Posts Tagged ‘nuclear non-proliferation’

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.

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.

Nobel Laureate Al Gore suggested to delegates to the UN climate change conference in Bali this week that they ought to emulate the play-making finesse of Bobby Hull or Wayne Gretzky – recalling Hull’s famous line: “I don’t pass the puck to where they are – I pass the puck to where they’re going to be.” Well, said Gore, “Over the next two years the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now. You must anticipate that.”

It is an obviously hopeful thought and is relevant to any number of US policy envelopes – not least nuclear disarmament. But is it as realistic as it is desirable? Can we count on the Democrats to take America, and therefore all of us, at least a bit closer to that better disarmament place the world deserves?

On the assumption that Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have the best chances of winning the Democratic Party nomination, and that with either of the them the Democrats stand a solid chance of regaining the White House, it’s worth taking a (very) brief look at their respective positions on four key issues – overall nuclear weapons reductions, management of the current inventory (RRW), a nuclear test ban (CTBT), and a ban on further production of fissile materials for weapons purposes (FissBan). A survey last summer by the Council for a Livable World is one good source for each of the candidates’ respective positions.[i]

Reductions

Democrats generally have aligned themselves[ii]with the by now well-known appeal by Henry Kissinger, and three others, for US leadership in taking the world “to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.”[iii]

Clinton advocates substantial reductions in the arsenals of all Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) and calls for an increase in nuclear warning time to reduce dangers of accidental or unauthorized launch.

Obama similarly calls for reductions. Speaking to DePaul University in Chicago, he rejected unilateral disarmament and pledged to “retain a strong nuclear deterrent,” but promised to stay with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty “on the long road towards eliminating nuclear weapons.”[iv] He calls for a reduced role for nuclear weapons and for a scaling back from “outdated postures” of the Cold War.

RRW and Threat Reduction

The Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program of the Bush Administration has become controversial inasmuch it has shifted the focus from one of assuring the reliability of current warheads to the design and building of new warheads. That in turn generates new interest in testing in the US (hence the opposition in some quarters to the CTBT), which in turn threatens to embolden other nuclear weapon states to rebuild, refine, and test their own warhead inventories.[v]

Clinton has been critical of the RRW and says there is a need for a “considered assessment of what we need these weapons for or what the impact of building them would be on our effort to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.” She places high emphasis on the threat of nuclear terrorism, calling it “one of the greatest national security threats the United States faces today.” She has made this one of her top priorities in the Senate with actions that include support for redirecting funds from missile defence to Cooperative Threat Reduction and the introduction of a Bill (the Nuclear Terrorism Prevention Act) that would commit the US to working internationally to “establish and implement a stringent standard for nuclear safety at all facilities worldwide that hold weapons or weapons-usable fissile material.”

Obama’s position on RRW is similar: “Before we consider developing new nuclear weapons we must consider what the role of these weapons should be.” He says the RRW program undermines US leadership in de-emphasizing the role of nuclear weapons. To maintain deterrence, he says, the US doesn’t need a new generation of warheads. He also emphasizes the need to secure all nuclear materials and bombs to prevent terrorist access to them. “As president, I will lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years.” The Lugar-Obama initiative is designed to “help the United States and our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.”

CTBT

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is a priority for both candidates.

Clinton pledges to pursue bi-partisan support for the CTBT and regards its ratification as an early priority. She also promises to maintain the testing moratorium in the meantime and charges that the Bush Administration’s policy on RRW and its refusal to ratify the CTBT have undermined US security. Obama also promises to make CTBT ratification a priority. In the meantime he says the US should pay its full share of the costs of the CTBT Organization, which is not now the case.

FissBan

The long-time objective of ending production of nuclear materials for weapons purposes is currently stymied, as it has been for a decade, in the Geneva Conference on Disarmament. Both Clinton and Obama call for negotiations toward a verifiable ban (the latter being a significant switch from the Bush policy which says that verification would not be possible).

It is of course far from certain that the Democrats will recapture the White House at the end of 2008. Furthermore, the gap between campaign rhetoric and administration action is as wide in the US as anywhere. But, even so, there is still plenty of reason to believe that almost any one of the Democratic contenders would improve on the attitude and energy that the US now brings to the nuclear disarmament table.

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[i] Council for a Livable World, 2008 Presidential Candidates’ Responses to Seven Key National Security Questions, August 16, 2007 (http://www.clw.org/assets/pdfs/2008_presidential_candidates_questionnaire_responses.pdf).

