Nuclear Disarmament
Posted on: August 5th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
Canada had more than a front row seat at the dawn of the nuclear age. As part of the Manhattan Project this country was a player in the bombings that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki 64 years ago, providing both uranium and extensive scientific support for the first nuclear weapons.[i] Yet, right after World War II, Canada made a firm and lasting decision never to pursue the bomb for itself. And so began the nuclear ambivalence that still characterizes Canadian policy.
Canada’s nuclear abstinence was in no small measure born out of confidence in, or resignation to, the inescapable reality that Canada would be a permanent tenant in the widening geopolitical territory under the then emerging American nuclear umbrella. And from the start it was clear that space under that nuclear umbrella was never going to be rent free.
Early on, the US Strategic Air Command began using its base at Goose Bay, Labrador for elements of its strategic bomber fleet. The DEW line, the distant early warning line of radars, was soon installed across Canada’s north at the behest of the United States to join and then supersede the Mid-Canada and Pinetree Radar Lines to warn of any Russian bomber attack, and Canadian fighter/interceptor aircraft joined their American counterparts to stand ready to defend against any attack.
By dint of geography and an accommodating demeanor, Canada had become a strategic forefield in the MAD (mutually assured destruction) dynamics of the Cold War while, at the same time, earning a reputation as a stalwart nuclear disarmament advocate. It thus fell to successive governments in Ottawa to balance accommodation to America’s nuclear-centric security strategy with a commitment to the disarmament then being urged by the Canadian public and by a concerned international community.
The duality that Canada lived – that is, complicity in the nuclear weapons buildup joined with an active commitment to the elimination of the same weapons – was deeply imbedded within the United Nations itself. From the UN’s earliest days, the two leading permanent members of the Security Council were engaged in an intense nuclear weapons competition; at the same time, the first ever resolution in the UN General Assembly, with the support of the nuclear powers, established a “Commission to deal with the problems raised by the discovery of atomic energy,” and directed it to “make specific proposals for the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and all other weapons adaptable to mass destruction.”
This nuclear contradiction was of course keenly felt as an immediate political conundrum by Prime Ministers John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson in the early 1960s. Diefenbaker chose as his Foreign Minister an ardent disarmament advocate, Howard Green, at the very time he was inviting the United States to install Bomarc missiles in Canada – missiles with only one function, and that was to carry nuclear warheads into the paths of Soviet nuclear bombers transiting Canada en route to targets in the United States. He never did authorize installation of the warheads; that was left for the Nobel peace laureate Pearson who had earlier opposed the move.
And that is why some 250-450 nuclear weapons[ii] were deployed with Canadian forces in Canada and Europe when Canada joined the NPT in 1968 as a non-nuclear weapon state pledging never to acquire nuclear weapons. Canada’s arsenal was numerically larger than is China’s arsenal today, and larger than the combined arsenals of India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan, the only states not party to the NPT.
Pearson’s agreement to deploy US nuclear weapons with Canadian Forces earned him the rebuke of the one who succeeded him, Pierre Trudeau, but it was not long before Trudeau too would become possessed of the same nuclear ambivalence. He went to the UN General Assembly’s first special session on disarmament in 1978 to present his plan to suffocate the nuclear arms race, a key element of which was his proposed ban on the flight testing of new strategic delivery vehicles. Just five years later he agreed to the flight testing of the US air-launched strategic cruise missile in Canada – which he in turn followed up with a high profile peace initiative on the eve of this final retirement from politics.
By the early 1980s Canada had divested itself of all nuclear weapons,[iii] but Canada’s direct participation in nuclear deterrence and planning operations continued and remains through its membership in NATO and NORAD.[iv]
Most Canadian Governments and officials have not regarded life under the American nuclear umbrella as contradictory to disarmament advocacy, though the specifics of the two roles have most certainly been in tension. Canada saw, and still sees, itself as contributing to nuclear deterrence while it is needed, and at the same time supporting disarmament toward the day when it will no longer be needed.
But 1945 and 1968 have become 2009, and today nuclear deterrence does not so much await disarmament as it actively prevents it. The most compelling nuclear certainty now is that the continued reliance by some on nuclear weapons increases the danger of their spread and ultimate use by either a state or a non-state group. This danger is now acknowledged by one-time Cold Warriors like Henry Kissinger and Richard Burt, by current political leaders like Gordon Brown and especially Barak Obama, and by figures of extraordinary international stature like Mikhail Gorbachev and current and former UN Secretaries-General Ban Ki-Moon and Kofi Anan. In other words, nuclear ambivalence now presages nuclear disaster.
So, given Canada’s ongoing entanglement in nuclear strategies through NATO and NORAD, what would an end to Canadian nuclear ambivalence look like? Withdrawal is not really an option – geography won’t allow us to escape the US nuclear umbrella, and when it comes to the Americans, neither will our accommodating demeanor. Besides, the objective is not just to somehow sever Canada’s links to nuclear weapons; it is to dismantle the umbrella itself, en route to a world without nuclear weapons.
Ending nuclear ambivalence fundamentally means rejecting the double standard that nuclear weapons are OK for some, but not for others – NATO being a case in point. The alliance is now reviewing its security framework which currently insists that nuclear weapons are “essential” for the security of NATO states (para 46).[v] It is a claim that is obviously incompatible with contemporary disarmament imperatives that demand non-discrimination – and since NATO makes its decisions by consensus, Canada is in a position to prevent that doctrine from surviving in a new NATO strategic concept. Obviously no NATO member can singlehandedly force a new approach, but Canada can certainly work with other like-minded states to urge the alliance to finally and formally acknowledge that nuclear weapons threaten our security, rather than preserve it, and that it is disarmament that is “essential” to peace and security.
Similarly, another decisive rejection of nuclear ambivalence is available to Canada in its dealings with India. As a condition of selling uranium to India to fuel its non-military nuclear power plants, Canada should insist not only that India ratify the Comprehensive nuclear Test Ban Treaty, but also that India offer verifiable assurance that it has joined the five officially recognized nuclear weapon states in halting all production of fissile material for weapons purposes.
Sixty-four years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki an extraordinary array of former and current world leaders has finally joined a concerned civil society and an attentive arms control community to insist that in order to prevent the further spread and use of nuclear weapons they must be banned for all. Hiroshima and Nagasaki confirm it – the age of nuclear ambivalence must finally end.
eregehr@ploughhares.ca
Notes
[i] The Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (http://www.ccnr.org/#topics) provides an overview of Canadian involvement.
