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Issue Brief
Kenley Butler, Research Associate
Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS)
Monterey Institute of International Studies
July 2004
Issue Introduction
At the Kananaskis, Canada Group of Eight (G8) Summit in June 2002, G8 leaders launched the Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, committing up to $20 billion over 10 years to help Russia and other nations destroy their stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The Global Partnership was hailed as a breakthrough in the world’s resolve to prevent terrorists from acquiring WMD and as an important means of sharing the financial burden that has been born largely by the United States.
G8 Leaders Source: White House
Two
years later, the Global Partnership has tallied $17 billion in commitments,
attracted 13 new donor countries, and made progress in initiating and
implementing several projects in Russia, including those involving submarine
dismantlement, fissile and radioactive material security, chemical weapons
destruction, and redirection of former weapons scientists.
Yet major hurdles still remain. Besides a shortfall of nearly $3 billion
(and needs that total many billion more), the progress of the Global Partnership
has been hampered by, among other issues, the inability of Russia and other
partners, the United States in particular, to conclude agreements ensuring
liability protection, tax-free status, and full and free access to all necessary
facilities.
This issue brief will examine the current status of the
Global Partnership, evaluate progress made at the June 2004 G8 summit at Sea
Island, Georgia, and outline major remaining obstacles to achieving the goals
set forth at Kananaskis.
Issue Brief
At their June 2004 summit held in Sea Island, Georgia, G8 leaders
reviewed progress in combating the spread of WMD through the Global
Partnership. The leaders released a number of documents, including the
G8 Global Partnership Annual Report, which reports on the
current status of Global Partnership activities, the
G8 Consolidated Report of Global Partnership Projects,
which summarizes commitments thus far, and the
G8 Action Plan on Nonproliferation, which outlines steps
to be taken to stem the proliferation of WMD technologies and materials.
A post-summit hearing of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
illuminated many of the key obstacles to fully realizing Global
Partnership initiatives, mainly failure of the United States and Russia
to conclude agreements providing liability protection, tax-free status,
and full and free access to key Russian WMD facilities. Other obstacles
include lagging funding commitments from Global Partnership members and
disagreement among partner states over the emphasis on a single
recipient country—Russia—to the exclusion of other states.
Progress since Kananaskis
In its G8 Global Partnership Annual Report
released at Sea Island, G8 leaders evaluated the overall progress of
Global Partnership activities and, specifically, steps taken by G8
members to implement projects in Russia. Since its inception two years
ago, the Global Partnership has made steady progress in a number of key
areas.
Funding: To date, commitments by Global Partnership
countries total approximately $17 billion. In spite of U.S. pressure to
consider the original $20 billion as a floor, not a ceiling, language in
the Annual Report made it clear that the G8’s interpretation of
the original Kananaskis commitment is to raise “up to $20 billion.”
Conclusion of Framework Agreements: The Annual Report noted a
number of bilateral agreements that have been put in place to facilitate
Global Partnership cooperation with the Russian Federation.
Specifically, Russia has concluded separate agreements with Canada,
Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. EU Joint Action projects
are implemented under the umbrella of bilateral agreements between EU
member states and the Russian Federation.
Implementation of
Projects: The Annual Report
highlighted progress on the implementation of several projects,
including submarine dismantlement, materials security, initial steps
supporting plutonium disposition, chemical weapons destruction, and
employment of former weapons scientists.
Project Coordination:
The G8 recently established the Global Partnership Working Group, which
is responsible for expert-level implementation of initiatives under the
guidance of the G8 Senior Group.
G8 Action Plan on
Nonproliferation
While the Annual Report assessed progress to date, the
G8 Action Plan on Nonproliferation assessed the current status of
worldwide proliferation and put forth initiatives designed to address
the most pressing problems, including measures to strengthen the nuclear
nonproliferation regime and to curb North Korea’s and Iran’s pursuit of
WMD programs.
The
Action Plan endorsed a U.S. initiative calling for a one-year ban on
the sale of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to any state that
does not already possess full-scale, functioning enrichment and
reprocessing plants.
The
Action Plan urged all states to ratify and implement the
Additional Protocol to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
comprehensive safeguards agreements and said that it “must
become an essential new standard in the field of nuclear supply
arrangements. We will work to strengthen NSG [Nuclear Suppliers
Group] guidelines accordingly. We aim to achieve this by the end
of 2005.”
The
Action Plan endorsed several changes at the IAEA that would
improve the organization’s effectiveness, when needed. The
leaders called for the creation of a special committee that
would focus on safeguards and verification and called for
changes that would require countries in violation of
nonproliferation obligations to recuse themselves from IAEA
board decisions regarding their cases, an obvious reference to
Iran.
The
Action Plan reiterated strong commitment to the
Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and pledged to
strengthen PSI’s ability to prevent WMD trafficking by
cooperatively stopping illicit financial flows and shutting down
illicit plants, laboratories, and brokers. G8 countries agreed
to provide assistance to improve national capabilities to
prevent trafficking in WMD and related materials.
