Cluster Munitions: Passing the baton from Vienna to Wellington

The Vienna Conference on Cluster Munitions ended a few hours ago. With participation by 138 States, NGOs from more than 50 countries (under the umbrella of the Cluster Munitions Coalition), eloquent testimony from victims, and participation by parliamentarians and United Nations agencies, the Vienna Conference brought the Oslo Process on Cluster Munitions to a new level of participation and momentum.

As pointed out by the CMC, only 4 users of cluster munitions did not participate in the Vienna conference (Eritrea, Israel, Russia and the United States). Twenty-three of the 34 producers of cluster munitions were here; as were 55 of the 79 stockpilers.

The conference sketched the lines of the negotiations that will take place at the diplomatic conference in Dublin on May 19-30 next year that is scheduled to negotiate a new treaty banning cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians. The next meeting in the Oslo Process, however, will be in Wellington on 18-22 February. Registrations for governments and civil society are already open.

Highlights of the Vienna Conference for me were:

-- The appeal during the NGO Forum on Tuesday by young Soraj Ghulam Habib who lost both of his legs and a cousin to a cluster bomblet while on a family picnic in Afghanistan. There was a technical problem with translating the last part of his talk but it didn’t matter. His passion was eloquent enough.

-- The clip from the documentary film “Unacceptable Harm” that showed 11 year-old Zahra Hussein Soufan try to deal with confusion, pain and rejection by her schoolmates after losing her hand to a cluster bomblet that she confused for a toy in southern Lebanon.

-- The united voice being found by African States in calling for a comprehensive ban on cluster munitions. About 40 African States participated in the Vienna meeting, thanks in large degree to an effective sponsorship programme funded by Austria and Norway and administered by the United Nations Development Programme. Today, Uganda and Zambia announced that they would co-host an African regional forum on cluster munitions in March with the aim of developing a common African position on the need to prohibit cluster munitions.

-- The presentation of a new report analysing the reliability of the M85 cluster sub-munition. The M85 (pictured above) is equipped with a self-destruct timer that is designed to detonate the bomblet if it does not explode on impact. According to its manufacturers, it has a failure rate of only around 1 percent. Based on this, some States claim that the M85 does not cause unacceptable harm to civilians. The new report undermines those arguments by explaining the litany of things that can (and do) go wrong with the M85's mechanical arming and self-destruct mechanism and, based on rigorous studies of bomb sites, shows that its failure rate in southern Lebanon in 2006 was an order of magnitude higher at around 10 percent (even after discounting parent munitions that failed to open properly).

-- The frank and open debate that took place on the issue of defining a cluster munition (see John Borrie's previous post).

-- The already quite detailed discussions on clearance, victim assistance, storage and stockpile destruction, international cooperation and assistance, and transparency and compliance that seek to build on similar provisions in the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention.

The Vienna conference leaves plenty of work to do in Wellington and Dublin. Its great contribution, however, has been shedding light on the most important (and most contentious) issues and, in so doing, beginning to define the outlines of the debates and negotiations to come. For civil society, the conference provided the invaluable service of clarifying where national campaigning is most needed in the coming period.

The Wellington meeting will need to continue and intensify the discussions that took place in Vienna and, in particular, to deal properly with issues that were not given sufficient attention due to lack of time; issues such as interoperability with States using cluster munitions, definition criteria based on the weight and volume of sub-munitions, sensor-fused weapons, and risk education.

If I take one thing away from the Vienna meeting, it is that the Oslo process is not, as some might claim, on the crest of a wave; surging now but destined to crash and break later. It seems more like a snowball gathering speed downhill (and the forecast is for more wintry weather).

Patrick Mc Carthy


Photo: Presentation of the report, "M85: An analysis of reliability" to the Vienna Conference on Cluster Munitions (photo courtesy of the author).

Cluster Munitions: Vienna – tough talk on definitions

As foreshadowed in our preceding post about the first day of the Vienna international conference on cluster munitions, definitions were the focus of today's discussions.

Why are definitions important? February's Oslo Declaration contains a commitment for states to “prohibit the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians”. Article 2 of the Vienna discussion text arguably goes further – it doesn’t mention the phrase “that cause unacceptable harm to civilians”.

In setting out scope Article 1 says as follows:

“Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances to:
a) Use cluster munitions.
b) Develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to
anyone, directly or indirectly, cluster munitions.
c) Assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage in any activity prohibited
to a State Party under this Convention.”

And the Vienna discussion text defines cluster munitions broadly. There is also an explanatory annex in it to reflect the divergence of views expressed over a definition expressed at an earlier conference of the Oslo process in Lima, Peru in May.