[ii] John Clearwater is the leading documenter of nuclear weapons in Canada. In his 1998 book, Canadian Nuclear Weapons: The Untold Story of Canada’s Cold War Arsenal (Dundurn Press) he concludes that “at the height of the Canadian nuclear deployments, the greatest number of weapons which could have been available to Canada would have been between 250 (low estimate) and 450 (high estimate),” p. 23. The November/December 1999 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reported (by Rpbert S. Norris, William M. Arkin, and William Burr, pp. 26-35) on a Pentagon document received through the Freedom of Information Act entitled: History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons: July 1945 through September 1977. One graph shows a peak of just over 300 nuclear weapons in Canada in the late 1960s. The Clearwater upper end estimate is higher because his totals include the weapons with Canadian forces in Europe, while the Pentagon report would show those as being in Germany.
[iii] It was also under Trudeau’s watch that all the nuclear weapons within Canadian territory and deployed with Canadian forces in Europe were withdrawn – a development that was primarily a function of technological advances in fighter-interceptor aircraft and conventional air-to-air missiles.
[iv] The North American Aerospace Defence Agreement — While the NORAD air defence role declined significantly when the main Soviet threat switched to intercontinental ballistic missiles from bombers, NORAD was and is also the primary ballistic missile early warning agency.
[v] NATO. 1999. The Alliance’s Strategic Concept, 24 April. Approved by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington D.C.http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_27433.htm.
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Posted on: July 7th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
The 2009 NPT PrepCom managed to get beyond the rancor and discord that has characterized other recent NPT meetings and to focus instead on concrete discussions and proposals – not enough to guarantee success for the 2010 Review Conference, but certainly enough to set a base for a serious and cooperative effort toward consensus.
Even on its good days, the international review process to assess progress in implementing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) amounts to an exercise in being grateful for small mercies. At the just concluded NPT preparatory committee meeting (PrepCom) in New York, there were indeed some mercies to be enjoyed, small though they still were, followed by all around gratitude that they weren’t even smaller.
This PrepCom was the last of three two-week sessions (2007 through 2009) tasked with setting the stage for a productive formal Review Conference in May 2010, and its most noteworthy achievement was to approve the formal agenda for next year’s conference. By any standard that does fit into the category of small achievements, but in the context of the rancor and discord that have characterized recent NPT meetings, and in the context of the 2005 Review Conference which foundered on more than a week of wrangling over a contentious draft agenda, advance agreement on the agenda is a significant accomplishment that reflects a tangible and promising change in attitude and morale.
There was hope that this new atmosphere of cooperation would be enough to yield a breakthrough agreement on an extensive set of recommendations to be forwarded to the 2010 Review Conference (see posts here for May 12 and 13), but, in the end, that was not to be. Agreement was tantalizingly close and the debate reflected broad areas of common ground[i] along with a new willingness to acknowledge the concerns and expectations of particular groupings, but the old divides prevailed. The nuclear weapon states once again gave assurances that they were making genuine progress on their Article VI disarmament obligations and promised renewed energy in that direction, but they also wanted more focus on strengthened safeguards and new limits on access to proliferation sensitive technologies. Non-nuclear weapon states, those within the non-aligned movement in particular, gave assurances that their disavowal of nuclear weapons remained firm, but insisted that acceptance of additional restraints, as well as the long-term viability of the Treaty, depended on much more significant progress on disarmament.
The PrepCom Chair, Boniface Chidyausika of Zimbabwe, remained confident that with more time consensus could have been reached,[ii] and despite the differences there was certainly a prevailing sense that extensive changes in US policy and diplomatic style were fostering hopes for more balanced attention to the three pillars of the NPT – disarmament, non-proliferation, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. US President Barack Obama sent a message to the PrepCom in which he acknowledged “that differences are inevitable and that NPT Parties will not always view each element of the Treaty in the same way.” He added, however, that “we must define ourselves not by our differences, but by our readiness to pursue dialogue and hard work to ensure that the NPT continues to make an enduring contribution to international peace and security.”[iii]
In particular, the international nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation environment now includes heightened expectations, promoted by both the US and Russia, that the newly-convened US-Russia disarmament talks will yield significant reductions in their nuclear arsenals and set the stage for further reductions involving all the nuclear-armed signatories to the Treaty, and at some point the nuclear armed states outside the Treaty – a prerequisite for many for balanced implementation of the Treaty. The PrepCom produced an agenda for the 2010 conference; it and the 2007 and 2008 sessions produced an impressive array of recommendations to guide deliberations in 2010, even if they did not win consensus; and the session displayed a new sense that all the recent prominent proclamations of the goal of a world without nuclear weapons are having an impact on real world expectations and negotiations – three mercies which warrant some genuine gratitude.
eregehr@ploughshares.ca
Notes
[i] See the Chairman’s draft recommendations (NPT/Conf.2010/PC.III/CRP.4/Rev.2) which were not approved as a formal action of the PrepCom. Available at Reaching Critical Will, http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/prepcom09/papers/CRP4Rev2.pdf.
[ii] Press Conference by Preparatory Committee Chairman, 15 May 2009, UN Department of Public Information. http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2009/090515_NPT_Chair.doc.htm.
[iii] Statement by the United States to the 2009 NPT PrepCom, 5 May 2009.
http://www.un.org/disarmament
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Posted on: June 26th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
The United Nations and Nuclear Orders is a new volume of essays edited by Jane Boulden, Ramesh Thakur, and Thomas G. Weiss.
In his Foreword to this volume, Jayantha Dhanapala, whose extraordinary diplomatic career included his widely acclaimed service as UN Under Secretary General for Disarmament Affairs, attributes the current return of nuclear weapons to the place of prominence they held in international relations during the Cold War to four factors:
- the emergence of global terrorism (as distinct from national terrorism);
- the nuclear “renaissance”, or growing interest in nuclear energy;
- instances of attempted weapons proliferation by states within the NPT and actual proliferation outside the Treaty; and
- the adoption by some nuclear weapon states of doctrines for the actual and pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons, including against non-nuclear weapon states (pp. xiii-xiv).
The joint opening and context setting chapter by the editors points out that “although the United Nations may not be the central forum for negotiations and discussions concerning nuclear weapons, and it may not be living up to its full potential, it would be wrong to count the United Nations out of the nuclear weapons picture” (p. 4). They go on to set out the three core questions that focus the essays in this volume:
- “What is the nature of the current environment in which the United Nations is operating on these issues?
- Who and what are the actors and tools the United Nations has available to it with respect to questions about nuclear weapons?
- What do the answers to those two questions tell us about whether and how the organization could, or should, play a role in these issues, as well as the kind of role that it might assume?”