[ii] Zachary Hosford, “News Analysis: The 2008 Presidential Primaries and Arms Control,” Arms Control Today, December 2007 (http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2007_12/NewsAnalysis.asp).

[iii] By George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn.”A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, January 4, 2007; Page A15. Available at (http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=2252&issue_id=54).

[iv] Jeff Zeleny, “Obama Highlights His War Opposition,” The New York Times, October 2, 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/us/politics/02cnd-obama.html?adxnnl=1&ref=politics&adxnnlx=1197663073-rNS8Vbu34qn7a69asqr6JA).

[v] Robert W. Nelson, “If it Ain’t Broke: The Already Reliable U.S. Nuclear Arsenal,” Arms Control Today, April 2006 (http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_04/reliablefeature.asp).

The US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear programs (NIE)[i] should decisively rob Washington hawks of any credible rationale for attacking Iran. What the NIE did not do, however, is explain or expose the surfeit of nuclear ambiguities that remain in Iran and that could be widely replicated in the event of the global surge in nuclear power development, dubbed the nuclear renaissance, that some are predicting.

More remarkable than the conclusion that Iran ended its nuclear weapons program four years ago is the NIE’s judgment that “Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so.” That’s not an insight that depends on a global spy network; in fact, the most interesting thing about it is what the NIE left out – namely, that the same conclusion must be reached about a large and growing number of other states.

That is a genuinely worrisome reality because none of those potential nuclear states will be prevented from pursuing nuclear weapons by international efforts to deny them the requisite knowledge, which is what President Bush still keeps describing as the objective with regard to Iran.[ii] In fact, the only way to keep a broad swath of industrializing states from exercising a nuclear weapons option is to build an international security environment that persuades each of them to consistently make the political calculation that their national interests are best advanced by foregoing nuclear weapons.

Creating that kind of nuclear unfriendly environment requires at least two key elements. First, it needs a strict set of non-proliferation rules supported by a reliable system for monitoring national compliance and which imposes an unacceptably high price on any state that violates non-proliferation rules. Second, it requires a global political climate that is both responsive to the security needs of particular states and regions and rejects nuclear weapons as instruments of either prestige or strategic influence – evidence of the latter would be some serious action by the current nuclear weapon states to finally meet their disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Anyone who has observed nuclear disarmament diplomacy in general, and the UN Conference on Disarmament in particular, knows how far we currently are from fulfilling the second requirement. But the NIE report highlights the first requirement, for clear and enforceable non-proliferation rules, with another rather obvious point about Iran that has a much broader application. If Iran were to decide to produce weapons-usable highly enriched uranium, says the report, it “probably would use covert facilities, rather than its declared nuclear sites.” In other words, as Iran’s extensive clandestine activities prior to 2003 also demonstrate, a reliable inspections regime capable of unearthing secret operations will be essential to meeting the coming challenges.

Building such a regime is the immediate responsibility of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Its last report on Iran[iii] notes some genuine progress in clearing up questions about Iran’s pre 2003 clandestine activity, but it still renders the unequivocal judgment that, given Iran’s gingerly cooperation, “the Agency is not in a position to provide credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran.” The IAEA is in a position to confirm that all of Iran’s declared activity, including uranium enrichment, is accounted for and not being diverted for weapons purposes, but preventing clandestine programs, in Iran or any of other country with relevant technical capabilities is another matter.

That means that the real Iran problem is not its declared and inspected uranium enrichment program, rather it is that, “since early 2006, 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 programme is diminishing.” This is therefore not the time for the international community, including the UN Security Council, to ease the pressure on Iran,[iv] but the ongoing pressure needs to be focused directly on overall transparency, not on monitored enrichment.

The international community cannot yet be confident that Iran is and will be a reliable custodian of nuclear technology, so the number one task now is to give the IAEA the political, legal, and technical resources needed to render confident judgments about Iran and all other nascent nuclear states.

As the NIE notes, one key resource is the Additional Protocol, special provisions that states are encouraged to add to their IAEA safeguards agreements to facilitate more intrusive inspections. It should be compulsory, as Canada and other states have been arguing for some time,[v] and the Security Council should make it an immediate requirement for Iran.[vi]

Not only is confidence in the lawfulness of Iran’s programs at stake, but so too is confidence that the predicted nuclear renaissance will not overwhelm international monitoring capacity.

