Nuclear Disarmament

The new German Foreign Minister has pledged to pursue the removal of the last of US nuclear weapons on German soil. It’s a move that will either signal the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons in Europe or the beginning of a new political quarrel within NATO.

It seems anachronistic in the extreme, not to mention silly, for NATO to get caught up in a serious quarrel over a few hundred, at the most, US nuclear gravity bombs still kept on European soil. But it could happen, as it did at the end of the 1990s – all in the name of trans-Atlantic NATO solidarity. The New York Times today quotes an un-named NATO diplomat as insisting that US nuclear weapons in Europe “are the foundation of [NATO] solidarity. Take them away and what have we left?”[i]

Just because Guido Westerwelle’s pledge is sensible and long overdue doesn’t mean it will be easy to fulfill. And whatever resistance it meets will not come from Washington. A big part of the resistance will rely on the slightly absurd, to be kind about it, solidarity argument[ii] – the idea that, despite massive Europe-North America trade links, myriad cultural and historical ties, as well as broadly shared political values, it is still only the few hundred Cold War nuclear relics that can successfully bridge the Atlantic. Another claim will be that the removal of nuclear weapons from Europe should not be done unilaterally but should be coordinated with substantial reductions in Russian tactical nuclear weapons – as if 200 less warheads in Europe will suddenly reverse the Russian strategic calculus.

Nuclear weapons in Europe are still obviously championed in some influential circles, but a more likely scenario is that this German move to remove US nuclear weapons from its territory will indeed be the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons in Europe (outside of France and the UK).

Mr. Westerwelle, the leader of the German Free Democrats and Foreign Minister in the new German coalition led by the continuing Chancellor Angela Merkel, has long been an advocate of disarmament, and in this move he has the support of four of the six parties with members in the Bundestag.[iii]

There are similar pressures in the Dutch Parliament[iv] and the Belgian Senate is about to consider a proposal to ban nuclear weapons within its territory.[v] NATO strategic doctrine is now under review and, given that the alliance leader is now firmly and publicly committed to entering a path that leads to zero nuclear weapons, it should be expect, or demanded, that a new NATO Strategic Concept will no longer describe nuclear weapons as essential to its security or essential to transatlantic solidarity. And a NATO doctrine modified in that way will pave the way to the removal of nuclear weapons from the five non-nuclear weapon states that still host them (Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey).

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] Judy Dempsey, “Ridding German of US Nuclear Weapons,” New York Times, 29 October 2009.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/world/europe/29iht-letter.html.

[ii] The current NATO Strategic Concept insists in paragraph 63 that “nuclear forces based in Europe and committed to NATO provide an essential political and military link between the European and the North American members of the Alliance. The Alliance will therefore maintain adequate nuclear forces in Europe.” [NATO. 1999. The Alliance’s Strategic Concept, Approved by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington D.C. on 23rd and 24th April 1999.http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99-065e.htm.]

[iii] “Germany opts for a farewell to NATO nuclear weapons,” Russia Today, 28 October 2009.http://www.russiatoday.com/Politics/2009-10-28/germany-nato-nuclear-weapon.html.

[iv] With the SP, for example, arguing for a non-nuclear NATO strategy. “Nuclear Disarmament: Steps must be taken which inspire confidence,” 27 October 2009. http://international.sp.nl/bericht/37934/091027-nuclear_disarmament_steps_must_be_taken_which_inspire_confidence.html.

[v] “Belgian Senate to Consider Nuclear-Weapon Ban,” Global Security Newswire, 16 October 2009.http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20091016_3998.php.

A new CIGI study, “From Nuclear Energy to the Bomb,” offers a clear and compelling review of one of the central challenges of disarmament diplomacy.

This study[i] comes out of the Nuclear Energy Futures project of CIGI and provides a clear account of the real and potential links between a state’s peaceful nuclear energy capacity and the capacity to acquire a nuclear weapon. Its conclusions?

