U.S. Circulates Draft Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty

The United States today submitted a draft treaty to the U.N. Conference on Disarmament under which nations would agree to halt production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Dec. 9, 2005).

Nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea have made it clear that the time has come for the 65-nation body to approve a pact forbidding development of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for weapons, according to Stephen Rademaker, acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for arms control.

“The treaty text that we are putting forward contains the essential provisions that would compromise a highly successful legally binding” fissile material cutoff treaty, Rademaker said in a statement to the conference in Geneva. “It bans … the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.”

A U.S. “draft mandate” calls for formation of an ad hoc committee to consider the draft treaty and to report to the conference at an unidentified date.

The proposal would allow the conference to move forward with its work for the first time since it negotiated the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty a decade ago, Rademaker said.

“The only possible avenue for progress in this conference is to concentrate its efforts on the one topic on which we most likely shall be able to take action,” he said (Alexander Higgins, Associated Press/Washington Post, May 18).

The Bush administration might also be using the treaty proposal to allay fears over the planned U.S.-Indian civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, Reuters reported yesterday. Nonproliferation experts have argued that the deal would not prevent India from broadening its nuclear weapons program, including production of fissile material.

“By putting this draft forward, at least some in the administration think it would have an effect on the congressional debate” on the agreement, one U.S. official said.

India pledged last year to support a fissile material cutoff treaty under the agreement. That made little difference, critics argued at the time, given the lack of a formal draft treaty and the inability of the Conference on Disarmament to develop such a pact.

Submitting the draft treaty makes “it harder for U.S. opponents of the India nuclear deal to argue that Washington and New Delhi were fighting this important document,” said Jon Wolfsthal, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The treaty lacks verification provisions, officials told Reuters. That makes it “very low risk for the administration because without a verification mechanism, a treaty would be nice to have, but nobody thinks it will have any real impact,” Wolfsthal said.

“No one that you need to make this happen is serious about approving anything,” said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Education Policy Center (Carol Giacomo, Reuters/Yahoo!News, May 17).

Back to top
About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines © Copyright 2008 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.