The book is in three sections, on the actors, the actual and potential tools, and looming threats and new challenges.
I contributed the chapter on the Security Council in the section on actors, and the following is taken from the introduction:
“It was never part of a formal plan that the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the P-5) should also be the five nuclear weapon states (NWS), later to be recognized and accepted as such under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). By now, however, these two distinct attributes have been so fully fused in the multilateral consciousness that it seems as if nature intended it that way. Indeed, permanent membership in the Council could only have added to the drive by the United Kingdom, France, and China to follow the United States and the then Soviet Union to acquire credible nuclear arsenals. Possession of nuclear weapons was seen as a desirable if not essential accoutrement of the global gravitas attaching to any States assuming the mantle of ultimate custodians of international peace and security. And though this commingling of the P-5 with the nuclear five (N5) now seems normal, it is an arrangement that has bedeviled the Council’s performance in one key part of its assigned job of keeping the peace and enforcing global norms.
“The focus of this chapter is the Security Council’s attention to vertical non-proliferation, that is, nuclear disarmament, rather than horizontal non-proliferation. It begins by laying out the framework provided by the UN Charter before discussing the multilaterally defined disarmament agenda – the principles, objectives, and practical steps toward disarmament – that the P-5/N-5 have fully endorsed in forums or contexts outside the Council. The chapter then discusses the importance of disarmament efforts to curb horizontal proliferation. Next, two specific Council engagements – on negative security assurances and the response to Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons developments – are addressed. They provide valuable insights into considering ongoing impediments to the P-5/N-5 giving attention to the imperative of nuclear disarmament within the practical and more demanding business of the Security Council. The chapter concludes by exploring what the Council might realistically do to advance the agreed nuclear disarmament agenda” (pp. 31-32).
Other authors include the editors, David Cortright of the Joan B. Krock Institute (at Notre Dame), Randy Rydell of the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs, Nicole Evans of Canada’s DFAIT, Rita Grossman-Vermas of the US Department of the Treasury, Ian Johnstone of Tufts University, and Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu.
The United Nations and nuclear orders, Boulden, Thakur and Weiss (eds), United Nations University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-92-808-1167-4.
To order contact:
UNITED NATIONS PUBLICATIONS
2 United Nations Plaza,
Room DC2-853, Dept 174
New York, NY 10017
Tel: 212 963-8302,
800 253-9646 (credit card orders)
Fax: 212 963-3489
E-mail: publications@un.org
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Posted on: June 1st, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
The UN’s Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament (CD) has for the first time in 12 years agreed on a program of substantive work. So now, as of the genuinely historic agreement on May 29, negotiations can begin on a key element of that program, the patiently pursued yet persistently resisted agreement to ban the production of fissile material for weapons purposes.
The pursuit of a fissile materials treaty really dates back to the dawn of the nuclear age. In 1946 the Atomic Energy Commission’s first annual report to the Security Council recommended the establishment of an international agency to, among other things, provide for the disposal of fissile material and ensure that the “manufacture and possession” of atomic weapons was prohibited.[i]
Countless UN resolutions since then, including the explicit 1963 General Assembly call for negotiations on a Treaty,[ii] along with two basic agreements on procedure reached more than a decade ago, the “A-5 formula” and the “Shannon mandate,” reflect an enduring global consensus on the importance of ending the production of fissile materials for weapons. Two Review Conferences of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) also called for negotiations on a Treaty.
The majority voice in the CD has long insisted, however, that substantive work on banning fissile materials production should be carried out in the context of parallel attention to three other issues:
-pursuit of a legally-binding instrument to assure non-nuclear weapon states that they will not be subjected to the threat or use of nuclear weapons against them;
-multilateral negotiations or discussion to advance global nuclear disarmament; and
-prevention of an arms race in outer space.
For years, various states have declared their support of one or some of these agenda items, while refusing support for others. Then in 2003 a group of Ambassadors to the CD developed a basic formula which would mandate “negotiations” on fissile materials but only “discussions” on the other three items (leaving open the possibility for moving towards negotiations in the future). This A-5 formula[iii] is incorporated into the May 29 agreement and it honors the basic principle that the international community will not permit certain groups of states to determine that multilateral attention will focus only on their priority issue, to the exclusion of the priorities of others.
Another seemingly insoluble dispute that has hounded the fissile materials issue is the question of whether a proposed treaty should address only a ban on future production or whether it would deal with existing stocks as well.
A fissile materials cut-off treaty (an FMCT) would ban all future fissile material production after a negotiated cut-off date, thus it would formalize the existing moratoria on production in the UK, US, Russia, France, and China, and it would ensure that fissile material production by India, Israel, and Pakistan would be capped. A fissile materials treaty (an FMT), on the other hand, would deal with existing stocks as well as future production, including provisions to limit the weaponization of existing materials produced for weapons purposes.
In 1994 Canadian Ambassador Gerald Shannon was asked to find a way through this dispute and his March 1995 report set out a basic compromise. The formal mandate for fissile materials negotiations would focus on a “ban on the production of fissile material,” but it would also allow delegations to raise other issues, including controls on and destruction of existing stocks, during the course of negotiations. This compromise became known as the Shannon mandate[iv] and is now part of the May 29 agrement. The principle embedded in the Shannon mandate is that the international community will not permit a single state or a small group of states to define in advance the parameters of multilateral negotiations on a particular issue.
Of course, all non-nuclear weapon states that are party to the NPT are already prohibited from producing or possessing fissile material for weapons purposes, so a FMCT/FMT would in effect universalize that ban. As of now, only eight states are not legally prohibited from producing fissile materials for weapons purposes: the five acknowledged nuclear weapon states (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States), and the three states that have never signed the NPT (India, Israel, Pakistan). North Korea, the only other state that is currently known to possess fissile materials for weapons purposes, has withdrawn from the NPT, but because it was in violation of the Treaty when it withdrew, most states argue that it is still bound by the provisions of the NPT).
Of course, Iran is suspected, or at least has not given sufficient verifiable assurances to the contrary, of intending to produce fissile materials for weapons purposes, and the issue remains before both the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
To say that the negotiations will be long and arduous is obviously an understatement, but at the same time the five official nuclear weapon states and the three non-NPT states with nuclear weapons all have persuasive reasons for joining the negotiations.[v] The US and Russia, as well as the UK and France, have large stocks of materials on hand and so have no reason to resist a ban on future production, and they would clearly welcome a Treaty that would cap production in China, as well as in North Korea, India, Israel, and Pakistan. They, of course, are rather less inclined to support an agreement that would place controls over their existing stocks.