The scientific knowledge acquired through a basic nuclear energy program – that is, one that does not involve uranium enrichment or reprocessing of spent fuel – provides the basic foundation of scientific knowledge  and, especially, the core personnel and infrastructure on which a nuclear weapons program can be pursued. But that doesn’t mean that the steps toward weaponization are thereafter simple. Hiding the pursuit of a bomb from inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency is, fortunately, a major challenge, and increasingly so. And mastering the knowledge, technology, and manufacturing capacity to build a warhead is neither simple nor speedy.

But the sobering reality is that, given time and intention, more and more states will be able to do it. Acquiring uranium enrichment or spent fuel reprocessing capacity for energy purposes represents a further and significant step toward bomb-making capacity. Author Justin Alger concludes that “a state’s capacity to make the leap from power production to assembling a nuclear device is typically considered a matter of time rather than ability.”

But before coming to that clear conclusion, the paper takes you through a careful review of the proliferation risks and challenges linked to nuclear energy production. Here is Mr. Alger’s own account of the main findings:
• “Nuclear energy and weapons are inextricably linked by the scientific principles that underscore both, but beyond this basic understanding the intricacies of the technical relationship between the two are complex.

• “A once-through nuclear program provides a basic foundation in nuclear science and reactor engineering for a nuclear weapons program, but does not provide knowledge of sensitive fuel cycle technology or bomb design and assembly.

• “A peaceful nuclear energy program does, however, provide a state with much of the expertise, personnel, infrastructure and camouflage it would need to begin work on a weapons program should it chose to do so.

• “Acquiring a peaceful nuclear energy infrastructure does enhance a state’s capacity to develop nuclear weapons, but capacity is only one consideration and of secondary importance to other factors that drive state motivations for the bomb.”

The paper’s final comment is particularly important: “Understanding the technical connection between peaceful nuclear energy and nuclear weapons is important, but it is only one consideration. The motivation of states to acquire nuclear weapons, rather than their technical capacity to do so, is the more important concern.”

In the end, preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons will not be achieved by denying states either the knowledge or the materials to build them. Any state with an emerging industrial capacity and a scientific community will in time be able to gain access to nuclear materials and technical capacity – after that it’s political. It becomes a political and security calculation.

In a recent discussion at George Washington University, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates made the same point with regard to Iran: “…[T]he question is, can we…in a limited period of time bring the Iranians to a conclusion that…Iran is better off without nuclear weapons than with them, and not just in the security sense, but economically and in terms of their isolation in the international community….[T]he only long-term solution to this problem…is the Iranians themselves deciding [that] having nuclear weapons is not in their interest….[M]y hope…has been that…we could, through…both carrots and sticks, persuade them of a smarter direction for Iran.”[ii]

And, of course, that political calculation is influenced by a myriad of considerations, not the least of which is the progress, or lack of it, made by the rest of the international community in pursuit of the now broadly declared objective of a world without any nuclear weapons.

Pursing that goal is, of course, not without its conundrums. A significant number of industrializing states, with even modest regional hegemonic ambitions, will become increasingly reluctant to permanently forswear nuclear weapons if they see other states indefinitely retaining nuclear arsenals and using them to wield added influence within the international community. On the other hand, states that already have nuclear weapons will remain reluctant to disavow and eliminate them if they are convinced that other states are bent on acquiring them.

On the plus side, diplomacy bent on eliminating nuclear weapons is currently on the ascendancy – and this study of the links between nuclear energy and the bomb is a timely contribution to those efforts.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] Justin Alger, From Nuclear Energy to the Bomb: The Proliferation Potential of New Nuclear Energy Programs, Nuclear Energy Futures Paper No. 6, September 2009, Centre for International Governance Innovation. Available at: http://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/Nuclear_Energy_Futures%206.pdf.

[ii] Transcript, Conversation with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to Discuss American Power and Persuasion Oct. 5, 2009, at George Washington University with Frank Sesno and Christiane Amanpour. Available at:http://www.gwu.edu/staticfile/GW/News%20and%20Events/2.%20This%20Week%20at%20GW/Sidebar/clintongatestranscript.pdf.

One welcome result of the discovery that Iran has been secretly building another uranium enrichment plant has been to refocus diplomacy more on demands for transparency, and less on the hitherto favored but largely ineffective demand that enrichment be suspended.