The focus on transparency and inspections, however, should not be taken to imply indifference to Iran’s enrichment of uranium. Currently Iran is in early and still experimental stages of producing reactor grade fuel, but the technology it is refining is also capable of producing weapons grade material. The international community, therefore, has an obvious and urgent interest in restricting national enrichment programs and other weapons sensitive elements of the nuclear fuel cycle. But such restrictions will not be achieved through an Iran only policy. Selective non-proliferation strategies are inappropriate in principle and do not work in practice.

The objective must be, and is already under thorough study at the IAEA and elsewhere, an international regime that takes the weapons sensitive elements of the nuclear fuel cycle out of the hands of individual states and puts them under international control. That is ultimately the only way to ensure that any civilian nuclear renaissance does not proliferate the technology for building nuclear weapons.

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[i] “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities,” National Intelligence Estimate, National Intelligence Council, November 2007 (http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf).

[ii]In response to the NIE report on Iran, Mr. Bush told a press conference: “Look, Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.” Whitehous transcript, December 4, 2007 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/12/20071204-4.html).

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

[iv]IAEA INFCIRC/711, August 27, 2007 which describes the agreement between Iran and the IAEA for a program of work to address and resolve the all outstanding issues between them and thus outlines “the Modalities of Resolution of the Outstanding Issues” (http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/2007/infcirc711.pdf).

[v]For example, Canada urged the 2005 NPT Review Conference tomake “theAdditional 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).

[vi] 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)

It is likely that in the first half of 2008 Canada will have to disclose its response to the US-India request that India be exempted from the Nuclear Supplier Group’s (NSG) current rule against nuclear cooperation with any country that operates nuclear facilities not subject to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

A group of 45 countries, the NSG seems to be leaning toward some form of accommodation with India. The real question is what, if any, non-proliferation conditions the NSG is willing to attach to its exemption. A second question is whether the same exemption with the same conditions should apply to Israel and Pakistan, the two other states outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) with unsafeguarded (military) nuclear facilities – and thus also currently ineligible for nuclear trade and other forms of nuclear cooperation.

Opposition to the deal from the left within India charges that the deal already has too many conditions attached and because of that is an affront to Indian independence and even sovereignty. The United States has linked its proposed nuclear cooperation with India to the latter’s continued moratorium on nuclear testing, but it does not want the NSG to apply the same condition. Indeed, in a slightly bizarre twist, the US has promised India that in the event its access to nuclear fuel from the US is cut-off for any reason (testing being the most obvious), the US would help India acquire fuel from alternative sources.

But from the point of view of states within the NPT, the conditions are necessary to ensure that the deal produces the net non-proliferation and disarmament benefit that its proponents promise. If India were allowed to continue testing nuclear weapons and producing material for bombs, while gaining access to foreign nuclear fuel for its electrical programs, it would be in a position to steer all its domestic uranium toward its military program. The result would be that India could continue research and development and testing of new nuclear warheads and it would be able to accelerate the build up of stockpiles of fissile materials for current and future weapons production.

Thus a ban on further tests and on the further production of fissile materials for weapons purposes are most often the two conditions that are put forward. Without challenging India’s current arsenal and fissile materials stockpiles equivalent to about 100 nuclear warheads, the NSG could decide on an arrangement whereby nuclear fuel and technology would be provided for India’s safeguarded (civilian) facilities, even though it operates other facilities that are not safeguarded (military), on the condition that India ratifies the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and commits to a verifiable freeze on the production of fissile material for weapons purposes.[i]

There is little chance that India would accept such an arrangement, but such an offer would clearly acknowledge India’s current status as a de facto nuclear weapon state without denying it the opportunity to expand its civilian nuclear power generation facilities. The same formula would possibly become available to Pakistan and Israel, provided, in the case of Pakistan, it would clearly take responsibility for its facilitation of the A.Q. Khan nuclear black market activity.

All three should also be called upon to accept the basic obligation to disarm that applies to nuclear weapon states via Article VI of the NPT.

The India press follows the attitudes of NSG member states as to their likely approach to the request for an unconditional India-only exemption to current NSG rules. It characterizes the EU as undecided and states like Austria, Ireland, New Zealand, and the Scandinavians as generally unsupportive or skeptical. Some reports add Brazil and Argentina to the uncertain list.[ii]

Canada, on the other hand, is not included in any list of states that are wary of the deal, and in at least one it is numbered among the enthusiasts. When China was still in the skeptical column, the Asia Times reported that “the Chinese criticism of the India-US nuclear pact is in contrast to the solid support for the deal from Russia, France, Britain and Canada.”[iii]

Canadian officials continue to insist that a Canadian decision has not been taken, that the issue of conditions is still being discussed, and that the position that Canada takes at the NSG will require a Cabinet decision. Furthermore, officials point out that even if the NSG would decide in favour of civilian nuclear cooperation with India, Canada would not necessarily end its own national policy prohibiting nuclear trade with India, and would do so only with a Cabinet decision.