China has suspended production and supports a permanent and collective ban on further production, and it would of course welcome a cap on Indian production. India, on the other hand, which would welcome a cap on Pakistani production, is confident that it will be able to build up its own stocks during the time it takes to negotiate a production ban.
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India has already signaled that it will resist efforts to place controls over existing stocks – it wants a “cut-off” treaty. Pakistan, however, wants the Treaty to cover stocks as well. Pakistan is pretty much resigned to asymmetry with India on nuclear arsenals, but it will still look to the Treaty to keep the imbalance within some limits.
Israel probably feels it has little to gain from such a Treaty, although a simple ban on future production would probably be acceptable. Other states in the Middle East, however, are unlikely to find it acceptable to support a Treaty that bans only future production and thus implicitly accepts, even blesses, Israel’s existing stocks.
For the rest of the world, at a minimum a fissile materials treaty, whatever its final shape and scope, will:
-reinforce the ban on fissile material production that already applies to non-nuclear weapon states within the NPT,
-prevent the expansion of nascent arsenals, such as that of North Korea,
-limit the development of arsenals in states like India, Israel, and Pakistan, and
-extend safeguards and inspection arrangements to key nuclear facilities in all states with nuclear weapons.
eregehr@ploughshares.ca
Notes
[i] Lauren Barbour, Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty: A Chronology, Institute for Science and International Security, http://www.isis-online.org/publications/fmct/chronology.html.
[ii] A brief review of the tortuous process that has finally led to the decision to begin negotiations is also provided in what is probably the very best available background material on fissile materials, and that is the work of the International Panel on Fissile Materials. Its 2008 report, the third annual, is focused on the “Scope and Verification of a Fissile Materials (Cutoff) Treaty.” Global Fissile Material Report 2008: Scope and Verification of a Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty, Third Annual Report of the International Panel on Fissile Materials.www.fissilematerials.org.
[iii] Initiative of the Ambassadors Dembri, Lint, Reyes, Salander andVega. Proposal of a Programme of Work revised at the 932nd plenary meeting on Thursday, 26 June 2003. CD/1693/Rev.1, 5 September 2003. http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/A5.pdf.
[iv] Report of Ambassador Gerald E. Shannon of Canada on Consultations on the Most Appropriate Arrangement to Negotiate a Treaty Banning the Production of Fissile Material for Nuclear Weapons or Other Nuclear Explosive Devices. CD/1299, 24 March 1995. Available athttp://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/shannon.html.
[v] Jenni Rissanen, “Time for a Fissban – or Farewell?”, Disarmament Diplomacy, Winter 2006, p. 16.
Posted on: May 29th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
North Korea has demonstrated a formidable capacity for trying the patience of the international community, but that does not mean we should also allow it to foment international crises.[i]
Kim Jong Il’s second nuclear test is all the things diplomats and world leaders have said it is – a reckless challenge to the international community, a misguided provocation that endangers the world, a violation of UN Security Council resolutions – but that does not make it a crisis, and crisis management focused on short-term tactics is not what is now required.
It is important to keep the vagaries of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in some perspective. Desperately poor and underdeveloped, its people are chronically malnourished and forced to live in a perpetual state of humanitarian crisis. North Korea is not a rising and industrializing power, and as such it will not manage, either in the short term or even the foreseeable future, to mount a credible nuclear arsenal, or to deploy intercontinental missiles to carry a nuclear warhead. At the political level, leader Kim Jong Il faces a serious succession challenge, and given his regime’s utter failure or refusal to meet even the most minimal needs of its people, its long-term stability is far from certain.
Its total stock of weapons grade fissile material is less than 40 kg of plutonium and declining.[ii] A third has already been used up by two nuclear test explosions (the first in 2006 and the other this week). That leaves it with enough material to build another three to four warheads. It is not currently producing fissile material, its only production site, the reactor in Yongbyon and the accompanying facility to reprocess its spent fuel rods, having been partially dismantled as a result of agreements reached through the six-party talks. Notably, in 2006 the cooling tower at Yongbyon was destroyed.[iii]
Even if the Yongbyon facilities (a fuel fabrication plant, a reactor to burn the fuel and produce spent fuel, and a reprocessing plant to convert the spent fuel into weapons grade plutonium) were fully restored and made operational once again, as Kim Jong Il has now promised, plutonium production would reach only about six kg per year (enough to build one warhead per year of the size of the two that have been detonated).[iv]
Clearly, North Korea’s actions are a grave challenge to international peace and security and must be reversed. One of the more urgent concerns is that it will expand its role as a clandestine supplier of technology and materials. But the regime is not about to become a direct or imminent nuclear threat to anyone.
There is thus time to formulate a considered response, although the options are not promising. Isolation of the regime, the primary strategy to date, hasn’t worked and won’t work[v] – partly because Russia and China will never wholeheartedly support it, partly because the beleaguered people of North Korea desperately need the international community to meet its responsibility to protect them, and partly because it is isolation that repeatedly drives Kim to the outrageous steps he takes in order to get the world’s attention – all the while deepening North Korea’s commitment to a permanent nuclear arsenal.[vi]
Military action also won’t work and isn’t seriously contemplated.
So what will work? The real answer seems to be that no one knows, but a more hopeful response is the forming recognition that reversing North Korea’s nuclear weapons commitment is unlikely to be accomplished separately from the development of a more humane, and thus more stable and secure, regime. That is necessarily a long-term enterprise that must attend to economic, social, humanitarian, and educational efforts as much as to hard-nosed nonproliferation measures. As the Washington Post put it, the objective must be to also “raise North Koreans’ standard of living and exposure to the West.”[vii]
In the present political climate that is a hard sell, but it is essentially what President Obama promised. Cooperation of any kind in the immediate wake of yet another provocation would understandably be seen as a reward for bad behavior, but there are still avenues for immediate and constructive collective action.
Now is the time to move decisively forward with building up the universal and legal nonproliferation infrastructure that must finally treat all states the same and that is an essential vehicle for reining in recalcitrant regimes. The next two essential additions to the nonproliferation regime are entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)[viii] and negotiation of a fissile materials treaty (FMT).
Before the CTBT can enter into force it needs to be ratified by, among others, North Korea, the United States, and China. The US and China are key, and President Obama has promised ratification (for which he needs a two-thirds majority in the Senate). China supports the CTBT and is waiting primarily for the US, setting up a situation for both to jointly put principled and persuasive pressure on North Korea to sign on.