Today’s talks in Geneva between Iran and the P5[i] plus Germany, hosted by the European Union, appear to have been a relatively positive start to a new focus on diplomacy. They produced a commitment to talk again and, notably, a confirmation from Iran that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be given access to the newly disclosed enrichment site.[ii]

How soon and how much access (e.g. in addition to entering the site, access to personnel, blueprints, supplier invoices, and so on) are important details yet to come, but this attention to openness and transparency is where the emphasis needs to be.

The formal UN Security Council demand is on Iran[iii] to suspend all proliferation sensitive activity, notably uranium enrichment, and to comply with IAEA requests for information and access related to verifying such suspension. The Security Council has also emphasized transparency through its calls on Iran to ratify the Agency’s Additional Protocol, a supplement to safeguard agreements granting much more extensive and effective access to nuclear facilities. But the Council’s political energy has been heavily focused on suspending enrichment.

The problem with that obsession with ending Iran’s enrichment activity is twofold. In the first place, if it is done under safeguards, which it now is, it is a perfectly legal activity. Second, getting Iran to suspend its enrichment program without getting the kind of broad access offered by the Additional Protocol would end up being a pyrrhic victory – it would temporarily pause an activity that is already subject to IAEA inspection (and thus ongoing confirmation that it is not linked to a weapons program) but would do nothing to improve the IAEA’s capacity to confirm that there are no further unreported, or clandestine, nuclear programs underway.

So now the focus is turning to transparency. The Washington Post’s report on today’s (October 1) meeting says the six countries (P5 plus Germany) told Iran that a generous incentive was on the table “if Iran would open its nuclear program to inspection”[iv] – there was no reference to suspending enrichment.

In US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s appearance on CBS last Sunday she reasserted Iran’s right to pursue peaceful nuclear development that is appropriately safeguarded and did not refer to the call for a suspension of uranium enrichment.[v] The Obama Administrations shift to transparency was discussed in this space last April,[vi] noting an Administration Official’s comment that, “frankly, what’s most valuable to us now is having real freedom for the inspectors to pursue their suspicions around the country.”[vii]

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) reports on Iran[viii] have repeatedly confirmed that none of Iran’s declared nuclear activity and no declared nuclear materials have been diverted to military purposes. The problem is in developing confidence that there is no undeclared, or clandestine, nuclear weapons program – and the development of such confidence depends on significant increases in Iranian transparency.

In other words, if Iran is going to “come clean,” as President Obama put it,[ix] on all of its nuclear activity, it will have to ratify the IAEA Additional Protocol. Indeed, as noted before, the Additional Protocol should be compulsory for all states,[x] but at a minimum the Security Council should make the Additional Protocol one of its chief demands on Iran.[xi] Before the current stalemate, Iran did allow inspections in line with the terms of the Additional Protocol (even though it did not ratify it), but “since early 2006,” the IAEA’s 2007 report notes, “the [IAEA] has not received the type of information that Iran had previously been providing, pursuant to the Additional Protocol and as a transparency measure. As a result, the Agency’s knowledge about Iran’s current nuclear program is diminishing.” [xii]

That is not a good thing. In the meantime analysts are increasingly acknowledging that a full suspension of enrichment will be all but impossible to achieve.

Professor Peter Jones, an Iran and Middle East expert at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, wrote in the Globe and Mail this week that it is “difficult to see how a complete cessation of enrichment can be achieved – Iran has simply gone too far for that.” He suggests that an acceptable compromise would be to allow a small and fully inspected research-scale enrichment facility.[xiii]

Over at ArmsControlWonk.Com, an extraordinarily helpful nonproliferation blog, there is a similar recognition that “suspension is not the answer.” One idea explored there is the multilateralization of uranium enrichment in Iran.[xiv] A multilateral enrichment facility on Iranian soil that would fully engage Iranian engineers and scientists would also have the effect of keeping them away from covert endeavors. To have international personnel working alongside Iranians, supported by an intrusive inspection regime, would be “the best way to prevent Iran from getting a bomb.”

