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First Committee: United States Criticized as Undermining Arms Control By Jim Wurst Global Security Newswire UNITED NATIONS — Using words like “failure,” “crisis” and “forlorn,” speakers during the first week of debate at the U.N. General Assembly’s First Committee on disarmament lamented the state of international arms control efforts, but the target of much of the criticism — the United States — said its policies indicate strong commitment to multilateral arms control (see GSN, Oct 1). “The failure of the existing nonproliferation regime can be attributed to its very discriminatory nature, which has been extended in perpetuity, thus compounding the problem,” Ambassador Rakesh Sood of India said yesterday. “Until unequivocal undertakings given for the total elimination of nuclear arsenals are honored, it will be necessary for all nuclear-weapon states to take steps to reassure the world that they will reduce the risk of accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons.” Ncumisa Pamella Notutela of South Africa said, “The crisis in the international community’s endeavors to address nonproliferation, disarmament and arms control issues has further deepened in the last year. The international community has largely remained unable to substantively address these issues, which are some of the most central issues of our day.” Speaking on Oct. 2, she added, “Narrow self-interest, unilateralism, lack of political will and statesmanship paralyze our multilateral fora, which were specifically established for these purposes” (see GSN, March 27). Recent U.S. actions cited by these governments as damaging to multilateralism — the U.S-engineered ouster of the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (see GSN, April 23), the withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (see GSN, June 13), the rejection of negotiations for a verification protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention (see GSN, Dec. 10, 2001) and the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (see GSN, May 24) — were hailed by the United States as examples of its commitment to multilateral arms control. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker told the committee on Oct. 3 that the United States is taking advantage of “new opportunities.” He said, “Many were reluctant to part with familiar institutions of the Cold War. It was widely predicted, for example, that the ABM Treaty could not be ended without plunging the world into a new arms race. We have proven over the past year, however, that these predictions were ill-founded. The ABM Treaty was amicably terminated, and the U.S. and Russia promptly agreed to implement the largest reduction ever in deployed nuclear forces.” Concerning the nuclear arms pact, Rademaker said, “As contrasted with strategic arms control during the Cold War, the negotiations of these agreements did not require years to work out complicated limits, sublimits and verification regimes — regimes that both countries agreed were unnecessary in the treaty.” While delegates did welcome the new treaty, it was with reservations. Ambassador Nugroho Wisnumurti of Indonesia called it “an important milestone,” but added, “In the effort to rid the world of nuclear weapons, the picture is hardly encouraging. There is growing concern at the slow pace of progress in achieving the total elimination of nuclear arsenals. The situation has been further compounded by the updating of strategic doctrines which set out new rationales for the permanent retention of these weapons, a new generation of such weapons and the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons.” Notutela said, “While de-alerting and reliance on substantively fewer deployed nuclear weapons has made significant gains in [the new treaty], real disarmament has not been addressed.” Rademaker also framed U.S. actions on the chemical and biological weapons conventions as helpful to multilateralism. “When the United States and other parties to the CWC recognized that the OPCW was not being effectively administered, the politically expedient course would have been to remain silent while the CWC slowly atrophied. Indeed, many countries strongly counseled us to follow precisely such a course. We chose instead, however, to initiate efforts to revitalize the organization. Now that the OPCW is under new leadership, we are confident that it can effectively enforce international norms with respect to chemical weapons” (see GSN, July 26). The United States last year blocked consensus at a review conference for the Biological Weapons Convention on a verification protocol and has signaled it will oppose any new initiatives when the conference resumes in November (see GSN, Sept. 6). In this context, Sood said, “The anthrax incidents of last year, instead of prompting the world community to act collectively to challenge the threat of biological weapons, have instead led to a path that rejects the framework for multilateral action and may threaten the norm that has existed for 30 years.” He added, “We hope that the resumed review conference can be saved from failure by at least reaching agreement on a modest follow-up work in the truly multilateral context.” Rademaker said, “Measures to assist in verification of compliance are key features of most traditional arms control regimes, which often include provisions for declarations, inspections, and even the establishment of implementation bodies. There are instances, such as biological weapons, where other approaches are more appropriate.” Conference on Disarmament A focus of the frustration is that the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, the only permanent body for negotiating arms control treaties, is still deadlocked after four years, unable to agree even to a program of work (see GSN, Sept. 4). Notutela of South Africa expressed “deep regret” that the conference remains deadlocked. “This is despite the fact that there is almost unanimous support in the CD for some mechanism to deal with the issues that we have been deliberating on over the last few years.” Rademaker said, “The effort by some CD members to hold up progress on a matter which all agree is ripe for negotiation in an attempt to force negotiations in unrelated areas is a perversion of the consensus rule of the Conference.” The United States favors immediate negotiations on a fissile materials production cut-off treaty, while others, notably China, want other issues, such as the prevention of an arms race in space, on the table as well. “Persisting in these efforts most assuredly will not succeed in forcing the premature commencement of negotiations in other areas. The continued deadlock in the CD will serve only to further marginalize it in international security affairs, and lead more nations to question the continued utility of the forum,” said Rademaker. Notutela said, “Despite the valiant efforts and leadership shown in the CD by certain countries and their representatives this year, some delegations continue to refuse to recognize the legitimate concerns of other states, while insisting that respect and understanding should be shown of theirs.” The “valiant efforts” was an apparent reference to a plan issued by five ambassadors near the end of the CD session in September that tried to finesse the problems. The plan — developed by Algeria, Belgium, Chile, Colombia and Sweden — would set up ad hoc committees on negative security assurances (guarantees not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states), nuclear disarmament, a ban of the production of weapons-grade fissile materials and the prevention of an arms race in outer space. The deadlock is the result of countries placing greater emphasis on one issue over another and some want each issue dealt with in isolation while others sought a linkage. The “five ambassadors” initiative seeks to overcome this problem by dealing with four issues on parallel tracks. In previous years, the conference has focused on only one issue at a time. Sood, who will be the president of the CD when it resumes in January, and thus will be in a position to promote the plan, said, “We have welcomed the cross-group initiative of five ambassadors and expressed our readiness to support it, if it can lead us out of the long-prevailing stalemate at the conference.” As incoming president, he said he “will engage in extensive consultations on the margins of this committee in an attempt to untie the Gordian knot ... The validity of multilateral disarmament negotiations in the sole forum designated for the purpose needs to be upheld.” For further information, see: ABM Treaty Text and Associated Documents (U.S. Defense Department) U.S. Fact Sheet on Withdrawal from ABM Treaty BWC Text and Associated Documents (U.S. Defense Department) Fifth Review Conference of BWC U.S.-Russia Nuclear Reduction Treaty Text (U.S. State Department) Conference on Disarmament Web Site
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