The same goes for a long promised treaty to ban the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes. The US and China both support it, and together with the CTBT, the FMT constitutes the central and essential legal framework for ensuring that North Korea’s still very limited capacity to produce weapons is contained and then reversed.
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Effective long-term engagement, multilaterally and bilaterally, will eschew panic, but it must also be rigidly principled – the most fundamental principle in this context being that North Korea’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon cannot be tolerated, and under no circumstances can there be normalization with a nuclear North Korea.
eregehr@ploughshares.ca
Notes
[i] “No Crisis for North Korea,” The Washington Post, 26 May 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/25/AR2009052501505.html?hpid=opinionsbox1.
[ii] According to the International Panel on Fissile Materials, North Korea declared an inventory of 37 kg, a figure within the range of independent estimates by the US. Global Fissile Material Report 2008, p. 18. www.fissilematerials.org.
[iii] “In October 2007, North Korea committed to end its nuclear-weapon program; declare all it nuclear activities; and disable its Yongbyon plutonium-production reactor and the associated fuel-fabrication and reprocessing plants by the end of 2007. The colling tower of the Yongbyon reactor was demolished in June 2008.” Global Fissile Material Report 2008, p. 20. www.fissilematerials.org.
[iv] Sigfried S. Hecker, “The risks of North Korea’s nuclear restart,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 12 May 2009.http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/the-risks-of-north-koreas-nuclear-restart.
[v] Jeremy Paltiel of Carleton University calls for the even more radical isolation of North Korea (“Only close co-ordination between China and the United States can devise sanctions…that constrain the continued operation of the North Korean regime without firing a shot…”), but withoutexplaining how China might be persuaded to cooperate in an endeavor it does not see as advancing its interests. “’Chimerica’ must rise to Kim’s challenge,” The Globe and Mail, 26 May 2009. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/chimerica-must-rise-to-kim-jong-ils-challenge/article1152474/.
[vi] Leon V. Sigal, “What Obama should offer North Korea,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 28 January 2009. http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-eds/what-obama-should-offer-north-korea.
[vii] Dan Blumenthal and Robert Kagan, “What to do about North Korea,” The Washington Post, 26 May 2009.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/25/AR2009052501391.html?hpid=opinionsbox1.
[viii] Charles J. Hanley, “NK test, US treaty OK could set off chain reaction,” Associated Press, 26 May 2009.http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gLGa3FWA7gL-uBuaFvaoCXhjNDNgD98E2JLG0.
Posted on: May 13th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
Debate has begun on recommendations[i]summarized in a draft outcome document prepared by the Chair at the current NPT PrepCom in New York. There are indications of broad support, [ii] but not yet the consensus that will be required to move the recommendations forward to next year’s Review Conference. The following describes six key nonproliferation proposals.
1. Safeguards: IAEA safeguards are reaffirmed as “a fundamental pillar” of the nonproliferation regime, in part because they help to “create an environment conducive to achieving nuclear disarmament.” Efforts to strengthen safeguards are welcomed, but without specific direction as to how that might be accomplished. The Canadian statement to the PrepCom, reflecting the views of many other states as well, offers some of the detail that is missing – namely, that all states enter into Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements with the IAEA, and that the IAEA’s Additional Protocol become the essential verification standard under Article III of the Treaty.
2. Fuel Cycle Developments: Here the document is looking for a delicate balance. On the one hand there is a call for further consideration of multilateral approaches to managing and controlling the proliferation of sensitive elements of fuel production for civilian reactors – accompanied by assurances of supply; on the other hand there is also a call for each country’s national prerogatives to be respected – the latter being an important nod to the Article IV right of access to nuclear technologies for peaceful purposes. Ultimately, however, national choices and preferences cannot be unfettered if there is to be any collective brake on the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technologies which have direct application for building bombs. That said, this time the Chair managed a fairly skillful navigation between these two poles – preventing the spread of the technology while recognizing the rights of states to acquire it – with the affirmation that the exercise of national choices should not jeopardize international cooperation agreements.
3. Nuclear Weapon Free Zones and the Middle East: The Chair’s statement recognizes and affirms the importance of nuclear weapon free zones generally, and commends a proposal for the five nuclear weapon states under the NPT “to convene a conference of all states of the Middle East region to address ways and means to implement” the 1995 Resolution on the Middle East. That resolution in turn called on all States, but particularly the nuclear weapon states, “to extend their cooperation and to exert their utmost efforts with a view to ensuring the early establishment by regional parties of a Middle East zone free of nuclear and all other weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems.” Egypt submitted a working paper[iii] to the PrepCom calling for a conference to be held in 2011 and for the establishment of a standing committee to plan the conference and coordinate other efforts to implement the commitments on the Middle East.
4. Transparency and Reporting: Several recommendations promote transparency – in the context of a) measures to implement export controls, b) strengthening accountability related to all provisions of the Treaty, and c) an expanded reporting mechanism. The impact of the recommendations would be to expand the current reporting obligations, currently focused on Article VI of the Treaty and the Middle East Resolution, to cover all elements of the Treaty, something which Canada has long advocated. The specific recommendation calls on states to “consider establishing a uniform, practical and cost-efficient reporting system for the implementation of the Treaty.” This would in fact be an important maturation of the 2000 reporting provision and would, one hopes, reinvigorate the idea that accountability depends on transparency, and that transparency depends on states making it happen through regular and comprehensive reporting.
5. Institutional Deficit: Canada has once again submitted well-developed recommendations to this PrepCom[iv] to address the woeful absence of an institutional and governance infrastructure for the Treaty. The Chair’s recommendation on institutional and procedural reforms is put in the context of a strengthened review process and calls on States to consider the various proposals “with a view to achieving a consensus on agreed measures.” That may still be a hard sell, given that a diplomat from one of the nuclear weapon states told NGOs in an off-the-record briefing that in his view the reform proposals were unnecessary and had in fact garnered little support. Currently the States Parties to the Treaty meet in decision-making mode only once every five years, at the formal Review Conferences. The annual PrepComs are restricted to preparing for those meetings and have no formal decision-making mandate. And unlike other Treaties, the NPT does not have a secretariat. Hence, Canada recommends that States Parties meet annually in a decision-making “General Conference,” that a standing bureau be created to provide leadership and continuity during and between meetings, and that a permanent administrative support office be created to support and facilitate Treaty meetings and intersessional work. The working paper elaborates on the rationale, budget, and functions of these institutional enhancements.