News out of Geneva that Iran is prepared to send its enriched uranium to Russia for the production of fuel for the small Iranian reactor that produces medical isotopes is a further indication that stopping uranium enrichment in Iran is no longer the objective of the international community. Sending its enriched uranium out of the country, all monitored by the IAEA, obviously means, of course, that it will not be stored for some possible future plan to enrich it further to weapons grade.[xv]

Ambiguity and secrecy are both fundamentally inimical to nuclear nonproliferation, but both have been two constants in Iran’s nuclear programs to date. Moving from ambiguity to certainty – to transparency and demonstrable confidence that Iran’s nuclear activities are pursued exclusively for non-weapons purposes – will obviously require major changes on the part of Iran. But it will also require the P5 and the UN Security Council to get focused on the core requirement of transparency and to move beyond the enrichment suspension deadlock. There is now evidence that is beginning to happen.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] The five permanent members of the Security Council – China, France, Russia, UK, and US.

[ii] Steven Erlanger and Mark Landler, “Iran Agrees to More Nuclear Talks with US and Allies,” New York Times, 2 October 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/world/middleeast/02nuke.html.

[iii] S/RES/1737, 23 December 2006.http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N06/681/42/PDF/N0668142.pdf?OpenElement.

[iv] Glenn Kessler and Colum Lynch, “US, Iran Hold Bilateral Talks,” Thye Washington Post, 1 October 2009.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/01/AR2009100101294.html.

[v] “Face the Nation” (CBS), 27 September 2009.

http://news.google.ca/news?hl=en&source=hp&q=Iran+nuclear&rlz=1R2ADBF_enCA332&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=yUfBSo6MCpXh8Qbohc2pAQ&sa=X&oi=news_group&ct=title&resnum=1.

[vi] “A Welcome Shift on Iran,” 14 April 2009.  http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2009/4/welcome-us-shift-iran.

[vii] David E. Sanger, “US May Drop Key Condition for Talks With Iran,” The New York Times, 14 April 2009.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/world/middleeast/14diplo.html.

[viii] Report by the Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008) and 1835 (2008) in the Islamic Republic of Iran, 19 February 2009, International Atomic Energy Agency (GOV/2009/8).http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2009/gov2009-8.pdf.

[ix] “Obama Demands That Iran ‘Come Clean’ on Nuclear Work, 28 September 2009, Global Security Newswire. http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20090928_9676.php.

[x] For example, Canada urged the 2005 NPT Review Conference to make “the Additional Protocol, together with a comprehensive safeguards agreement, …the verification standard pursuant to Article III.1” for fulfilling “the obligations of that section of the Treaty.” Canadian statement to the 2004 NPT PrepCom on “Implementation of the Provisions of the Treaty Relating to the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Safeguards and Nuclear Weapon Free Zones Issues” (http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/arms/2004nptcluster2-en.asp).

[xi] UN Security Council Resolution 1737 (2006) “calls upon Iran to ratify promptly the Additional Protocal,” but does not demand it in the same way that it demands that Iran suspend proliferation sensitive nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment. (http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N06/681/42/PDF/N0668142.pdf?OpenElement)

[xii] Report by the Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 (2006) and 1747 (2007) in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” 15 November 2007, International Atomic Energy Agency (GOV/2007/58).http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2007/gov2007-58.pdf.

[xiii] Peter Jones, “Dealing with Iran will require diplomacy with a hard edge,” The Globe and Mail, 30 September 2009. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/dealing-with-iran-will-require-diplomacy-with-a-hard-edge/article1304592/.

[xiv] Geoffrey Forden, “Paradox: Now is the Time to Deal,” 25 September 2009. http://armscontrolwonk.com.

[xv] Steven Erlanger and Mark Landler, “Iran Agrees to Send Enriched Uranium to Russia,” New York Times, 2 October 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/world/middleeast/02nuke.html?ref=world.

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.

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.

“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.

“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.

The entry into force on July 15 of the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Pelindaba, was largely ignored by the world’s mainstream news media.[i]That’s too bad. It is a significant development and a further nudge toward a world without nuclear weapons.