But in the meantime, the writing seems to be on the wall, and in at least once case in a Foreign Affairs document. The 2006-2007 Foreign Affairs Departmental Performance Report, says in a section entitled, “Greater engagement with like-minded partners in the G8 as well as emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia, India and China” that “If the Nuclear Suppliers Group agrees to exempt India from its guidelines, Canada will pursue nuclear cooperation with India, which would provide substantial commercial opportunities for Canadians.”[iv]

Not much equivocation there. If the statement assumes that the NSG will support the exemption as is, that means there is also an assumption that Canada will not oppose it (since the NSG decides by consensus, technically only one dissenting voice could scuttle the exemption). Furthermore, the statement that Canada will trade in the event of a change in NSG rules assumes that the decision has already been made and that a supportive Cabinet decision will follow.

By all accounts, the statement in the DFAIT Performance Report was not vetted through its arms control and non-proliferation section. In fact, officials seemed surprised by the reference, nevertheless, both Canada and Australia’s new Labour government have given indications that they will not block an emerging consensus in the NSG in support of the an exemption for India. But reports in the Indian press indicate that Australia has made it clear that, regardless of any NSG exemption, “no Labour Government will supply uranium unless India signs the Non-proliferation Treaty.”[v] Canada, on the other hand, seems to be leaning to the position that it will not oppose the NSG India exemption, and, if it carries, Canada will move toward uranium exports.

As noted, both decisions, joining the NSG consensus and pursuing nuclear trade with India, will require Cabinet decisions, and the challenge now is to ensure that these decisions add conditions – that they in fact require non-proliferation benefits in the form of ratification of the CTBT, the cut-off of fissile material production, and a commitment to NPT disarmament obligations.

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[i] This is the position taken in these pages (canadain and lookingf ), Briefings by Project Ploughshares (http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Briefings/brf071.pdf), and by the Canadian Pugwash Group (http://www.pugwashgroup.ca/events/documents/2007/2007.10.20-India-US_CPG_Statement.pdf).

[ii] “EU undecided on n-deal, trade pact with India next year,” NDTV, November 30, 2007 (http://www.newkerala.com/oct.php?action=fullnews&id=23051).

“Why the Left blinked on the N-deal,” Sify News, November 19, 2007 (http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14563147).

[iii] “Beijing blusters over India’s nuclear deal,” Asia Times, November 5, 2007 (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GK05Df01.html).

[iv] Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Departmental Performance Report 2006-2007, p. 50 (http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/dpr-rmr/2006-2007/inst/ext/ext00-eng.asp).

[v] “India needs uranium import,” The Economic Times, November 29, 2007 (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Editorials/India_needs_uranium_import/articleshow/2580311.cms).

Rumors of an American war on Iran continue unabated,[i] even while any case for such a war grows progressively weaker, and as a result US Vice President Dick Cheney has been making what is for him a familiar move.

Mr. Cheney is reportedly putting pressure on intelligence analysts to modify their reporting on Iran’s nuclear program to better serve the attack scenarios of Administration hawks. The refusal by some in the intelligence community to sign on to a national intelligence assessment claiming an imminent Iranian nuclear weapons capacity has held up a key intelligence report, and it may also have contributed to the removal of John Negroponte as director of national intelligence.[ii]

Obviously the international community, including Iran’s neighbors, still harbors a deep concern about Iran’s nuclear intentions, but the urgency of that concern is clearly mitigated by the conclusion of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran is now providing sufficient reporting, as well as allowing sufficient access by IAEA inspectors, to enable the IAEA “to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.”[iii]

That assurance doesn’t address the possibility of undeclared or clandestine programs, but here too the IAEA is making progress on a work plan[iv] that was put in place in August to resolve all the outstanding verification issues by April 2008, with a progress report due from the IAEA Director General to the IAEA Board next week.

