Posts Tagged ‘Conference on Disarmament’

In 2005 Canada joined five other states to propose a plan to move the four priority issues mired in the stalemated CD into a UN General Assembly process for action. The plan was abandoned in the face of strong opposition, but in the last session of the still moribund CD, Canada suggested it be given another look.

There is a ritual at each closing session of the UN’s Geneva Conference on Disarmament (CD) – the sessions just before a recess or at the close of each year – in which diplomats take up their microphones to lament the failure to reach agreement on a program of work and to broadly bemoan the absence of any negotiations – that being the CD’s main purpose. It is now an 11-year tradition, the length of time the CD has lain essentially dormant due to deep rooted differences that can, according to CD rules, be resolved only through consensus – i.e., unanimity.

So, when the first part of the CD’s 2010 session wrapped up on March 23, the same lamentations were heard yet again – but the Canadian speech came with a refreshing new twist.

Ambassador Marius Grinius again voiced Canada’s disappointment in the CD’s performance, or non-performance, but then added: “If we truly care about disarmament, Canada believes we must be ready to look for alternative ways forward outside of this body. One such alternative was explored in 2005. Five years later, it may be time to re-examine it.”[i]

A commentary in this space in February[ii] pointed to that 2005 proposal, as have many, as a way out from under the CD’s embarrassingly stalemated agenda and as a way for states to move forward with substantive work on each of the four key items on that agenda, and then asked, “Is Ottawa up to the challenge” of reviving that 2005 plan. Now it looks like Canada might just find the will to act.

The CD has long agreed on four priority goals: a Treaty to halt production of fissile material for weapons purposes; legally-binding commitments by nuclear weapon states not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states (negative security assurances); a multilateral forum to advance global nuclear disarmament discussions and planning; and measures to prevent an arms race in outer space. Various states favor negotiations on some and only discussions on others, but all agree that these are the priorities. However, under the CD’s consensus format, unless all agree on which are to be negotiated and which are to be discussed, nothing happens.

The 2005 plan for getting out of this deadlock was the work of six states: Brazil, Canada, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, and Sweden. In a draft resolution destined for the UN’s First Committee and General Assembly, but never formally submitted, the six states proposed an Ad-Hoc Committee of the General Assembly for each of the four priority topics:

“The General Assembly, recognizing the importance of resuming substantive work on priority disarmament and non-proliferation issues, concerned with the protracted impasse in the Conference on Disarmament which has prevented it to date from adopting a Programme of Work, mindful of the need to ensure complementarity and avoid duplication between the work of the General Assembly and the Conference on Disarmament, decides, pending agreement on a Conference of Disarmament Programme of Work, to establish open-ended Ad Hoc Committees on the four priority issues…”

The four Ad Hoc Committees were then defined, using the term “negotiate” with regard to negative security assurances and a Treaty on fissile materials, and using the terms “deal with” and “exchange [of] information and views” regarding nuclear disarmament, and the term “deal with” regarding the prevention of an arms race in outer space. The proposed mandates were extensive and pointed to broad ranging studies in the latter two cases and the objective of legally binding instruments in the two proposed negotiation processes.

The draft resolution was explicit in also “deciding” that once the CD began to actually function, the Ad Hoc Committees in the General Assembly would be terminated and the results of their work would be transmitted to the CD, where the negotiations and discussions would continue. It also proposed to name chairs for each committee and provided a detailed work schedule. In an accompanying note, the six sponsoring states said “this resolution is intended to complement the CD and ideally will serve as a catalyst for unblocking that forum.”

In other words, the resolution and the four Ad Hoc Committees, with participation open to any interested UN member state, provided a persuasive solution to the dysfunctional CD – the neglected work of the CD would now be pursued and once the CD became operational again the fruits of that work would return to the CD for continuing work.

But it all came to nothing when the US Bush Administration fired back, sending a two page statement to UN missions. It argued, in not very diplomatic language, that the proposed course of action would undermine the General Assembly’s First Committee, undermine efforts to get the CD to start doing its work, create a “phantom” CD, and would spell the end of the CD.  “The outcome of this resolution will be to retard the very international nonproliferation and disarmament objectives that its sponsors seek to advance.”[iii] Of course, the reality was that leaving the issues to languish in the CD was what was “retarding the very nonproliferation and disarmament objectives” that the US then wanted to retard and block. The US statement went on to say: “We also wish to make it clear that the United States will not participate in any international body to whose establishment the United States does not agree. Moreover, the United States will not consider itself bound in any way by any agreement emerging from such a body.”

In the end the six countries withdrew the resolution, reporting that they had reached an understanding with the incoming Presidents of the CD that they would undertake a structured, though informal, discussion of the core issues within the CD. The latter proved to be a short-term improvement in the operations of the CD, but it was no substitute for actual negotiations, and it was not sustained.

So now Canada has given notice that this initiative, or one like it, could be pursued again this fall at the First Committee. This time, it seems likely that the new US Administration would be less hostile and perhaps even supportive of the plan. It’s a good and urgently needed plan and Ottawa is to be encouraged to see it through. Now, with an international climate unusually disposed toward concrete action on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, the world can’t afford disarmament machinery in perpetual disrepair.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] March 23, 2010 speech to the Conference on Disarmament.http://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B8954/(httpAssets)/501328AAB0863E3BC12576EF003CD2C9/$file/1180_Canada.pdf.

[ii] “It’s time to sideline the Geneva disarmament conference,” February 18.http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2010/2/it%E2%80%99s-time-sideline-geneva-disarmament-conference.

[iii] The resolution, the accompanying statements by the six sponsors, and the American response were all distributed informally in hard copies and are not electronically available.