The
Action Plan expressed concern over Pyongyang’s withdrawal
from the NPT and its continued pursuit of nuclear weapons. It
endorsed the Six-Party Process and called for a complete,
verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea’s
nuclear weapons-related programs. The plan urged Iran to
promptly and fully comply with its nonproliferation commitments
and all IAEA Board requirements, including ratification and full
implementation of the Additional Protocol. Finally, it praised
Libya for its WMD disarmament commitments.
The
Action Plan supported efforts to defend against
bioterrorism, prevent proliferation of chemical weapons,
implement the Evian Initiative on Radioactive Source Security,
and complete the confinement of the Chornobyl reactor by 2008.
Problems Delaying Implementation of the Global Partnership
On June 15, just days after the close of the Sea Island
summit and the release of the Annual Report and Action
Plan, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee met to hear
testimony on the summit and the future of the Global
Partnership. Lawmakers questioned U.S. government officials
about some of the key obstacles to the Global Partnership,
including funding shortfalls mentioned above and the inability
of the United States to conclude an agreement with Russia that
resolves issues related to access, tax-free status, and, most
critically, liability protection.
Funding Shortfalls
At the Evian summit last year, commitments by Global Partnership
countries totaled approximately $17 billion—$3 billion short of
the $20 billion goal. This sum has not increased as new
commitments this year did not equal the downward revision of
Germany’s pledge.
The
Annual Report noted funding commitments totaling $200 million from six
new countries that joined the Partnership last year—Finland, the
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland. The G8
expects additional funding from its newest member
countries—Australia, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark,
Ireland, New Zealand, and South Korea—and additional funding
after 2006 from the European Union through its Strategy Against
the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction program.
Indeed, on June 24, Australia announced a new pledge of
Australian $10 million (U.S. $6.88 million).
U.S.
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International
Security John Bolton noted in the June 15 Senate hearing that
the United States expects Tokyo to dramatically increase its
$200 million pledge to something near $1.5 billion, given the
relative size of Japan’s economy. Japan’s G8 pledge of $200
million largely consists of monies pledged for nuclear weapons
dismantlement years before. Much of the money was not spent,
according to Tokyo, because it had difficulties gaining
cooperation from a number of key Russian agencies. According to
Bolton, the United States is continuing to press for an
increase, which he argued could be forthcoming once the Japanese
Diet sees that Japan and Russia have resolved their initial
problems and spent the $200 million.
While G8 leaders
are hopeful of new and increased pledges towards the $20
billion, it appears from the G8 Global Partnership Annual
Report that the total commitment has in fact been somewhat
reduced. Germany revised its pledge of €1.5 billion to “up to”
$1.5 billion to prevent its contribution from being affected by
fluctuating exchange rates. This change, however, translates
into a net reduction in Germany’s pledge of $300 million (€1 =
$1.2 as of June 15, 2004). One wonders if the other €2.75
billion in pledges from the European Community, France, and
Italy might also be reduced in the event those donors, too,
choose to trade euro pledges for dollar pledges on a one-to-one
basis.
Access
While Russia has granted access
to the vast majority of facilities where cooperative work is
ongoing, it has refused U.S. personnel access to some
particularly sensitive facilities. Moscow and Washington have
established a working group to balance the Russian desire to
preserve secrets with the U.S. need to ensure that taxpayer
money is being spent for the purposes appropriated. According to
Linton Brooks, administrator of the National Nuclear Security
Administration, Russia and the United States have engaged in a
pilot project that will test new procedures for allowing access
to even more sensitive sites.
Tax-Free Status
The United States and other Global Partnership members have had
recurring problems with the desire of some Russian agencies to
tax funds appropriated by G8 governments and expended in Russia
for the purchase of equipment, other materials, and facility
rentals. Some G8 countries have apparently overcome this
obstacle by codifying in bilateral agreements tax-free status
for funds expended in Russia. The United States, while
consistently refusing to pay taxes, has not yet concluded a
formal agreement with Russia whereby U.S. funds are not subject
to taxes.
Liability Protection
While the
Annual Report noted that several Global Partnership
countries had successfully concluded bilateral agreements with
Russia on liability protection, Washington has insisted on the
more thorough protection guaranteed under Cooperative Threat
Reduction (CTR) liability provisions. The lack of such an
agreement, signed and ratified by Moscow and Washington,
continues to hamper the progress of several U.S. assistance
programs in Russia. At the June 15 hearing, Bolton explained
that liability provisions prevent the U.S. government or its
contractors working on threat reduction activities from being
held responsible in the event of sabotage or accident. Questions
remain, however, if a signed and ratified liability provision
would hold up in U.S. court and whether ratification of such a
provision would face legal challenges in Russia. Some have
suggested that alternative approaches to liability and
compensation arrangements be explored, including arrangements
for financing compensation through private insurance, public
funds, and/or pooling arrangements, under which many parties
agree to share the costs of large-scale damage claims incurred
by any pool member. (See Brubaker, Spector, “Liability
and Western Nonproliferation Assistance to Russia,”
The Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2003, pp. 1-39.)
