26 February 2004

Rhianna Tyson, Project Associate

11 States took the floor this week at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, the DPRK, France, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, the U.K. and the U.S. The DPRK did not circulate a prepared text, but instead used the CD to reiterate its position regarding the ongoing Beijing Six-Party talks. Ambassador Ri said that they will not dismantle its suspected nuclear program so long as the United States maintains its hostile policy toward the DPRK.

Of the remaining 10 countries, all except the U.S. and U.K. dedicated their time on the floor to mark the upcoming anniversary of the Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, which entered into force on March 1, 1999.

Now with over 140 countries, the Ottawa Convention “has set a high normative standard that is even respected by most- though not all- non-signatories,” according to Ambassador Wolfgang Petrisch of Austria, the President-designate of the Nairobi Review Conference that is scheduled for December of this year. Japan’s Ambassador Inoguchi remarked on the “significan(ce) that States non-party to the Convention are also taking meaningful actions in line with this norm, such as the moratorium on the export of anti-personnel mines.”Canada urged non-parties to enact confidence-building measures “to acknowledge the important norm established by the Convention and the impact that it is having on modifying behavior.”

While most States hailed the Convention for its landmark successes, all outlined various challenges to the elimination of landmines.

“Even if many stockpiled mines have been destroyed,” said Norwegian Ambassador Sverre Bergh Johansen, “this process is far from finished, and needs to proceed.”

There also still remains the issue of universalization. Canada’s Acting Permanent Representative Ann Pollack asked “those States that consider that they are unable to join the Convention (to) take steps themselves, individually or collectively, such as stating a commitment to its humanitarian goals, undertaking moratoria to not produce or transfer anti-personnel landmines, beginning stockpile destruction, funding mine action, submitting voluntary Article 7 reports, attending the Review Conference as an observer.”

Ambassador Johansen encouraged increased assistance to landmine victims, noting that “a lower number of mine victims does not mean that the job is done- it means that we are on the right way.” With so many landmines still in the world, “we are still facing a humanitarian emergency,” he stated.

Canada, the chair of the Universalization Contact Group and host of the original Convention, believes that the Convention “does not need to be supplemented by a partial instrument” to overcome some of these challenges.

The success of the Ottawa Convention remains a source of hope for many, who look towards “the Ottawa Process” as a viable alternative to the standard multilateral process in disarmament negotiations. On this fifth anniversary, the President-delegate from Austria suggested that the cooperation between Peru and Ecuador, formerly two countries locked in a border war, should be held up as a shining example for India and Pakistan. Ambassador Pollock hopes that “the positive spirit” of the Ottawa Treaty “may infect the CD” and inspire them to act on their own tasks at hand.

For more information on the Ottawa Convention and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, see: www.icbl.org.

The United States, one of the remaining 44 countries that have not signed the Landmine Ban, did not comment on the popular treaty. Instead, Ambassador Jackie Wolcott, the U.S.’s new Permanent Representative to Geneva, took the floor for her first time to reiterate and paraphrase Bush’s seven proposals that were outlined last week.

To summarize, the U.S. proposed seven measures that would, according to Ambassador Wolcott, “be both profoundly multilateral and effective”:

1- expanding the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), both in scope, members, and capability;
2- enacting national legislation that would “criminalize proliferation”, including the new Security Council resolution that would “call for such measures”; 
3- expanding the Kananaskis Global Partnership Initiative to countries outside of Russia, including Iraq and Libya;
4- restrict the ability of NPT Member Non-Nuclear Weapon States to develop their own nuclear fuel for “peaceful” uses, supplying them instead with fuel from the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group “at reasonable cost;”
5- “mak(ing) signature of the Additional Protocol a condition of nuclear supply by the end of 2005;”
6- creating a special committee of the IAEA Board of Governors to “focus intensively on safeguards and verification”;
7- barring IAEA Board membership from countries under investigation.

You can read Bush’s original statement, which was circulated as an official CD text, here.

The United Kingdom, by contrast, is a party to the Ottawa Convention, but chose not to commemorate its anniversary. Instead, it circulated as an official CD document the text of a speech by Foreign Minister Jack Straw to the House of Commons this week.

The statement outlined the U.K.’s “counterproliferation priorities for the coming months.”

Foreign Minister Straw noted that “some 60 countries” support the PSI and have expressed “their intention to apply its principles.” The U.K. is working with the International Maritime Organization to create an amendment to the Suppression of Unlawful Acts at Sea Convention, which will make the transport of WMD illegal on commercial vessels. The U.K. is also pursuing bilateral agreements with countries to allow for the “boarding of vessels which may be carrying cargoes which could be used in WMD programs.”

The U.K. is also discussing with their “partners” the possibility of imposing “new penalties…to deter air or shipping lines” from transporting such dubious cargo. New penalties could include, for instance, denying landing or port rights, or establishing “an international register of companies and individuals convicted of proliferation offenses.”

As part of the E.U., the U.K. is tightening regulations for Customs, and supports the U.S.’s call “to use Interpol and all other means” in international police work. The U.K. is also developing new methods for “screening…traffic for the illicit movement of radioactive materials.”

In addition to strengthening the Global Partnership, the NPT Article IV rethink, and other initiatives as described by U.S. Ambassador Wolcott, the U.K. also supports the proposed Security Council resolution on nonproliferation. This resolution, which still sits among the P5 only, would “call on States to adopt tough national legislation to criminalize the possession, manufacture or trafficking of WMD,” according to the U.K. The British government would also like the Council to create a Counter Proliferation Committee as a follow-up mechanism to the proposed resolution.

The resolution is still undergoing draft changes among the P5. It is expected that the rest of the Council will be included in the debate sometime in the following weeks.