It was South Africa’s historic decision to destroy its nuclear arsenal of up to six warheads and to accede, in 1990, to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapon state that made possible the realization of the decades-old African objective of formalizing its status as a zone free of nuclear weapons. Already in 1964 the heads of State of the OAU had issued a “Declaration on the Denuclearization of Africa,” affirming their “readiness to undertake in an International Treaty to be concluded under the auspices of the United Nations not to manufacture or acquire control of nuclear weapons.”^[ii]

The Treaty was agreed to in 1995,[iii] and since then all 53 African states have signed on and it entered into force when Burundi became the 28^th nation to ratify it.

The Pelindaba Treaty, named after South Africa’s central nuclear research complex, confirms key provisions of the NPT, including the pledge of all signatories not to develop, produce, or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, as well as the commitment to enter into comprehensive safeguard agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency as ongoing verification of each state’s non-nuclear-weapon status (21 states have yet to conclude such agreements). But the Treaty also creates legally-binding obligations that go further. It prohibits testing of any nuclear explosive device and in effect fulfills the basic conditions of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty on the African continent. The Treaty also prohibits the stationing of nuclear weapons on the territory of any state party to the treaty – the kind of key provision which, if it were in place in central Europe, would require the removal of all US nuclear warheads from the territories of non-nuclear-weapon states in Europe. In Africa it raises serious questions about Diego Garcia.

Diego Garcia is the largest Island in the Chapos Archipelago, which is considered by its parties to be bound by the provisions of the Pelindaba Treaty as a part of the territory of Mauritius. Its sovereignty is in dispute in that the UK regards Diego Garcia as part of its British Indian Ocean Territory and has of course given the US leave to build a major US military base there. The Americans in turn use it as, among many other things, a staging base for strategic bombers. These are nuclear-capable bombers with the US neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons. That puts Mauritius in violation of its Treaty obligations.[iv] The Treaty establishes the African Commission on Nuclear Energy to manage the Treaty and see to its full implementation – meaning that we will be hearing more about Diego Garica now that the Treaty has entered into force.

The Treaty also prohibits the dumping of radioactive waste in Africa and requires African states to apply the “highest standards of security and effective physical protection of nuclear material, facilities and equipment to prevent theft or unauthorized use and handling” of such materials and facilities. It prohibits any armed attack on nuclear installations within the African nuclear-weapon-free zone.

Africa’s nuclear-weapon-free status is given added importance by virtue of it being one of the world’s prominent uranium producing regions.[v] Africa currently holds something like 20 percent of exploitable uranium reserves, concentrated in Niger, Namibia, and South Africa,[vi] but deposits are also found in[vii]Algeria, Botswana, Central African Republic, DRC, Gabon, Guinea, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Tanzania, and Zambia.

The Pelindaba Treaty’s entry-into-force is also especially noteworthy in that it means to all sovereign territories in the southern Hemisphere, plus Antarctica, are now within legally-binding nuclear-weapon-free zones – South America through the Tlatelolco Treaty, the South Pacific through the Rarotonga Treaty, Southeast Asia through the Bangkok Treaty, and Antarctica through the 1961 Antarctic Treaty. In the northern Hemisphere the  Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone came into force in 2008 and covers Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.

The Treaty of Pelindaba was a long time in the making, a process that was kept alive at least in part by persistent civil society attention – the South African Institute for Security Studies and the Monterey Center for Nonproliferation Studies maintained a continuing watch on and encouraged the Treaty’s slow progress. A visit to Burundi and Namibia earlier this year by a delegation of the World Council of Churches and the Africa Peace Forum, specifically to encourage ratification of the Treaty, helped to spur the Burundi action, and there are indications that Namibian ratification is close at hand.