From 1992 to
1999, liability issues for U.S. threat reduction programs were
covered by a bilateral Russian-U.S. CTR umbrella agreement that,
according to Bolton, had the power of law through Duma
ratification. Both sides signed the agreement when it expired of
its own terms in 1999, but as of June 2004, the Russian
Federation has not submitted it to the Duma for ratification.
Since 1999, the CTR umbrella agreement has been enforced on a de
facto basis, but, according to Bolton, the provisions could be
ignored since they don’t carry the force of law, thus exposing
the United States and its contractors to the risk of liability.
The United States has unsuccessfully pressed Russia on a number of
occasions to submit the CTR umbrella agreement to the Duma for
ratification, something Putin promised to do following the March
2004 Duma elections.
While other Global Partnership countries have accepted lesser liability
protections in recently signed agreements, U.S. government
officials fear losing the liability provisions in the CTR
umbrella agreement that governed U.S. assistance in the 1990s,
and therefore are unwilling to engage Russia in negotiating new,
separate agreements for particular programs, such as the
plutonium disposition program, a stymied U.S.-Russian effort to
eliminate almost 70 tons of weapon-grade plutonium. According to
Bolton, the United States is concerned that accepting a lesser
liability standard for plutonium disposition before the CTR
umbrella agreement is approved may reduce liability protection
for CTR projects.
Curiously, the plutonium disposition
program, which represents a major part of the U.S. Global
Partnership pledge, was omitted from G8 agreements at Sea
Island, and the liability issue, a substantial stumbling block
for the Global Partnership, was only mentioned in passing in the
Annual Report.
If discussions at Sea Island did not
seem to explore liability protection and umbrella agreements,
questions and comments from U.S. lawmakers at the subsequent
June 15 hearing soundly criticized the Bush administration’s,
and, in particular, Bolton’s lack of progress on the dispute.
Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM), testifying before the committee,
said he has “been amazed that the leadership of the United
States and Russia cannot resolve this issue. Failure to resolve
this issue is simply not consistent with the urgency that the
administration has attached to nuclear proliferation.”
Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) suggested that the dispute should be
transferred from Bolton to the presidential level, and that the
administration should identify incentives it can offer Putin in
return for introducing the CTR umbrella agreement to the Duma
for ratification. “There’s a lot of things he [Putin] wants and
needs right now,” Biden told Bolton during the hearing.
Expansion of Recipient Countries
A final wrinkle in the
progress of the Global Partnership is a disagreement between the
United States and the other partners on recipient countries. The
United States has large projects in Georgia, Kazakhstan,
Ukraine, and Uzbekistan and, according to Bolton, would like to
be able to count those towards its Partnership pledge. At Sea
Island, the United States proposed expanding the Global
Partnership to new recipient countries, Ukraine in particular,
but the proposal was rejected. Partnership countries agreed to
consider the possibility of expansion in the future. The G8 did
agree to coordinate activities in Libya and Iraq, however.
Activities in these countries would be paid for with money
beyond the $20 billion earmarked for the former Soviet Union.
Conclusion
In the words of Senator Domenici, Sea Island “did not
make the giant strides on nuclear nonproliferation that our
nation and the world need.” Focused dialogue among Global
Partnership members regarding funding commitments and scope of
recipients, as well as a concerted effort on the part of the
highest levels of the Bush administration will be needed if the
objectives of the Global Partnership are to be met in a
comprehensive and timely manner.
Relevant Resources
Documents
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P. Cotta-Ramusino and M. Martellini, Annex: G8 Consolidated Report of Global Partnership Projects. |
Congressional Hearings
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Sea Island and Beyond: Status Report On the Global Partnership Against Weapons of Mass Destruction, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, June 15, 2004. |
Websites
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White House G8 Website, http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/. |
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Brubaker, Spector, “Liability and Western Nonproliferation Assistance to Russia,” The Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2003, pp. 1-39. |
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Global Partnership Resource page, Center for
Nonproliferation Studies,
http://www.cns.miis.edu/research/globpart/ |
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Strengthening the Global Partnership, Center for Strategic and International Studies, http://www.sgpproject.org/. |
Articles
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Mike Nartker, “Bolton Takes Heat for Plutonium Disposal Effort,” Global Security Newswire, June 16, 2004. |
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Brubaker, Spector, “Liability and Western Nonproliferation Assistance to Russia,” The Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2003, pp. 1-39. |
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Michael Roston, “Nonproliferation Issues at the June 2004 Group of Eight Summit in Sea Island” and “Summary of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing - Sea Island and Beyond: Status Report on the Global Partnership Against Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Russian American Nuclear Advisory Security Council Website, http://www.ransac.org. |
This
material is produced independently for NTI by the James
Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the
Monterey Institute of International Studies and does not
necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been
independently verified by NTI or its directors,
officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2007 by MIIS.
