26 February 2008

Rotating President Ahmet Üzümcü of Turkey opened the Conference on Disarmament (CD) session, to which only two delegates delivered statements. Syria's Ambassador Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui on behalf of the Group of 21 and Ambassador I Gusti Agung Wesaka Puja of Indonesia spoke on nuclear disarmament.

Ambassador Hamoui emphasized the importance of the complete elimination of nuclear weapons and of the resolutions, declarations, and International Court of Justice opinion that reaffirm this goal. He outlined the Group of 21's past contributions to deliberations on nuclear disarmament in the CD, including several working papers, draft mandates for ad hoc committees, and proposals for a programme of work, and suggested "concrete steps to promote the goal of nuclear disarmament." These steps included reaffirming commitments to disarmament; eliminating the role of nuclear weapons in security doctrines; de-alerting nuclear weapon systems; negotation of legally-binding instrument on negative security assurances; negotiation of a convention prohibiting the use of nuclear weapons; and negotiation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention leading to complete, non-discriminatory, verifiable nuclear disarmament in a time-bound framework.

Ambassador Puja echoed many of these sentiments, emphasizing, "Nuclear disarmament is not an option, it is an obligation." He suggested the Conference revisit some of the Group of 21's working papers, arguing that most of them are still relevant today. Responding to an oft-repeated argument of the US delegation in disarmament fora, that before nuclear weapons can be eliminated, a "new security environment" is necessary, Ambassador Puja argued, "We agree that we need to create an environment conducive for nuclear disarmament. However, we also believe that the international security environment and the nuclear disarmament efforts should reinforce each other. Nuclear disarmament will in fact greatly contribute to international security."

This debate is not new; it came up most recently during the 2007 UNGA First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, where Jeffrey Eberhardt of the US State Department asked how the international community can achieve a global security environment that allows for nuclear disarmament, an environment that does not "require" reliance on nuclear weapons. Many delegations to the First Committee asserted that the first step to increasing international security is abolishing nuclear weapons. These debates generally end in stalemate, with few new ideas presented to overcome the impasse. While many delegations have outlined steps to disarmament, as Ambassador Hamoui did today, they generally do not address the question of creating conditions necessary to undertake these steps. However, the US approach, which is to dismiss "laundry lists of traditional arms control steps" in favour of emphasizing "the practical challenges of making nuclear disarmament the most stabilizing, deliberate policy choice," normalizes the existence and concept of nuclear weapons—it suggests that disarmament is an option, that nuclear weapons fill a legitimate role in maintaining security that can only be eliminated when the nuclear weapon possessor is convinced the status quo—primarily, their military dominance—can be assured through other means.

When Des Browne, UK Secretary of State for Defence, addressed the CD on 5 February, he announced that the United Kingdom is willing to host a technical conference for the five NPT nuclear weapon states on the verification of nuclear disarmament. He expressed hope that "such a conference will enable the five ... to reinforce a process of mutual confidence building: working together to solve some of these difficult technical issues." He emphasized that any plan for disarmament has to be transparent, sustainable, credible, and multilateral—"shared by Nuclear Weapon States and Non-Nuclear Weapon States alike." Des Browne was quick to point out that the United Kingdom "certainly does not have a monopoly on good ideas—others have put equally good proposals on the table," and he encouraged other delegations to suggest further initiatives.

As a backdrop to good ideas, however, threats to the international security environment and disarmament continued last week, with the US military shooting down its failed spy satellite with a Standard Missile-3, a component of its controversial missile defense system. A missile designed to intercept ballistic missiles was reconfigured—relatively quickly—to destroy a satellite that arguably posed little danger to humans on Earth. Many critics argued that the maneuver was a test of the US missile defense system and a demonstration of the US military's space weapon capabilities. In the Washington Post, Josh White and Marc Kaufman wrote that while General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, denied these charges, "the operation makes it clear that the missile defense system can be modified very quickly to accomplish such a task." They argued, "Scientists, arms-control advocates and others said the shoot-down was based on questionable modeling by the government of the risks to human health and was a danger to the future peaceful use of space." No one in the CD has yet mentioned this anti-satellite demonstration or its implications for space security or the future of the draft treaty on the prevention of placement of weapons in outer space introduced on 12 February.

In other matters, President Üzümcü announced the high level attendance expected at the CD next week. He said one Vice President, seven Foreign Ministers, four Deputy Foreign Ministers, and a State Secretary of Foreign Affairs will address the Conference. The confirmed list of dignitaries will be circulated in Thursday's session. He also announced that there will be two meetings next week on Tuesday and probably one on Wednesday morning.

The next plenary session is scheduled for 28 February at 10am.

- Ray Acheson, Reaching Critical Will