The nuclear-weapon-free zone question is not as directly linked to the security and stability of the Africa continent as it is to the Middle East, but Sola Ogunbanwo, a Nigerian non-proliferation expert, makes compelling points that the Treaty’s entry into force will yield significant security benefits by reducing proliferation risks and improving verification measures.^[viii] Most notably, Protocol I of the Treaty provides for assurances from states with nuclear weapons that they will “not…use or threaten to use a nuclear explosive device against…any Party to the Treaty,” and Protocol II provides for assurances that they will “not…test or assist or encourage the testing of any nuclear explosive device anywhere within the African nuclear-weapon-free zone.” China, France and the United Kingdom have ratified both protocols. The US has signed, but along with Russia, has not ratified.[ix]

The Blix Commission on weapons of mass destruction called the concept of nuclear-weapon-free zones “a success story.” They “complement and reinforce” the non-proliferation commitments made through the NPT, and they fill in “gaps” left by the NPT.[x] In other words, the entry-into-force of the Pelindaba Treaty should be registered as a significant advance in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts.

Notes

[i] IAEA, “Africa Renounces Nukes: Treaty’s Entry Into Force Makes Entire Southern  Hemisphere Free of Nuclear Weapons,” International Atomic Energy Agency News Center, 14 August 2009.http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2009/africarenounces.html.

[ii] OAU declaration July 17-21, 1964, Cairo. http://www.africa-union.org/root/au/Documents/Decisions/hog/bHoGAssembly1964.pdf

[iii] Noel Stott, Amelia du Rand, and Jean du Preez, A Brief Guide to the Pelindaba Treaty: Towards Entry-into-Force of the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, Institute for Security Studies, South Africa, 2008, 36 pp.http://www.iss.co.za/dynamic/administration/file_manager/file_links/RATPAKPELINDABATREATYOCT08.PDF?link_id=3&slink_id=6957&link_type=12&slink_type=13&tmpl_id=3.

[iv] Peter H. Sand,  “African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Force: What Next for Diego Garcia?,” ASIL Insight, 28 August 2009. The American Society of International Law. http://www.asil.org/files/insight090827pdf.pdf.

[v] Fareed Mahdy, “Africa Becomes World’s Nuclear Free Continent,” IDN – In Depth News,http://www.egyptiangreens.com/docs/general/index.php?eh=newhit&subjectid=18130&subcategoryid=268&categoryid=37.

[vi] “Uranium in Africa,” World Nuclear Assoaciation, August 2009. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf112.html.

[vii] “Uranium Science,” Cameco. http://www.cameco.com/uranium_101/uranium_science/uranium/#two.

[viii] Sola Ogunbanwo, “Accelerate the Ratification of the Pelindaba Treaty,” The Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2003, p. 132.

[ix] Liviu Horovitz, “African nuclear-weapon-free zone Enters into Force,” 12 August 2009, Center for Non-Proliferation Studies. http://cns.miis.edu/stories/090812_africa_nwfz.htm.

[x] Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission Report, p. 79. The full text is available athttp://www.wmdcommission.org/.

An American energy industry journalist anticipates a Canada-India nuclear cooperation deal — an umbrella agreement to govern a variety of trade, research, and development arrangements — will be signed in time for the 2010 G8 meeting in Canada. It is a deal, says the report, which is unlikely to address the kinds of nonproliferation concerns put forward by DisarmingConflict and other nonproliferation experts..

Randy Woods, Senior Editor of the Nuclear Group of Platts, a McGraw Hill company that publishes energy sector news and analysis, writes that[i] “Canada and India could finalize a nuclear energy cooperation agreement within a year despite some concerns in Canada over proliferation risks, according to an industry source.” He reports that non-proliferation officials at DFAIT have managed to slow the advance of the deal in an effort to press nonproliferation issues, but that the Trade side of the department wants the deal, “as do the ministers.” While announcements this fall will likely be restricted to claims of progress, the deal is expected to be completed by June 2010 at the latest, in time for the G8 meeting in Canada.

The following excerpt addresses proliferation concerns:

“Ernie Regehr, policy adviser at the Canadian arms control group Project Ploughshares, said July 21 the deal’s potential to increase uranium supplies from Canada to India has caused concern among nonproliferation advocates. Some are worried that imports of Canadian uranium would allow India to set aside its own uranium production for military purposes. He said India may rush to produce weapons-grade uranium before signing on to the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty.