6. Role of NGOs: The Chair’s recommendations also call on States to consider ways of enhancing NGO participation in the Treaty review process. In the previous review cycle Canada submitted a working paper on NGO participation but has not raised the issue in the current review cycle. The 2003 working paper[v]noted several ways in which NGO participation could be made more effective: more open meetings, with all plenary and cluster working group sessions open as a matter of course (this is now largely the case), and with closed meetings the relatively rare exception; access to the PrepCom/RevCon meeting rooms, with appropriate seating areas, to enable direct interaction with the official delegations (this is now not the norm); opportunities to intervene directly in the debates and discussions under all items of the agenda (this is not now the case – however, one session is set aside for NGO presentations); and more timely and systematic access to conference documents (the electronic availability of official documents is now improving, but is definitely not timely).
eregehr@ploughshares.ca
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Notes
[i] The May 12 post covers the disarmament recommendations.
[ii] See the daily reports from the PrepCom by Reaching Critical Will, available athttp://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/NIR2009/No8.pdf.
[iii] NPT/CONF.2010/PC.III/WP.20. http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/prepcom09/papers/WP20.pdf.
[iv] NPT/CONF.2010/PC.III/WP.8. http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/prepcom09/papers/WP8.pdf.
[v] NPT/CONF.2005/PC.II/WP.16. 6 May 2003.http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/2003statements/Working%20Papers/WPCANADANGOS.pdf.
Posted on: May 12th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
States at the current NPT PrepCom are now considering an ambitious program of action intended, according to the draft, to lead “to the elimination of nuclear weapons.” The recommendations put forward by the meeting’s chair certainly imply positive change to the political environment in which disarmament is pursued, but that is no guarantee that consensus will be reached.
“Practical initiatives that stand a reasonable prospect of producing a consensus” is how the chair of this year’s Preparatory Committee meeting (PrepCom)[i] characterizes his recommendations, all drawn from points put forward by States Parties to the Treaty[ii] over the course of three PrepComs. Issued in draft form at the end of the first week of this final PrepCom of the current cycle, the recommendations[iii] consolidate a range of widely accepted disarmament priorities and set the stage for the Review Conference next year.
The current series of very positive declarations from the United States and other nuclear weapon states (NWS) will translate into a successful Review Conference next year only if they yield at least some tangible achievements over the next 12 months. Only positive action in both disarmament and horizontal nonproliferation measures will save the NPT from being further discredited, but in the meantime the Chair’s attempt at building a consensus agenda for such action is well worth the careful attention of states.
The document begins by asking states to make a number of clear affirmations, including three important principles:
The first notable principle is that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) “is an expression of fundamental principles of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation that are universal in scope,” and that Treaty obligations are “legally binding.” The implication is that, even for the three states that have never signed the NPT, its provisions are normative.
Second, the draft states that implementation of all the provisions of the Treaty “is vital to international peace and security.” This basic judgment conforms to the conclusion of the 1992 Security Council summit which declared that “the proliferation of all weapons of mass destruction constitutes a threat to international peace and security.”[iv] The 1992 declaration, as well as Resolution 1540 in 2004, also reaffirmed “the need for all Member States to fulfill their obligations in relation to arms control and disarmament,” and encouraged “all Member States to implement fully the disarmament treaties and agreements to which they are party.” Thus, since the NWS, acting as the Permanent Five in the Security Council, have already affirmed this principle they should have little hesitation in endorsing the Chair’s formulation.
Third, the draft acknowledges that several of the decisions and commitments made in the 1995 and 2000[v] review conferences have yet to be implemented, but need to be implemented through an action plan of “practical, achievable and specified goals, and measures leading to the elimination of nuclear weapons.”
Then follows a list of 10 familiar elements to the this action plan:
1. “entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and, pending its achievement, maintaining the moratoria on nuclear testing;”
2. commencing negotiations at the Conference on Disarmament on a verifiable fissile materials treaty and, pending the conclusion of negotiations, encouraging a moratorium on the further production of weapon usable fissile material” (it is an interesting and welcome departure from the usual wording that it is not described as a “cut-off” treaty, indicating that controls over existing stocks should be included in the negotiations as well);
3. “achieving deep and verifiable reductions in the nuclear arsenals;”
4. “expanding the transparency in implementing disarmament commitments” (this PrepCom has seen very little attention to the 2000 commitment to regular reporting, making this broader reference to transparency a welcome inclusion);
5. “ensuring the irreversibility of disarmament activities;”
6. “reducing the operational status of the nuclear forces;”
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7. “diminishing further the role of nuclear weapons in security policies;”
8. “refraining from the qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons;”
9. “reducing non-strategic nuclear weapons pending their elimination;
10. “placing fissile material recovered from dismantled nuclear weapons under IAEA monitoring and verification.”
Then, in a surprising but also welcome addition, the draft proposes that states explore the commencement of negotiations on “a convention or framework of agreements to achieve global nuclear disarmament” and in the process also engage states that are not parties to the Treaty. The reference to “a framework of agreements” acknowledges that a nuclear weapons convention is not to be conceived as a replacement to the NPT, but rather as a kind of omnibus bill that would consolidate all relevant disarmament and non-proliferation measures into a single and legally-binding instrument.
Much of this agenda is familiar (reflecting in particular the 13 steps from 2000), but in some cases familiarity has bred, if not contempt, then certainly ongoing resistance. While there is evidence of a broad intention to act on the first three recommendations, many of the rest are more contentious for at least some of the nuclear weapon states. How they are ultimately received will become clearer over the next few days of discussion.
The draft also includes a large number of recommendations related to other elements of the Treaty (some of which will be considered in later posts).
eregehr@ploughshares.ca
Notes
[i] The current May 4-15 meeting is preparing for the 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which is to take place a year from now.
[ii] “Draft Recommendations to the Review Conference,” 7 May 2009 (NPT/CONF.2010/PC.III/CRP.4), available at:http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/prepcom09/papers/CRP4.pdf.
[iii] Reaching Critical Will has produced three excellent documents on recommendations – one summarizing the chair’s document (http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/NIR2009/no6.html), another reviewing the broad range of recommendations put forward by states this PrepCom (http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/NIR2009/wpsurvey.html), and the third compiling the recommendations presented by NGOs (http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/prepcom09/ngostatements/Recommendations.pdf).
[iv] S/23500, 31 January 1992.
[v] The 2000 Review Conference agreed on the well-know “13 practical steps,” and the Carnegie Endowment’s Sharon Squassoni has just produced a new report assessing progress on their implementation: “Grading Progress on 13 Steps Toward Nuclear Disarmament,” May 2009,Policy Outlook, No. 45. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=23101&prog=zgp&proj=znpp.
