Disarmament Commission:  Three-Week Session Fails to Reach Consensus

By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Disarmament Commission concluded its annual session yesterday without reaching consensus on either of the items on its agenda (see GSN, April 1).

The items this year were “ways and means to achieve nuclear disarmament” and “practical confidence-building measures in the field of conventional arms.”  The commission began as it started — with two working papers drafted by the commission’s chairmen that contained long lists of initiatives but did not enjoy any consensus.  The rapporteur of the commission, Mehiedine al-Kadiri, said the failure to reach consensus “owes more to the complexity of the issues and not to the political will of states.”

The commission works only by consensus.

Both items were in their third years on the agenda.  According to the commission’s rules, an item is dropped after three years.  Toward the end of the year, the commission will meet to discuss which items to place on its 2004 agenda.

The commission is a deliberative body of the General Assembly that establishes guidelines, or “disarmament norms,” as the commission’s chairman, Italian Ambassador Mario Maiolini, 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 nuclear disarmament working paper lists a number of “general principles,” including “the ultimate objective of the efforts of states in the disarmament process is general and complete disarmament under effective international control,” “the importance of full and effective implementation by all states parties” to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, “all appropriate measures consistent with international law aimed at preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons,” and the “urgency” of resuming substantive work at the Conference on Disarmament.

The working paper on conventional arms details ways to strengthen and broaden existing confidence-building measures, such as the U.N. Register on Conventional Arms, and encourages the creation of new confidence-building measures on the regional and bilateral levels.  “The ultimate goals of CBMs in the field of conventional arms are to strengthen international peace and security, to improve relations among states, to promote the social, economic and cultural well being of their peoples, and to contribute to the prevention of war,” the paper says.

In the past, 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.

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Radiological Weapons:  IAEA Concerned by Tajik Radioactive Waste

The International Atomic Energy Agency is concerned for the security of radioactive waste storage sites in Tajikistan, it was reported today (see GSN, Nov. 15, 2002).

“Since 11 September, the idea of there being dirty bombs being made from radioactive waste is of concern, particularly if the terrorists get hold of them,” Gordon Linsley, head of the IAEA’s waste safety section, said yesterday.

Tajikistan is the focus of increased concern, in part, because it is rich in uranium, according to the Integrated Regional Information Networks report.  “We know that Russians were mining uranium here, and that is why Tajikistan is being asked to control its sources,” Linsley said.

One issue facing all former Soviet states, including Tajikistan, is a lack of expertise in material security issues, which were mainly handled by Russian officials during the Soviet era, according to Linsley.  “They need help in re-educating experts to make sure the sources are managed in a safe way,” he said (Integrated Regional Information Networks, April 16).

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