“As a result, Regehr’s organization has asked the Canadian government to include language in the deal that would create explicit nonproliferation conditions. ‘The simple and obvious proposal’ is to include language threatening to kill the deal in the event India performs another nuclear weapons test, Regehr said. Canada also should seek a commitment from India to join a moratorium on production of fissile material or ‘at least’ get a commitment not to increase production, he said.

“But the industry source does not believe the final deal will include strong language on nonproliferation, as India’s government has ‘tough negotiators’ who are aware that Canada is eager to compete for India’s growing nuclear market. Regehr also said he would be ‘surprised’ if India signed on to an agreement that includes strong language on nonproliferation. Instead, there may be an unstated political threat to India, which could lose its right to trade nuclear technology with Canada if it tests another atomic weapon, Regehr said. ‘It would be a lot better,’ however, if such threats were written into the deal rather than implied, he said.”

Aside from uranium sales, the Platts article by Randy Woods notes that “Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, or AECL, could be an attractive partner for India if the South Asian country starts to export its nuclear technologies abroad….AECL announced in January this year that it had signed a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, with Indian engineering and construction company Larsen & Toubro, or L&T, to cooperate on the Advanced Candu ACR-1000 reactor. Under the agreement, the two companies could start talks to develop nuclear reactors in India under engineering, procurement and construction models.” But implementation of the AECL-L&T deal depends on the signing of the bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement between the two countries.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Note

[i] Randy Woods, “Canada, India could finalize nuclear cooperation deal soon, Platts(http://www.platts.com/AboutPlattsHome.aspx), August 2009.

For the first time in fully a dozen years, the UN’s disarmament forum agreed last May to a program of substantive work, but in early August it has run into another obstruction.

The 65-member UN Conference on Disarmament (CD) has become best known for being stalemated for more than a decade, unable to go beyond informal consultations because delegations could not reach consensus on what all would accept as a balanced program of work. Then, at the end of May, the Geneva-based negotiating forum finally agreed on a 7 point program that, among other topics, mandated the start of negotiations on a critically-important treaty to ban the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.[i] This did not mean there was consensus on the issues themselves, only that they would begin to formally address those issues.

Now the implementation schedule,[ii] the schedule for getting down to work on the issues that the May agreement included in the overall program of work, has run afoul of the Pakistani delegation – and because the CD works strictly according to consensus, which in that context has unfortunately come to mean that every member state has a veto, Pakistan’s dissent means everything is stalled once again.

So the stalemate continues.

While the point of Pakistan’s opposition is far from clear, it is not focused on the substance of the implementation plan. As reported by “Reaching Critical Will,”[iii] the current CD President, Australian Ambassador Caroline Miller, told delegates that Pakistan wanted changes, not specified by her, to the language of the chapeau or introductory paragraph to the document – a source of “puzzlement,” said Amb. Millar, since she had understood that all issues had been worked out and agreed to in the course of extensive advance consultations.

So that is where the matter stands, with delegates still hoping that this is a mere glitch and not the start of another prolonged period of inaction.

What’s at stake is not only the future of the CD, but also, not to be too dramatic about it, the future of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). If the time for the 2010 NPT Review Conference arrives without there having been any concrete progress in addressing key disarmament measures, the NPT will suffer a further and serious blow to its credibility as a nuclear disarmament instrument.

The CD’s agreed program of work now includes 7 elements:

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.

Each of these issues is important, but work on fissile materials especially so. The need for immediate negotiations on a treaty on fissile materials was agreed to in 1995 (in fact, the centrality of controlling fissile materials, the core component of nuclear weapons, has been proposed and agreed to since the dawn of the nuclear age), and was in fact a key condition of converting the NPT into a permanent Treaty.

Failure, once again, to deliver on a disarmament promise would have major repercussions – but here’s hoping it’s too soon to panic.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] 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

[ii] CD/1870/Rev.1, 6 August 2009. “Draft decision on the implementation of CD/1864 (that being the program of work agreed to on 29 May 2009.

[iii] Regular reports on the CD are available on the website of Reaching Critical Will, the pre-eminent NGO monitor of UN-related nuclear disarmament diplomacy.  http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/speeches09/reports.html.