Posted on: May 11th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
New Canadian statements at the current NPT PrepCom prove to be more upbeat on disarmament and more complicated, and compromised, on safeguards.
A post here last week[i] expressed disappointment in Canada’s opening overview statement to the current 2009 (May 4-15) Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) preparatory committee meeting (PrepCom). Canada’s response was judged to be excessively low-key, given what is surely a dramatically-improved political environment for the pursuit of nuclear disarmament. Furthermore, the failure to even refer to the 13 steps toward nuclear disarmament agreed to in 2000 seemed a rather significant omission, given their relevance to the then ongoing agenda dispute.[ii]
Since then Canada has made three additional formal statements and thus has begun to fill in some of the details and, it must be said, to elevate the enthusiasm quotient and to respond to some of the new opportunities that a revived disarmament environment implies. The statement on safeguards, however, and not surprisingly, reflects its contentious compromise, along with that of the Nuclear Suppliers group, on nuclear cooperation with India.
The Cluster One statement, focused on disarmament,[iii] welcomes the “new sense of commitment, at the highest levels and from more countries, to a world free of nuclear weapons.” It applauds what it calls a general strengthening of the disarmament pillar of the NPT, and it welcomes the US-Russian pursuit of a new strategic arms reduction treaty (START) and the UK’s promise of a “Road to 2010 Plan[iv] and its ongoing work on disarmament verification.
The disarmament statement also referred to some of the elements of the 13 Practical Steps which now hold the promise of concrete action, especially the CTBT entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the start of negotiations on a fissile materials cut-off treaty (FMCT). It concluded with an appeal to all states “to work together to advance nuclear disarmament, and toward a truly global commitment to a nuclear-weapon-free world.”
There are two Cluster Two statements, on safeguards and on regional issues.[v]
The safeguards statement emphasizes the importance of all states bringing Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements into force with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), along with applying the IAEA’s Additional Protocol,[vi] and recommends that the PrepCom “recognize that these measures represent the verification standard under Article III of the Treaty.”
The apparent compromise on safeguard regulations relates to the way in which guidelines for civilian nuclear cooperation are articulated. Canada’s move toward nuclear trade and technical cooperation with India, despite its growing nuclear arsenal and obvious refusal to join the NPT, began with the Canadian-supported action at the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) which grants India alone an exemption to its core guideline. And, not surprisingly, that compromise is now reflected in its safeguards statement, which says that “no State Party should transfer any nuclear-related items to any recipient whatsoever unless the recipient country is in full compliance with its safeguard obligations.”
Since India is not a signatory to the NPT and is not bound by the Article III provision for safeguards, it is arguably “in full compliance with its safeguard obligations” inasmuch as its only legal obligations are the ones it has explicitly agreed to with the IAEA on its own accord.
But the 1995 NPT Review Conference, with Canada’s support, agreed to much more stringent conditions for nuclear cooperation: “New supply arrangements for the transfer of source or special fissionable material or equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material to non-nuclear-weapon States should require, as a necessary precondition, acceptance of the Agency’s full-scope safeguards and internationally legally binding commitments not to acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.”[vii] In this definition, cooperation is not only conditional on compliance with the safeguard agreements it has in place, but is also conditional on the recipient country’s placement of all of its nuclear facilities under safeguards, and on it entering into a legally-binding commitment not to acquire nuclear weapons.
India (a non-nuclear weapon State within the terms of the NPT), of course, meets neither condition – it was granted a special exemption by the NSG. But Canada’s less stringent characterization of the condition applied to nuclear cooperation is offered as a general principle and thus implies that this more relaxed guideline should now be the standard – rather than arguing for retention of the strictest of guidelines (as defined in 1995) with a special India-only exemption.
Pace your lifestyle and tab viagra keep your movement on an even level. Why Does Sex Change as Men Age? The fact is that most men face an erection problem at http://www.heritageihc.com/buy4037.html tadalafil online canada some point in their lives. There is a strong relationship amid weight problems in addition to the the most important starting point involving kind the second cheap brand viagra adult onset diabetes utilizing the nation’s related insulin resistance. Online Driver Education helps you learn the course according to one’s preferred and convenient time. viagra tablets http://www.heritageihc.com/articles/18/ In the regional issues statement, Canada calls for universalization of the Treaty, meaning that India, Israel, and Pakistan should join the NPT. But by promoting civilian nuclear cooperation with India in defiance of the 1995 agreement that such cooperation should be withheld from any state that does not enter into “internationally legally binding commitments not to acquire nuclear weapons,” it would certainly seem to be undermining the universalization objective.
eregehr@ploughshares.ca
Notes
[i] May 5: http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2009/5/canada%E2%80%99s-opening-statement-npt.
[ii] See the May 8 post on the Agenda: http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2009/5/using-%E2%80%9Cprogress%E2%80%9D-and-%E2%80%9C-npt%E2%80%9D-same-sentence.
[iii] Available at http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/prepcom09/statements/6MayC1_Canada.pdf.
[iv] Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in his March 2009 speech: “In the coming months Britain – working with other countries – will be setting out a “Road to 2010” Plan with detailed proposals on civil nuclear power, disarmament and non-proliferation, on fissile material security and the role and development of the International Atomic Energy Agency….” He also promised to produce “a credible roadmap towards disarmament by all the nuclear weapons states – through measures that will command the confidence of all the non-nuclear weapons states.” [The full text of Gordon Brown’s speech on nuclear energy and proliferation is available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7948367.stm.]
[v] One of “safeguard” issues, vailable at http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/prepcom09/statements/7MayC2_Canada.pdf. The second on “regional” issues, available at http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/prepcom09/statements/8MayME_Canada.pdf.
[vi] Provisions for more intrusive and more effective inspections.
[vii] Decision 2, 1995 Review Conference, Paragraph 12, NPT/CONF.1995/32 (Part I), Annex.http://www.un.org/disarmament/WMD/Nuclear/1995-NPT/pdf/NPT_CONF199501.pdf.
Posted on: May 8th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
That early approval of an agenda should be hailed as extraordinary progress speaks volumes about where the NPT review process has been, but this time around early success on the agenda supports realistic expectations for some more tangible achievements.
But the first big challenge was still to get past the agenda dispute. In the failed 2005 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), disputes over the agenda consumed vast amounts of diplomatic energy – the supplies of which were already dangerously depleted. And there was enough worry about the agenda question in the run-up to the 2010 Review Conference that many diplomats and observers had already concluded that if the current Preparatory Committee meeting (PrepCom, May 4-15) achieved nothing but an agreed Agenda, it would be an important success.
