A qualified success Michael Spies and Ray Acheson | Reaching Critical Will
of WILPF
Front page article from the NPT News in
Review, the daily NGO newsletter from the third session
of the
Preparatory Committee for the 2010 nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty Review Conference Monday, 18 May 2009 (Final Edition)
By the abysmal standards that have typified the preparatory
process—instituted in 1995—leading up to each
five year review of the NPT, the third and final Preparatory
Committee (PrepCom) meeting before the 2010 Review Conference
(RevCon) must certainly be considered a success. The PrepCom
was able to agree to an agenda for the RevCon, on its third
day, no less, amid a chorus of accolades for what many described
as a new, positive atmosphere in multilateral disarmament,
stemming entirely from US President Obama’s 5 April
speech in Prague.
However, it did not surprise many delegates—most of
whom are veterans of the so-called decade of deadlock that
had accompanied the Bush administration’s allergy to
multilateralism—that the PrepCom would become snagged
once it attempted to work through matters of substance.
The PrepCom’s failure to adopt substantive recommendations
for the RevCon, a feat no previous PrepCom had ever accomplished,
may have temporarily tainted the atmosphere, but was not unforeseen.
During his opening remarks to the PrepCom, its Chair, Ambassador
Chidyausiku of Zimbabwe, cautioned that despite recent signs
of progress, in many areas the positions of states had actually
grown further apart rather than closer.
With this note of caution, on Monday, 11 May, the Chair circulated
a clever and concise first draft of recommendations, intended
to capture specific proposals that identify concrete practical
actions on implementing the Treaty, stand a reasonable chance
of gaining consensus, and build upon earlier decision. Its
strongest provisions dealt with moving the disarmament agenda
forward and even included consideration of a nuclear weapons
convention (see NPT News in Review, No. 6).
It must be noted that the vast majority of states could have
accepted the first draft, including many members of NATO,
with little or no modifications. Following consultations,
and in particular input from the nuclear weapon states, on
Wednesday, 13 May, the Chair put forward a revised set of
recommendations that significantly weakened the sections on
disarmament, civil society participation, and education, but
bolstered those on implementing the 1995 Middle East resolution
and on non-proliferation.
For some, the second draft proved to be a bridge too far.
As the conference moved into its final hours, it devolved
into a tense blame game that pitted western delegations against
the Non-Aligned Movement and some of its more outspoken members,
most notably Cuba, Egypt, and Iran. On Thursday, 14 May, the
Chair advised states let the recommendations go, as to not
to ruin the spirit of cooperation. Despite the Chair’s
judgment that the differences in position were too vast, a
large number of delegations urged the Chair to continue the
process of seeking consensus (see NPT News in Review,
No. 10).
The breakdown of the recommendations process
Despite the positive atmosphere, disarmament rhetoric of the
US and UK administrations, and the quick adoption of the agenda,
the PrepCom delegates did not find enough common ground—or
at least, enough common rhetoric—to agree to a set of
non-binding recommendations for next year. Breaking with the
recent past, the Chair decided not to forward the recommendations
to the RevCon as a working paper.
The Chair had introduced a newly revised draft recommendations
on Friday, 15 May. Delegations consulted with their regional
groups before resuming an informal meeting of the PrepCom.
During this last attempt to reach consensus on the draft recommendations,
the Chair determined that the Committee did not have a sufficient
amount of time to reach agreement. Later, at a press briefing,
he said the “differences were very minor; with time,
we could have done it.”
The differences, as laid out by delegations during Thursday’s
plenary discussion on the draft recommendations, did not seem
very minor (see NPT News in Review, No. 10), though
the revisions in the third draft were quite minimal. The additional
changes brought on board an additional caveat to the already
thoroughly conditioned preambular paragraph, further emphasized
its non-binding character and marginally indicative character—a
change insisted upon by the UK. Other amendments made minor
changes to the sections on universality, disarmament, non-proliferation,
regional initiatives, and education.
Despite the lack of time to make additional major changes
to the text (delegations would have needed to consult with
their capitals had the second draft text been heavily amended),
western and non-aligned delegations traded blame for the impasse.
Since the first draft was not agreeable to a few western states
and the second was not agreeable to a few NAM states, it would
be cynical and insincere to place“blame” on any
particular group or delegation. Instead, the experience only
serves to further illuminate the wide gulfs between states’
positions.
Paradoxically on the surface, this result came as a relief
to many delegations. While the vast majority of states parties
seemed ready to accept either the first or second drafts,
no one was entirely content with either. Rather than becoming
stuck with an imperfect text, delegations will have the freedom
in 2010 to negotiate and reach agreement with a clean slate
on the many fraught issues facing the NPT regime.