Today’s discussions were a chance to test views on the new language, and to hear proposals, including for exceptions to a general prohibition.

Talks on this agenda took most of the day, co-chaired by New Zealand and Austria. It began, however, with a presentation from an expert, Colin King, and a presentation of a ground-breaking report he and colleagues at the NGO Norwegian People’s Aid produced entitled M85: an analysis of reliability pictured above.

M85 bomblets are considered ‘state-of-the-art’ cluster submunitions, with so-called self-destruct mechanisms. M85s, or their derivatives, were used in Iraq this decade by British forces and by Israel in Southern Lebanon in 2006.

The M85 analysis showed, among its findings, that claims of 1 percent failure rates are way off: instead, it was around 10 percent – a big concern in view of the large number of submunitions dispersed in any cluster munition attack. King’s presentation (drawing on the report) showed definitively that “there’s a lot to go wrong” in the M85 arming sequence, which results in the submunition malfunctioning and prevents the self-destruct mechanism from activating.

In many cases, the arming sequence can be completed by an accidental encounter. (Norwegian defence scientists spinning M85 bomblets in concrete mixers – with often fatal results for the mixer, around 40 "killed" so far.) It helps to underline that there is no such thing a “non-hazardous dud” submunition, a term sometimes heard.

It also shows that testing doesn’t offer a realistic indication of what will happen during actual cluster munition use because they’re always carried out under favourable conditions.

King’s powerful presentation set the scene for what was a constructive but occasionally fractious debate that continued from mid-morning until late this afternoon.

Many countries spoke. Some, such as France, Switzerland, Netherlands and the UK reiterated that they do not think all cluster munitions have unacceptable consequences for civilians, arguing that concepts of accuracy and reliability should be benchmarks for what is deemed acceptable or not – drawing on an ICRC formulation. The ICRC responded that its terminology was to describe the characteristics of cluster munitions unacceptable in terms of their harm to civilians (in its view, virtually all used to date) and not threshold criteria for a definition.

Germany again put forward proposals for exceptions to a total ban. It has crafted what it called a 3-step approach that while immediately banning some cluster munitions (step 1), would allow others to continue to be used for an as-yet unspecified period (step 2) before – optional – replacement with “alternative munitions” (step 3), as yet undetermined and possibly not invented. This met with considerable criticism from a range of states and the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC). For its part, Norway acidly commented that it could not follow the German proposal’s logic.

The discussions underlined that there’s still a long way to go on definitions. Today’s talks were never intended by the co-chairs to be more than a ventilation of views, but they did make some progress on discussing less problematic exceptions to a comprehensive prohibition including mines (covered by other treaties), flare, smoke and chaff munitions and sub-munitions that are inert post impact. And, they paved the way for further talks this afternoon on Article 1 of the Vienna discussion text on general obligations and scope, in which military inter-operability concerns dominated. But that’s for another post.

John Borrie

Cluster munitions: Vienna Conference day one

Yesterday, the Vienna international conference on cluster munitions formally commenced. On Tuesday it had been preceded by a civil society forum (see our previous post for Patrick Mc Carthy's impressions of that gathering). The Vienna Conference is the latest step in the so-called Oslo process to address the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions on civilians.

Readers may recall from earlier posts on this blog that, less than a month ago, members of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) agreed a mandate to work on addressing cluster munitions in 2008 - a mandate that most involved seemed prepared to concede had come about largely because of the existence of the Oslo process. Nevertheless, there was uncertainty in some quarters about what the impact of the CCW mandate might be for participation in Vienna. Would it undercut support for the Oslo process? Hopes among campaigners on cluster munitions were that the goal of 100 states would nevertheless be achieved.

In fact, 133 states have registered, according to the Austrian Foreign Minister, Ursula Plassnik, who launched Wednesday's proceedings. This is astounding progress for an international humanitarian initiative launched only in February of this year: it means that more than two-thirds of the international community want to see a treaty to address the impacts of cluster munitions on civilians by the end of 2008.

And that number doesn't count a large civil society contingent (mainly within the umbrella of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC)) along with international and regional organizations including United Nations agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the European Commission and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Later, in welcoming the broad turn-out, the CMC noted that a majority of past users and producers of cluster munitions are now participating in the Oslo process, as well as almost all affected states.

