High-level meeting on revitalizing the CD serves as catalyst for action
Ray Acheson | Reaching Critical Will of WILPF
On Friday, 24 September 2010, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon convened a high-level meeting on “revitalizing the work of the Conference on Disarmament and taking forward multilateral disarmament negotiations”. Seventy-four foreign ministers and other high-level officials addressed the meeting, in addition to representatives from three groups of states, three international organizations, the UN Secretary-General, the President of the General Assembly, and the President of the Conference on Disarmament (CD). (Reaching Critical Will notes that of the 83 speakers, only three were women.)
While the majority of interventions focused on the need to find creative ways to revitalize the CD, divergences clearly remain over how best to do this. Some delegations believe the working methods and structure of the CD need to undergo modifications; others believe that the trouble lies with government priorities and (lack of) political will. The only clear area of agreement is that multilateral disarmament negotiations are suffering from the impasse in the CD, to the detriment of international peace and security.
Highlights
- 10 delegations indicated that they are ready to set a deadline for the CD’s resumption of work and to take disarmament negotiations outside of the forum if it fails to get back to work, while 8 delegations insisted that the CD should remain the sole multilateral disarmament negotiating body. Four delegations indicated they recognized going outside the CD as a potential result of continued stalemate, but didn’t express their position on this possibility.
- 12 delegations explicitly called for a review of the CD’s rules of procedure while 11 delegations, plus the Non-Aligned Movement, argued that the rules of procedure are not the problem.
- Many delegations called for a comprehensive review of the CD and other disarmament machinery; they made a variety of suggestions for how this could be done, including through a fourth special session on disarmament, a working group of the General Assembly, or an eminent persons panel.
- States still hold differing priorities for the substantive work of the CD, though the majority are interested in pursuing nuclear disarmament and a fissile material (cut-off) treaty.
- Eight delegations, and the European Union, called for broader participation of civil society in the work of the CD.
- Most delegations agreed that the CD needs to expand its membership; 15 delegations, along with the European Union, Non-Aligned Movement, and Informal Group of Observer States to the CD, called for the appointment of a special coordinator to expand the CD’s membership by the start of its 2011 session.
The UN Secretary-General issued a Chair’s Summary of the meeting, in which he also suggested four follow-on actions, including that: the 2011 session of the CD adopt the 2009 programme of work; the 2011 session of the General Assembly include an item on the follow-up to this high-level meeting, to be considered in plenary and First Committee; the Secretary-General will ask his advisory board on disarmament matters to “undertake a thorough review of issues raised” at the high-level meeting, including the possible establishment of a high-level panel of eminent persons to focus on the functioning of the CD; and that the Secretary-General will report on this meeting and subsequent follow-up to the first preparatory committee of the 2015 NPT Review Conference.
Going outside the CD to negotiate disarmament treaties
While delegations inside and outside of the CD have made comments in the past about the possibility of taking multilateral disarmament negotiations outside of the CD as a reaction to its continued deadlock, the high-level meeting marked the first time for so many countries to go on record lending their support to such an initiative. Ten delegations—Australia, Austria, Norway, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Ireland,Netherlands, United States, and Uruguay—explicitly indicated their willingness to take negotiations outside of the CD if the forum is not able to resume work soon. Describing the CD as operating in “Cold War mode,” Mexican Ambassador Heller said the international community must take the next step forward, even if it means leaving the CD behind. Most of these delegations set the end of the CD’s 2011 session as a deadline for its resumption of work. Austria and Uruguay specified that the General Assembly should take over the CD’s work until it is able to resume its functions.
Finland, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom acknowledged that a continued impasse may lead states to consider alternative venues for negotiating disarmament treaties, but did not explicitly indicate whether or not they would support such an initiative.
Australia, Chile, France, and New Zealand emphasized that they would prefer to work within the CD. New Zealand’s foreign minister argued that working within the CD “offers the best prospects for reaching agreement on a durable and comprehensive agreement that addresses and accommodates the concerns of all.” France’s delegate suggested that if negotiation of an FMCT did not include all of the main countries concerned, it would impose new constraints on those who have already stopped producing these materials, while leaving the other free to continue to accumulate them.
Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Iran, Russia, and Turkey indicated their opposition to the CD’s work being conducted elsewhere, though Argentina acknowledged the success of work on conventional arms outside of the CD.
Rule of consensus
Views on the consensus rule cut across regional and political boundaries. States in favour of revising or reviewing the application of the rule of consensus included Canada, Chile, Ireland, Lesotho, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, andSwitzerland. Most suggested the rule of consensus be limited to substantive decisions and not be applied to procedural decisions; Mongolia’s delegate suggested the CD could vote on procedural decisions if consensus could not be reached.
Delegations against revising the rule of consensus, and/or which do not believe the rule of consensus is the problem, included the Non-Aligned Movement, Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, China, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Nigeria, Russia, and Tanzania. Russia’s deputy foreign minister unequivocally argued, “consensus is the only possible method to develop multilateral disarmament agreements.”Ecuador’s delegate, while not firmly expressing opposition to changing the rule of consensus, argued that the problems in the CD are the result of “strictly political situations,” which require politically negotiated ways out, “without arbitrariness or false solutions”.
Reviewing the disarmament machinery
While the (dys)function of the CD was the primary agenda item, most delegations acknowledged that all of the UN disarmament machinery has faltered over the last decade. Several delegations called for a comprehensive review of the CD and other disarmament machinery, including the European Union, Bangladesh, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Lesotho, Malaysia, Norway, Philippines, andSwitzerland.
Several called for the convening of a fourth special session on disarmament to review the work of disarmament machinery, including theNon-Aligned Movement, Belarus, Colombia, Iran, Morocco, Norway, Philippines, and Switzerland.
Malaysia’s foreign minister suggested the General Assembly could set up a working group to review the disarmament machinery, or an eminent persons panel could be established to undertake this work and report to the General Assembly. The Netherlands and Republic of Korea supported the idea of an eminent persons panel.
In his suggested actions listed in his Summary of the meeting, the UN Secretary-General indicated that he would have his disarmament advisory board “undertake a thorough review of issues raised” at the high-level meeting, including the possible establishment of a high-level panel of eminent persons to focus on the functioning of the CD (see “Notes from the overflow room,” below, for analysis of this proposal).
Priorities for negotiation
The Non-Aligned Movement, Algeria, Cuba, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, and Nigeria all urged nuclear disarmament to be the first priority of the CD. The Non-Aligned Movement, Ecuador, Indonesia, and Iran called for the negotiation of a nuclear weapons convention. Austria called for states to “begin discussing the parameters that will enable us to reach and maintain Global Zero” and Brazilargued that concrete nuclear disarmament cannot wait for the conclusion of the negotiation of the related treaties. The UN Secretary-General’s five-point plan, of which a nuclear weapons convention is the first point, was welcomed by the European Union, Republic of Korea, Uruguay, Luxembourg, and Austria. Uruguay announced that it will host a regional conference this fall to discuss the five-point plan and identify additional concrete proposals for the effective regulation of conventional weapons.
Many delegations, including the European Union, Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, India,Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom,Uruguay highlighted a fissile material cut-off treaty (FMCT) as a priority for negotiation.
Greece and Russia said the CD should start negotiations on both an FMCT and a treaty preventing an arms race in outer space.Bangladesh and Italy advocated for work on an FMCT and negative security assurances. Several delegations, including Brazil, China,Ecuador, Libya, Switzerland, Uruguay highlighted the importance of engaging in substantive work on all the four core issues.
Kazakhstan called for the drafting of a Universal Declaration of Nuclear Weapon Free World as the “next and critical step”. Israel called on the CD to address arms transfers to non-state actors and terrorists “as a matter of priority”.
Expansion of the CD: civil society and member states
Several delegations called for broader participation of civil society, including the European Union, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Chile,Ireland, Malaysia, Mongolia, and Norway.
Many governments called for the expansion of CD member states and the appointment of a special coordinator to undertake this initiative by the start of the CD’s 2011 session, including the Informal Group of Observers to the CD (chaired by Thailand), the European Union, the Non-Aligned Movement, Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Lesotho, Libya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Serbia,Slovenia, Spain, Tanzania, and Uruguay.
