative process involving a core group of like-minded states and representatives of civil society to thoroughly explore the focus, scope, verification, and other elements relevant to a nuclear weapons convention. One outcome of this consultation could be an informal international Contact Group or Nuclear Weapons Convention Action Group to systematically press the issue on the international stage.
  4. In the meantime Canada should be thinking about the particular contribution it could make to the international process. The UK, including some joint work with Norway, has for example been focusing on verification measures linked to a nuclear weapons convention.[v] Canada was once active in this area, and still is involved in CTBT seismic verification. Consideration could be given to reviving the verification unit within Foreign Affairs to work with and bolster the UK-Norwegian initiative.
  5. Canada could also credibly focus on the development of appropriate transparency requirements and identification of the kinds of institutional and governance arrangements needed to ensure an effective and effectively managed nuclear weapons convention. Canada has championed reporting in the NPT review process as a means of promoting accountability, has put forward proposals to overcome the institutional deficit of the NPT, and has supported the institutionalization of enhanced civil society participation in multilateral disarmament efforts.

There is no shortage of things to do and no credible reason to wait. The pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons requires Canada’s energetic engagement.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] Jeff Davis, “Order of Canada Recipients Demand Worldwide Ban on Nuclear Weapons,” Embassy (Ottawa, 26 August 2009). http://www.embassymag.ca/page/view/ban_weapons-8-26-2009.

[ii] He is supported by former Senator and Ambassador for Disarmament Douglas Roche and Nobel Prize laureate John Polanyi. The author is a signatory.

[iii] There are plans for the complete list to be available online soon.

[iv] At the UN Canada was one of only two NATO countries to abstain (generally indicating agreement in principle but objection to specific details) on resolution A/Res/63/49 in the General Assembly which calls on states to immediately begin “multilateral negotiations leading to an early conclusion of a nuclear weapons convention prohibiting the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nuclear weapons and providing for their elimination.” All other NATO states voted “no.” Canada joined its NATO colleagues to vote “no” on another resolution calling for negotiations on such a convention (A/Res/63/75) – in this case the resolution also affirmed that any use of nuclear weapons would be in violation of the Charter (a legitimate affirmation but not one likely to be supported by members of a military alliance whose doctrine claims nuclear weapons are essential to their security).

[v] The UK together with Norway is undertaking research, for example, on the verification of nuclear warhead reductions and hosted a meeting of nuclear weapon states (September 3-4, 2009) to “discuss confidence building measures including the verification of disarmament and treaty compliance.” Seehttp://www.fco.gov.uk/en/fco-in-action/counter-terrorism/weapons/nuclear-weapons-policy/disarmament.

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