U.N. Disarmament Committee Addresses Proliferation

By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire

UNITED NATIONS — Repairing the strains in multilateral disarmament —especially the stress being placed on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) by the vision of additional nations gaining nuclear weapons and the lack of disarmament by the five recognized nuclear weapon states — was the dominant theme running through the five-week session of the U.N. General Assembly’s Disarmament Committee (see GSN, Nov. 2).

The session, which ends today, occurred in the context of the next NPT Review Conference in May 2005 and the continuing deadlock in the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva over issues such as negotiations for a fissile materials cutoff treaty.

“We are not making as much progress as we should, but I’m little more optimistic after this session of the committee. At least we are trying to build some level of communication between delegations,” Mexican Ambassador Luis Alfonso De Alba, the committee chairman, said yesterday. “There is a reality that is moving faster than any negotiation and that’s the increased risks” of proliferation, the “persistence of nuclear weapons,” and the possible extension of weapons to nonstate actors.

The committee approved 55 resolutions, which will be sent later this year to the U.N. General Assembly for consideration. Resolutions approved by the assembly are not legally binding, but are considered to represent the political will of U.N. members.

Undersecretary General for Disarmament Affairs Nobuyasu Abe said at the committee’s opening session in October that nations should not believe that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty “will alone suffice to solve all the problems relating to the achievement of its nonproliferation and disarmament goals.  I hope that our deliberations will reflect the fundamental reality that both nonproliferation and disarmament must be pursued together in a mutually reinforcing manner.  The wider our agreement on this basic issue, the greater will be the likelihood of reaching widespread agreement on the relevant nuclear-weapon initiatives before us.”

The heart of the U.N. debate over nuclear disarmament centers on the effectiveness of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the potential fissile material cutoff treaty. 

At the 2000 NPT Review Conference, the consensus final document called for an “unequivocal undertaking” by the nuclear powers to pursue disarmament through a series of specific steps, including the entry into force of the test ban treaty, negotiations for a treaty banning production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, the principles of transparency and irreversibility in arms reductions and cuts in nonstrategic weapons. The United States has still not ratified the test ban treaty and has opposed any verification regime for a fissile material treaty, while the majority of NPT parties have insisted that they cannot be ignored within any deliberations on the treaty.

The New Agenda Coalition — Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden — which became the de facto non-nuclear counterparts to the nuclear powers during the 2000 NPT deliberations, has framed its entire disarmament campaign in terms of maintaining the viability of the 2000 decisions.

“Nuclear disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation are mutually reinforcing processes. Without nuclear disarmament, we run the risk of a new nuclear arms race. Nonproliferation is vital. But it is not sufficient,” Swedish Ambassador Anders Liden said last month, speaking for the New Agenda

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker told the committee that any suggestion that the United States is not fulfilling its NPT disarmament commitments “is both unjust and untrue,” citing its dismantlement of 13,000 nuclear weapons since 1988 and the entry into force of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), a bilateral agreement with Russia. The real danger to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is countries attempting to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of the pact, he said.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has been signed by 173 countries, but the United States and 10 other nations must ratify the pact for it to enter into force.

While the concept of a fissile cutoff treaty is accepted, the divisions lay between states that want to see the scope limited to future production and those who want to it to include declarations on existing stockpiles by nuclear weapons states, which they argue is better for disarmament since it would cover the all the materials in the inventories of the nuclear weapon states. 

A review of some of the key nuclear disarmament resolutions show an across-the-board support for much of the international agenda, but sharp differences on some key practical steps as well as varying perceptions regarding what is being achieved.

An indicator of this division in perception is the draft resolution, sponsored by the United States and Russia, on their bilateral strategic arms reductions. The two key nuclear powers have tabled this draft over the last several years — except last year when Russia would not agree to a text in protest to the U.S. withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty — as a kind of report card on their progress on reducing long-range missiles. The 2002 resolution was adopted without a vote. 

This year’s draft was similar in referring to the entry into force of SORT, cuts in strategic warheads and the halt in fissile material production. However, some committee delegates said they were uneasy by wording in the resolution that suggested these efforts fulfilled the U.S. and Russian disarmament obligations under NPT Article 6, which calls on treaty states 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.”

After adopting the resolution by consensus, several countries argued that while they welcomed the progress, more was needed for them to feel Russia and the United States were fulfilling their NPT obligations. De Alba said countries “welcome the approach in as much as it would be a signal that they do understand they have commitments under Article 6 and they intend to keep those commitments.” On the other hand, he said, “During the NPT, we will insist that they keep reporting because it is the only way that the sense that everybody is doing their duty to strengthen the consensus on reinforcing the NPT.”