Other suggestions
Delegates made a variety of suggestions on revising either the substantive or working methods of the CD. Norway called for the elimination of regional groups; Bulgaria and Ukraine called for annual high-level meetings to review the operation of the CD; Bangladeshand Italy suggested the programme of work be carried over from one year to the next unless there is a specific request for its modification; and Bangladesh called for the revitalization of the CD’s agenda to account for new security concerns of the “fast-changing world”.
On substantive matters, Norway called for humanitarian concerns to guide the work of the CD, while Bangladesh, Cuba, Uganda, and the UN Secretary-General all highlighted the problems that excessive and growing military spending creates for disarmament and arms control. Bangladesh suggested that the issues such as reduction of military budgets and armed forces and the impact of disarmament on development should be reintroduced to the CD’s agenda. Poland called for the creation of “a standard educational textbook on disarmament and non-proliferation, compiled by a select group of eminent experts, for use in universities around the world.”
Notes from the overflow room
In advance of the high-level meeting, Reaching Critical Will and the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy circulated a paper with suggestions for actions that states could undertake to get back to work on multilateral disarmament negotiations. While not exhaustive, the suggestions contained in the paper included many of the elements raised by delegations at the high-level meeting, such reviewing the rules of consensus; expanding the CD’s membership and allowing for more interaction with civil society; revitalizing the CD’s agenda; and much more.
Reaching Critical Will believes that the best way forward for negotiating a FM(C)T would be for it to occur in the Conference on Disarmament, as it would ensure that all of the relevant states, including Pakistan, would participate in the negotiations. Taking FM(C)T negotiations outside of the CD and negotiating with a smaller group of states would likely result in a weaker treaty and not include some or all of the states that are currently producing fissile materials for weapons.
However, if it continues to remain impossible to negotiate in the CD, having the General Assembly take over the functions of the CD until it can resume work is a reasonable alternative. This would allow the participation of all UN member states, rather than just the 65 members of the CD. But if the General Assembly assumes the CD’s responsibilities, it would be better for the international community to also revise the CD’s agenda, the incremental nature of which is outdated and ineffective, and begin substantive work on nuclear disarmament rather than a mere FM(C)T.
The notion that only a FM(C)T is ready to be negotiated should be reconsidered. While it often described as the only “ripe” issue for negotiation by a subset of the CD’s membership, the vast majority of CD member states appear ready to work on any of the other core issues on the CD’s agenda. While an FM(C)T would be part of the architecture of a nuclear weapon free world, as generally envisaged today it seems of limited relevance to nuclear disarmament or non-proliferation. Since non-nuclear weapon states are already committed to IAEA safeguards on their fissile material and related facilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to ensure that such material is diverted to weapons purposes, the few states that possess nuclear weapons could avoid drawn out negotiations on fissile material by engaging directly in nuclear disarmament negotiations, which would encompass a ban on the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes. Likewise, a convention or framework agreement would incorporate the negative security assurances issue as well, precluding the need for separate negotiations on a separate treaty. Many governments have voiced their support for the CD to start deliberations on a nuclear weapons convention, as proposed by the Secretary-General in his five-point proposal.
The lack of truly forward-looking actions in the Chair’s Summary was disappointing. The only concrete action specified was the Secretary-General’s intention to have his advisory board review the issues raised at the meeting, with a focus on the CD. This action was likely aimed at finding a middle ground between those states wanting clear action on changing the CD’s procedure or issuing a deadline for its work, and those insisting that political solutions to the impasse are the only forward. While it offers the opportunity to continue discussing and analyzing the challenges faced by the CD and could result in innovative suggestions for moving forward, the advisory board has no status to determine outcomes or enforce recommendations, meaning it is still ultimately up to states to find a way forward.
However, the high-level meeting did clearly reveal the positions of many governments. Significantly, many governments signaled their intention to push forward, suggesting that the high-level meeting has had a catalyzing effect. Governments made it very clear that the status quo is clearly untenable and that the burden will now fall on First Committee to follow-up and translate the frustration into action. Any follow-up mechanism to deal with the CD may evoke some controversy, but as Malaysia’s foreign minister argued, “The will of the majority must given due recognition.”