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Global Interest in Arms Control Rising, Book Says By David Ruppe WASHINGTON — After years of little progress, there has been a recent resurgence of global efforts to encourage multilateral arms control, according to a recently published security almanac by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (see GSN, March 1). The change, it says, has accompanied a shift from focusing on developing universal arms control norms toward more ad hoc efforts, targeted at specific problems and often led by the United States. “A number of developments in 2004 suggest that there is a steady growing momentum behind international efforts to explore how global processes might be strengthened in order to achieve their potential as part of an emerging mosaic of arms control measures,” says the SIPRI Yearbook 2005, which was released this month. It cites as progress the April 2004 U.N. Security Council resolution 1540 urging states to tighten national controls and “criminalize” proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical capabilities; “widespread” international support for strengthened nuclear fuel cycle safeguards developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency; and an “action plan” endorsed by Chemical Weapons Convention parties in 2003 to encourage implementation of the treaty. It also notes a European Union “Strategy against the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” approved by European national leaders in December 2003, which is intended to assign resources and give greater importance in European policy-making to arms control and nonproliferation issues. These developments followed nearly 10 years in which multilateral arms control negotiations produced little progress and in some cases “suffered severe setbacks,” says the article written by SIPRI nonproliferation and export controls project leader Ian Anthony. Momentum is moving away from promoting universal arms control measures, which historically have taken years of negotiations to produce, according to Anthony. “Recently, many of the most important security-related activities have taken place outside institutions — in coalitions of willing, ad hoc processes and regimes, and contact groups,” the article says. It cites Group of Eight activities, the launch of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, and the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative for interdicting suspected WMD materials. U.N. Security Council resolution 1540, presented as a binding measure but lacking clear criteria for compliance, was an effort to sidestep “the difficulty of securing universal adherence to multilateral agreements” through traditional negotiations, according to the article. Focus on such efforts, the book says, has to some degree marginalized the U.N. organization, as opposed to the Security Council, which traditionally has been committed to promoting “universal, nondiscriminatory measures that emphasize disarmament.” “It has been impossible to find practical solutions to security problems within the U.N. in conditions where the organization is not prepared to recognize the special role of the United States and will not give the USA a special status with enhanced privileges or accommodate the U.S. security policy agenda,” the article says. “The USA, which devotes far more national resources to military security issues than any other state, also allocates far greater financial and human resources to arms control than the rest of the U.N. members combined,” it says. The report concludes there is international consensus that no single approach, institution or process can create and enforce arms control rules. “An effective multilateralism must find ways for states, international organizations and informal arrangements to cooperate in pursuit of common objectives,” it says.
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