Two resolutions from non-nuclear weapon states enjoyed broad support, but not consensus. Together they offer a clear picture of what kinds of disarmament steps they expect from the nuclear weapons states within the NPT framework. The New Agenda altered its annual draft resolution on nuclear disarmament streamlining it to highlight a few key initiatives including the fissile material cutoff treaty negotiations, further reductions in nonstrategic arsenals, diminishing the role of nuclear weapons in security doctrines and setting up a subsidiary body in the Conference of Disarmament “to deal with” nuclear disarmament.

The New Agenda said the “overall purpose” of its draft “is to uphold and safeguard the NPT in its entirety.”

“Agreements need to be implemented, or they risk falling apart. And implementation needs to be accelerated, or the confidence in the regime risks being undermined.” said Swedish Ambassador Elisabet Bonnier, speaking for the coalition.

The goal of the revisions was to appeal to non-nuclear NATO states that have not supported the New Agenda in the past; Canada was the only such country to vote for the 2003 draft. They succeeded in drawing more NATO countries from abstaining to voting in favor.

The vote was 135-5, with France, Israel, Latvia, the United Kingdom and the United States in opposition and 25 abstentions. In an explanation of its vote, France, also speaking for the United States and United Kingdom, noted the pragmatism of the draft but faulted the New Agenda for not acknowledging progress in strategic arms reductions.

Japan’s draft on “A path to the total elimination of nuclear weapons” fared better and was approved by a vote of 151-2, with the United States and India in opposition and 16 abstentions. The United States opposed the draft’s endorsement of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; while India objected to the request that India join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapons state. 

The resolution listed a series of steps that could be taken — including the entry into force of the test ban treaty, fissile materials negotiations, applying the “principle of irreversibility” to arms reductions, encouraging “a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies,” and placing fissile materials no longer used in nuclear weapons under international safeguards — that are drawn largely from the final document of the NPT’ 2000 review conference. The New Agenda countries were among the abstentions, saying the draft’s language did not adhere closely enough to the NPT 2000 language.

The CTBT resolution, calling on all states to become parties to the treaty and on all nuclear states to maintain their testing moratoria, was voted on Nov. 1. The vote was 147-1 with the United States in opposition and Colombia, India, Mauritius and Syria abstaining. The treaty was endorsed, or at least noted, in several resolutions. The United States voted against every one of those resolutions, saying it would never become a party the treaty, but would maintain its unilateral testing moratorium. 

The annual committee resolution recalling that the CD will consider a fissile material cutoff treaty has always passed by consensus. However, this year the United States alone voted against the draft in objection to the included phrase “effectively verifiable treaty.” Israel and the United Kingdom abstained from the 147-1 vote.

Some countries wanted the draft withdrawn in the face of the unraveling consensus, but the key sponsors kept it on the table.

There were also traditional nuclear disarmament resolutions that framed the issue in different ways and thus resulted in widely different votes. India’s draft calling for a “review of nuclear doctrines” and for “immediate and urgent steps to reduce the risks of unintentional and accidental use of nuclear weapons” passed 106–46, with 16 abstentions. Mexico’s proposal for a conference “to identify ways of eliminating nuclear dangers” passed 119-6, with 41 abstentions.

The two resolutions on the Middle East followed the same pattern of previous years. The draft urging “all parties directly concerned to consider seriously taking the practical and urgent steps required for the implementation of the proposal to establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the region of the Middle East” was adopted by consensus. The draft calling on Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and place its nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards passed 157-4, with eight abstentions. The negative votes came from Israel, the United States, Marshall Islands and Micronesia.

A resolution on “Measures to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction” was adopted by consensus with little debate.

Addressing missile proliferation is an issue dealt with easier as a concept than as a practical exercise in arms control. While there is broad agreement that the proliferation of missile technology is linked to the threat of WMD proliferation, the majority of developing countries — in particular the more industrialized nations — do not want to create any system that would deny them assess to technology that also has civilian applications, such as satellite launching.            

A panel of government experts, created by an earlier resolution, failed in its mandate to represent a report to the committee this year on how to “address the issue of missiles in all its aspects.” This year’s draft of the annual resolution on missiles, with Iran as the main sponsor, asked the secretary general to prepare a report on how the United Nations could address the issue and to establish a new panel in 2007. It was approved by a vote of 98-2, with the United States and Israel opposed and 60 abstentions. The European Union, among the abstainers, said a new panel “would only be meaningful based on an agreed specific mandate.”

The committee approved the draft on Oct. 26, along with a resolution supporting the Hague Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation.

The resolutions on biological and chemical weapons took up far less time than nuclear issues since these weapons have treaties banning their use. Debate focused on implementing the conventions. Both texts called on all states to become parties to the treaties. The Chemical Weapons Convention resolution asked for full support for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The Biological Weapons Convention resolution recalled the last review conference’s decision to continue discussions of “enhancing international capabilities” to investigate alleged uses of biological weapons and to improve the surveillance and detection of infectious diseases. The draft avoided the issue of the lack of a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention. Both resolutions were adopted by consensus.

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