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Disarmament Commission: U.N. Conference Hears Warning Against Lack of Action By Jim Wurst While noting some progress in nuclear disarmament, such as the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, Dhanapala said, “The actual record in achieving the verified dismantlement and destruction of nuclear weapons inspires little confidence.” That record, according to Dhanapala, includes a lack of transparency in weapons programs, the development of new nuclear weapons and new targeting strategies and “aggressive counterproliferation purposes [that] further undermines” nuclear disarmament “while creating new incentives for clandestine programs.” He also called actions by North Korea, India and Pakistan “challenges to global nonproliferation norms.” The commission is a deliberative body of the General Assembly that establishes guidelines, or “disarmament norms,” as commission Chairman Mario Maiolini of Italy and others call them. It differs from the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva in that the Geneva conference is empowered to negotiate legally binding treaties, such as the Chemical Weapons Convention, while the commission’s guidelines serve only as voluntary recommendations (see GSN, Feb. 18). The commission has produced guidelines on the transfer of conventional arms and on the creation of nuclear weapon-free zones. The last guidelines agreed to by the commission were in 1999. Agenda items this year are “ways and means to achieve nuclear disarmament” and “practical confidence-building measures in the field of conventional arms.” The commission is working from lengthy documents on both issues that could serve as the core for future agreements. “The commission makes its greatest contributions in the realm of ideas,” Dhanapala said. “It serves as a seedbed from which global disarmament norms may ultimately emerge.” Maiolini said the commission meets “amid a troubled international environment and persisting concerns over the future of multilateral disarmament efforts.” He called on delegates to work toward “a renewal or rebirth of the forces that bind nations together in a common destiny.” The war in Iraq is not on the commission’s agenda, but a key justification of the United States for invading — eliminating Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction — came under criticism, as did the U.S. and allied attitudes toward nuclear weapons. Indonesian Deputy Ambassador Mochammad Hidayat, speaking on behalf of the Nonaligned Movement, said the movement “expresses its strong concern at the growing resort to unilateralism and unilaterally imposed prescriptions [in] addressing disarmament and international security issues.” He added, “We reiterate our deep concern over the slow pace of progress towards nuclear disarmament,” citing NATO’s strategic doctrine that sets out “rationales for the use of nuclear weapons” and the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review that envisions the development of new nuclear weapons and the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. Speaking for the European Union, Greek Ambassador Adamantios Vasilakis said, “The EU reaffirms its commitment to legally binding instruments on arms reduction with provisions ensuring irreversibility, verification and transparency.” He said the EU wants to see progress in nuclear disarmament based on the framework of the 2000 Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference final document, including the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, negotiations on a ban on weapons grade fissile materials and the strengthening of safeguards on nuclear facilities. The commission concludes April 17. Click here for more on yesterday’s opening session.
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