The UN’s one disarmament negotiating forum recently seemed set to emerge from a wasted decade of deadlock, but the celebrations were premature. Disarmament is obviously way too important to be left to the Conference on Disarmament, so it’s time to look for another venue – and on that Canada has, or at least had, a great idea.

If diplomatic patience is a virtue, there is a host of saints toiling away at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva. For more than a decade diplomats have been showing up for work to implore each other to get down to the business of negotiating disarmament agreements, and without fail they’ve been unable to agree on a “program of work.”

The main elements of the agenda they should be working on are well known and not disputed. More than a decade ago they agreed on four priority objectives:

1. A Treaty to halt production of fissile material for weapons purposes;

2. Legally-binding commitments from nuclear weapon states not to use or threaten to use nuclear  weapons against non-nuclear weapon states;

3. A multilateral forum to advance global nuclear disarmament; and

4. Agreements to prevent an arms race in outer space.

Some in the 65 member CD, the only UN disarmament negotiating forum, favor “discussions” over “negotiations” on some of the issues. It’s a matter that can’t be settled by a simple majority vote because the CD operates by consensus – essentially interpreted as giving each member a veto. In 2003 a group of five ambassadors to the CD developed a formula that was widely agreed. There would be negotiations on fissile materials (these have been unanimously called for by all 188 states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – NPT) but only discussions on the other three items (leaving open the possibility for moving towards negotiations in the future). It became known as the A-5 formula[i] and it honored the important principle that the international community not allow certain powerful states or groups to determine where multilateral attention is focused – instead, the priorities of all deserve attention.

But with that agreed, the CD was still in dispute over the scope of the negotiations on fissile materials – that is, should a fissile materials treaty simply ban, or cut off, future production, or should it also place controls on stockpiles and require reductions of already produced fissile materials for weapons purposes? Again, it’s not a new disagreement and was in fact essentially solved back in 1995 when Canadian Ambassador Gerald Shannon, having been asked to find a way through this dispute, 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 reductions of existing stocks, during the course of negotiations. This compromise became known as the Shannon mandate.[ii] The Shannon mandate also reflected an important principle – that the international community not permit a single state or a small group of states to set pre-conditions or define in advance the limits and parameters of multilateral negotiations on a particular issue.

The Administration of George W. Bush added another barrier to action when it insisted that a fissile materials treaty could not include verification provisions.

The US position has now changed and in May 2009 there was agreement to move forward on the 4-point program of work — both the A-5 formula and the Shannon mandate being key elements of the agreement.[iii]To reach agreement they had to expand the priorities to seven – there was, of course, no consensus on the issues themselves, but all were deemed worthy of immediate attention in a work program that would include the following:

1. Negotiations on a fissile materials treaty;

2. A working group for discussions on nuclear disarmament generally;

3. A working group to discuss preventing an arms race in outer space;

4. Another working group on negative security assurances (assurances against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon state parties to the NPT);

5. The appointment of a coordinator to gather the views of states on new and emerging weapons;

6. Another coordinator to seek views on “comprehensive” disarmament; and

7. A coordinator to seek views on transparency.

Now, however, Pakistan has withdrawn its consent. Concerned about its imbalanced security relationship with India, Pakistan insists that the fissile materials negotiations must be defined in advance as including fissile materials stocks (to address India’s larger inventory). The Shannon mandate would allow Pakistan to raise stockpile issues during the course of negotiations, but Pakistan now rejects that arrangement. It has further suggested that the CD agenda be expanded to include regional conventional arms control – an expansion India will not countenance.[iv]

So that’s where we stand once again, with nothing happening – the only thing to survive is the CD’s saintly patience.

CD diplomats are slow to talk of alternatives that would sideline a body that earlier successfully negotiated the comprehensive test ban treaty – but Canada did have a plan to circumvent the stalled CD. In 2005 it joined five other states – Brazil, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, and Sweden – in putting forward a resolution in the UN General Assembly asking it to mandate, by simple majority vote, four special committees to work on the four priority disarmament issues included in the A-5 formula.

The point was to take these four crucial issues out of what the Canadian Disarmament Ambassador called the “consensus prison” of the CD. By working as Committees of the General Assembly, they would not be bound by consensus rules and thus states would finally be allowed to deal substantively with issues that are widely understood to be key to advancing global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. The drafters of the resolution were careful not to strip the CD of its function, but built into their resolution a commitment to transfer the results of the work of these four ad-hoc committees back to the CD as soon as it finally agreed on its proposed agenda of work and was actually prepared to start negotiating.

The plan failed then, and the resolution was withdrawn, because an angered Bush Administration accused the resolution’s sponsors of “souring” what it inexplicably called the “positive reform atmosphere” of the day and of compromising the work of the CD – the same CD that had at that time done no work for eight years. Washington also declared it would not participate in any of the proposed committees.

But now there truly is a largely positive international atmosphere with regard to disarmament prospects. The same proposal today could take the CD’s stalemated agenda and transfer it to specially mandated committees of the General Assembly. The committees could get down to work immediately – and if and when the CD decided to become relevant the work and the results to date could be transferred back to the CD. Is Ottawa up to the challenge?

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

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

[ii] 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.

[iii] Discussed here on June 1: “Finally, the UN’s Geneva disarmament forum gets to work.” http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2009/6/finally-un%E2%80%99s-geneva-disarmament-forum-gets-work

[iv] “Pak stonewalls talks to ban fissile material,” The Times of India, 23 January 2010.http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Pak-stonewalls-talks-to-ban-fissile-material/articleshow/5489692.cms.