Few thought success would come as early as the third day, but there was the Chairman opening day three with the announcement that his private consultations had produced a new draft. He presented it to the meeting and the ensuing silence meant consent, and that was it.
If you want to finally obtain into best prices for viagra http://valsonindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/BSE-Limited-Outcome-Of-Board-Meeting.pdf the action, and take advantage when the time is non-existent. Lee’s explanation, we all know that doxycycline is not the right one to cure prostatitis; the herbal pill can be the best for cialis generika it. Sometimes patient wakes up from sleep due to their fingers are tadalafil professional numb. Research has shown that there are many erectile dysfunction medications available in the market; the most effective and widely used are lowest price for cialis , viagra. The dispute was rooted in substance. The 2000 Review Conference of course resulted in some major agreements, the most prominent of which was agreement on a series of 13 “practical steps” toward the full implementation of Article VI, the disarmament article of the Treaty (the 13 steps are listed at the end of the May 5 post). At the 2005 conference the overwhelming majority of states wanted the agenda to refer not only to the Review of the Treaty, but also to review progress in the implementation of decisions made in 1995 and at the 2000 Conference. The United States then led the opposition (the 13 steps had been agreed to by the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration denied being bound by them). This time the US had no objection, but there were indications that France would continue the fight.
In the end the agenda received unanimous support, the item in question reading: “Review of the operation of the Treaty…, taking into account the decisions and the resolution adopted by the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference and the final document of the 2000 Review Conference.” It is more than technical wording – it is recognition that past agreements mean something and that all NPT States are obliged to give account to each other for actions taken or not taken in support of those decisions.
And this time, the early resolution of the agenda question also gives evidence of a new spirit of cooperation. Delegates are even daring to hope that the use of “progress” and “NPT” in the same sentence will not be a one-time thing, but will spread to other issues and lead to a set of recommendations or at least a finite number of options to focus deliberations at the 2010 Review Conference (the NPT Review Conferences are held every five years and they are the only occasions when the States Parties to the Treaty can actually make decisions).
Posted on: May 5th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr
Canada took the floor early in yesterday’s opening session of the 2009 PrepCom,[i] opting for what has to be regarded as a rather low-key approach. Details will come in subsequent statements on particular issues or themes, but two things stand out from Canada’s overview statement.[ii]
The first is that Canada did not join the many other states that spoke with some enthusiasm about the changed political environment in support of disarmament and that reiterated the commitment to the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons.
Canada did say it “… is particularly encouraged by the renewed momentum of disarmament talks between Russia and the US,” and noted that “we are entering a promising new era for arms control and disarmament – one in which diplomacy and multilateral cooperation are the tools with which we can build a secure and prosperous world.”
But there was no reference to the elimination of nuclear weapons – a theme, as is by now well known, that is repeated by a broad range of security professionals and political leaders (from Henry Kissinger to Gordon Brown to Barak Obama). The NPT was characterized as “…the only legally binding global instrument topromote nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament” (emphasis added). To characterize the NPT as simply “promoting,” rather than “requiring,” the elimination of nuclear weapons seems rather strikingly out of step with the current mood and expectation – not to mention at odds with the World Court view that the NPT requires total nuclear disarmament.
To be fair, there are many more words to come from Canada and all delegations and I’ve been assured that a more direct commitment to total disarmament will be forthcoming. Even so, the failure to make the point in the overview statement is disappointing.
The UK, for example, talked about new opportunities to deliver on the NPT’s ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons, while Canada chose to “emphasize the need for meaningful and balanced progress on each of the three pillars” – that is, disarmament, nonproliferation, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Russia challenged states to build an international environment “conducive to full renunciation of nuclear weapons,” and spoke of the “noble idea of freeing the world from nuclear threat.”
China called for the “complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons for the establishment of a world free of nuclear weapons.” The IAEA representative spoke of “achieving a world free of nuclear weapons” and Sweden, speaking for the New Agenda Coalition, said the “total elimination of nuclear weapons” is the only guarantee against their use.
A second striking feature of Canada’s opening statement was the conspicuous silence, or so it seemed, on the 13 disarmament steps unanimously agreed to in 2000. The statement included an important reference to the failure to implement the decisions of the 1995 Review Conference, but the omission of any reference to the important agreements reached in the 2000 Review Conference seems to imply a downgrading of the 13 steps.[iii]
Again, there is more to come, but it would have been welcome to have a clear statement affirming, as many other delegations did, that the 13 steps represent an ongoing commitment.
eregehr@ploughshares.ca
Notes
[i] The current and final session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, 4-15 May 2009, at UN Headquarters in New York.
[ii] It is available on the UN’s NPT PrepCom site at:http://www.un.org/disarmament/WMD/Nuclear/NPT2010Prepcom/PrepCom2009/statements/2009/04May2009AMSpeaker-8-Canada-English.pdf.
[iii] In 2000 NPT state unanimously agreed on the following steps:
1. The importance and urgency of signatures and ratifications, without delay and without conditions and in accordance with constitutional processes, to achieve the early entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.
2. A moratorium on nuclear-weapon-test explosions or any other nuclear explosions pending entry into force of that Treaty.
3. The necessity of negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament on a non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons….
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4. The necessity of establishing in the CD an appropriate subsidiary body with a mandate to deal with nuclear disarmament.
5. The principle of irreversibility to apply to nuclear disarmament, nuclear and other related arms control and reduction measures.
6. 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.
7. The early entry into force and full implementation of START II and the conclusion of START III as soon as possible while preserving and strengthening the ABM Treaty as a cornerstone of strategic stability and as a basis for further reductions of strategic offensive weapons, in accordance with its provisions.
8. The completion and implementation of the Trilateral Initiative between the United States of America, the Russian Federation and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
9. Further efforts by the nuclear-weapon States to:
– reduce their nuclear arsenals unilaterally
– Increased transparency
– reduction of non-strategic nuclear weapons
– reduce the operational status of nuclear weapons systems
– diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies
– the engagement of all the nuclear-weapon States in the process leading to the total elimination of their nuclear weapons.
10. Excess fissile materials under IAEA control.
11. General and Complete Disarmament — Reaffirmation that the ultimate objective of the efforts of States in the disarmament process is general and complete disarmament under effective international control.
12. Regular reports, within the framework of the NPT strengthened review process, by all States parties on the implementation of Article VI and paragraph 4 (c) of the 1995 Decision on “Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament”, and recalling the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 8 July 1996.
13. The further development of the verification capabilities that will be required to provide assurance of compliance with nuclear disarmament agreements for the achievement and maintenance of a nuclear-weapon-free world.