The Bush Administration has thus been increasingly de-linking its war plans from Iran’s nuclear program, focusing instead on Iran’s alleged support for groups fighting the Americans in Iraq, a move that is making others in the Security Council more reluctant to pursue aggressive sanctions for fear of conflating the two issues (nuclear and Iraq).[v]

That reluctance is reinforced by the inescapable ambiguity of the one major Iranian nuclear controversy that remains, And it is an ambiguity that will remain even after a satisfactory completion of the Iran/IAEA work plan – namely, the uncertain legality of Iran’s ongoing enrichment of uranium.

Iran’s uranium enrichment program is no longer clandestine, it is open to inspection and verification, and it is legal under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its related verification requirements, but it does violate UN Security Council Resolution 1737 of December 23, 2006,[vi] which requires, among other things, the suspension of “all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development.”

Suspension is not itself the ultimate objective of the Security Council and Iran rightly argues that it has a right to pursue any nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. The suspension demand is put forward as a confidence-showing measure – that is, through the suspension Iran would demonstrate its goodwill and willingness to help the IAEA establish that there are no ongoing clandestine nuclear programs in Iran and that all declared programs are for peaceful purposes.

While the Security Council agreed on the demand that Iran suspend uranium enrichment, the international community broadly and the six states[vii] giving leadership on the Iran issues in particular are not of a single mind on what the ultimate objective should be. President George Bush is unequivocal: “Listen, the first thing that has to happen diplomatically for anything to be effective is that we all agree on the goal. And we’ve agreed on the goal, and that is the Iranians should not have a nuclear weapon, the capacity to make a nuclear weapon, or the knowledge as to how to make a nuclear weapon.”[viii]

But the American attempt to deny Iran the knowledge or even the capacity to build a nuclear weapon, rather than to ensure its full compliance with the inspections regime to confirm that Iran is not actually building a nuclear weapon, makes it easy for Iran to claim that its rights under the NPT are being violated. President Bush in the meantime repeatedly conflates the “knowledge” needed to build a nuclear weapon with the possession of one: “If you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”[ix]

In fact, there is no reasonable prospect over the long term of preventing Iran from gaining such knowledge, and there are indications that Washington’s European and Security Council partners in dealing with Iran may now be moving on to focus on the real issue – preventing Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon through a meticulously applied inspections program, rather than trying to restrict the knowledge.

That change was implied earlier this fall when the Security Council refused to authorize more sanctions in the face of Iran’s continuing uranium enrichment. Instead, the European focus was on monitoring progress in Iranian cooperation with the IAEA on clearing up questions related to its past clandestine work.[x] If the IAEA report due next week is positive and shows Iran to be genuinely cooperating on the core issue of full transparency, the uranium enrichment issue will continue to decline in importance as long as the IAEA is given access to inspect the process and confirm that it is producing only low enriched uranium for civilian reactors, and not high enriched uranium suitable for weapons production.

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[i] See “War With Iran?” in this space (warwithi). Time Magazine’s October 26, 2007 issue declared, “Iran War Drumbeat Grows Louder” (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1676826,00.html).

[ii] Gareth Porter, “Cheney Tried to Stifle Dissent in Iran NIE,” Interpress Service, November 9, 2007 (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39978).

[iii] Statement by IAYA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to the 62 ^nd Regular Session of the UN General Assembly, October 29, 2007 (http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2007/ebsp2007n018.html).

[iv] The work plan is available at the IAEA website (http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/2007/infcirc711.pdf), and Sharon Squassoni of the Carnegie Endowment has provided a graphic depiction of the timeline for resolving outstanding issues that grew out of Iran’s clandestine nuclear activities (http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=19553&prog=zgp&proj=znpp).

[v] Robin Wright, “Divisions in Europe May Thwart U.S. Objectives on Iran,” Washington Post, October 18, 2007 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/17/AR2007101702211.html).

[vi] http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N06/681/42/PDF/N0668142.pdf?OpenElement.

[vii] The Permanent Five of the Security Council plus Germany.

[viii] President George W. Bush, “Iran’s Nuclear Activities,”The White House, Washington, DC, April 28, 2006 (http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rm/2006/65479.htm).

[ix] Paul Koring, Bush steps up rhetoric on Iran: Warns of possible ‘World War III’, The Globe and Mail, October 18, 2007 (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071018.BUSH18/TPStory/TPInternational/America/).

[x] Sophie Walker, “World powers push ahead with Iran sanctions,” Reuters, November 2, 2007 (http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-11-02T203718Z_01_L30131658_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-IRAN-NUCLEAR-COL.XML).