22 January 2007

The Conference on Disarmament (CD) began its 2007 session on Monday, January 22, with a public plenary session. South Africa opened the session as the incoming President of the Conference, followed by a message from Ban Ki-moon, the new Secretary-General of the United Nations (read by Sergei Ordzhonikidze, Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament), and general statements from Poland, Slovakia, the United States, the Netherlands, and Russia. 

Incoming President Glaudine Mtshali of South Africa promised to spare no effort to wake the deadlocked chamber from its slumber this year. The Conference has not negotiated a treaty since the 1996 completion of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty because it has been unable to agree by consensus on a programme of work. Last year, however, the six rotating presidents of the Conference worked together to create a timetable of substantive discussions for the 2006 session. Although the Conference has been adopting an annual agenda that lists topics to be addressed during the year, last year's timetable was the first year-long schedule for substantive discussions since the deadlock began.

Even though he is currently considering downgrading the status of disarmament within UN bureaucracy, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moonreiterated that invigorating disarmament and non-proliferation is one of his priorities, and said he will ensure the UN is up to the task. He called on the Conference to "rise to the challenge". He reminded the Conference that the stakes are high, with world military spending at over 1.2 trillion dollars per year, or 2.5% of global GDP. "Even if one percent of it were redirected towards development," said the SG, "the world would be much closer to achieving the Millennium Development Goals."

The Conference indeed must rise to the challenge of generating an effective, comprehensive and in-depth programme of work, and much of this rests on the shoulders of the first 2007 President, South Africa. All six of the 2007 CD presidents (South Africa, Sri Lanka, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Syria, or the S6) have agreed to work together to guide the CD, but South Africa is responsible for conducting the negotiations on proposals for a schedule of activities and for presenting the proposal to the Conference. In her opening speech,Ambassador Mtshali said she had been consulting in bi-lateral meetings, with the regional groups, and at an informal meeting last week. We hope South Africa will be able to present a proposal that includes, in the words of Poland, "more refined, more focused and more in-depth discussions on the substantive issues". Last year, Poland presented the 2006 timetable with only one week dedicated to each of the seven substantive issues on the CD's agenda. The four core issues (Fissile Materials Treaty, Negative Security Assurances, nuclear disarmament, and Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space) of the Conference all need much more time allocated to them. 

Although South Africa has yet to formally present an S6 schedule of activities, members of the Conference apparently discussed a proposal for a schedule at the informal meeting last week. This proposal included designating seven Coordinators to coordinate work on each of the seven agenda items, building on last year's "Friends of the Presidents". Russia said that it saw the proposals so far as important, constructive and most promising. The United States commended the S6 "effort to craft an organization plan that was intensive, yet flexible", and said the S6 "may have found a way to break the deadlock that had stymied action in the Conference for over a decade." The Netherlands reiterated that it was "ready to start negotiations on a treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and other nuclear devices, while being flexible on the further makeup of the programme of work." 

As always, the CD must first adopt its annual agenda, a traditionally unchanging list of topics to be addressed during the year. The Netherlands called this agenda "all-inclusive", and, remembering that the Conference adopted it in one week last year, hoped it would be adopted just as smoothly this year. Slovakia strongly discouraged any attempts to change the agenda. Russia agreed, and advised that they could change it later if necessary.

Some states are hoping the Conference will begin negotiating a treaty banning the production of fissile materials for use in nuclear weapons, or a Fissile Materials Treaty (FMT), this year. Such a treaty has been on the international community's agenda for many years, and the 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review and Extension Conference and the 2000 NPT Review Conference called on the CD to begin negotiating it. The CD has been unable to begin negotiations, however, due to deadlock on a programme of work and continued disagreement over a negotiating mandate. Nevertheless, the United States introduced a draft text and draft negotiating mandate for such a treaty last May. The United States urged others to use their draft text as a basis for finally beginning substantive work on the issue. Today, the Netherlands suggested that negotiations start without preconditions but with the understanding that nothing was excluded from the negotiations. These catch-phrases mean that the mandate need not take a position on verification of the treaty or existing stockpiles of fissile materials, but delegations could still address those contentious issues during negotiations. Slovakia said it would be appropriate for the Conference to "upgrade the level of its engagement" on an FMT.

- Jennifer Nordstrom, Reaching Critical Will