Certain user and producer states were not at the meeting though, such as China, India, Pakistan, Russia and the U.S. The need to try to engage with all users and producers clearly concerns some states, and was a theme throughout the agenda item on "a treaty on cluster munitions" co-chaired by Austria and New Zealand. This agenda item ran grossly beyond time, however, as the co-chairs' request for delegations to keep general statements to a bare minimum went largely ignored. After a brief introduction of the Vienna text by New Zealand, Australia, Portugal (on behalf of the EU), Egypt, Hungary, Montenegro, the CMC, Thailand, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Morocco, Mali, Japan, Argentina, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Guatemala, Chile, Canada, Croatia, Sudan, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Algeria, Lithuania, Sweden, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Netherlands, Senegal, Bangladesh, Turkey, Mozambique, Uganda, Honduras, Zambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Albania spoke.

I'm not going to try to summarize what they said. And yesterday there was also some productive discussion of cluster munition clearance issues and victim assistance (the latter talks continue this morning) under subsequent agenda items. But a recurrent theme - beside wide support for the Vienna text as a basis for discussions and the need for a legally binding international instrument (a treaty, in other words) - was of the need to define unacceptable cluster munitions.

Definitions are pivotal because, following the terms of February's Oslo Declaration, unacceptable cluster munitions will be banned. For their part, the members of the CMC would like to ban all cluster munitions, and this seems to be the avowed view of at least several states too.

But a total ban on cluster munitions is not what all states signed up for - and some, such as the United Kingdom, Sweden and the Netherlands - said as much yesterday. So the definitions agenda item today will be a key testing ground for various proposals for how cluster munitions, submunitions and associated concepts should be defined, and deriving from that, a better idea of what is likely to be outlawed in the agreement to be negotiated next year. At present, the core group's suggested Article 2 in the Vienna text is drafted as a pretty comprehensive prohibition on cluster munitions. But it makes provision for possible exceptions - the burden of proof being on states to justify why such exceptions are necessary.

It's going to be an interesting discussion. Watch this space.


John Borrie

If this blog was a cluster bomb, you'd be dead

The Vienna Conference on Cluster Munitions, the latest step in the Oslo Process, kicked off today with a parliamentary forum in the morning and an NGO forum in the afternoon; both of which sought to set the bar high for the intergovernmental discussions that will take place over the remainder of the week.

Over 130 States have registered for the conference, almost double the number that participated in the last global meeting of the Oslo Process in Lima in May. The momentum that this process has gained in quite a short period of time is truly remarkable and lends credence to the claim made earlier today that the Oslo Process is now "unstoppable;" that it is no longer a question of whether it will succeed in negotiating a new treaty on cluster munitions, but rather how strong that treaty will be.

It is clear from today's discussions that NGOs want a very strong treaty indeed. The Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) is no longer talking about banning cluster munitions "that cause unacceptable harm to civilians," the formulation that lies at the centre of the Oslo Declaration. The talk now among NGOs is just about banning cluster munitions, pure and simple, since, the CMC argues, all cluster munitions cause unacceptable harm. Any government wishing to argue otherwise will by asked (perhaps too polite a word) by NGOs to back up their arguments with credible evidence.

The cause of a comprehensive ban was boosted this afternoon by an announcement by the Austrian Federal Minister for European and International Affairs, Ursula Plassnik, that the Austrian parliament will promulgate a new law on Thursday this week banning all cluster munitions.

NGOs fear that most governments will not wish to follow Austria's example and will instead insist on excluding certain types of cluster munitions from the scope of the treaty being negotiated. The Vienna discussion text certainly leaves open this possibility. Article 2, which defines what a cluster munition is, contains three as yet blank place-holders that seem designed to contain descriptions of cluster munitions that would not be banned by the treaty.

It is likely that some States will push to exclude from the scope of the treaty cluster munitions that (manufacturers claim to) have low failure-rates, that are equipped with self-destruct mechanisms, that engage targets through the use of sensors, or that contain small numbers of sub-munitions. Today, NGOs made it quite clear that they find such exceptions to be unacceptable and, for good measure, added that they would also not accept a transition period to allow cluster munitions to be phased out nor allowances for joint operations with States that continued to use cluster munitions.

Fighting words aside, this afternoon's meeting did a fine job of bringing the voices of victims of cluster munitions to the forefront of the debate. Whether it was the impassioned plea of young Soraj Ghulam Habib from Afghanistan, who lost a cousin and both of his legs to a cluster bomb, or Branislav Kapetanovic's barely disguised rage not so much at his own injuries but at the indescribable carnage he saw cluster munitions wreak in Serbia, everyone who participated in today's meeting was reminded again and again that the goal of the Oslo Process is to protect civilians and assist victims.

It was not all harmony and meetings of minds however. A panel on "cluster munitions and the military" made up of serving and former military officers posed some pointed questions on the military utility of cluster munitions and on military alternatives to them. In the process, it highlighted some contentious issues that will no doubt continue to be discussed over the coming days.

The discussions that will take place over the next three days among the more than 130 registered governments will undoubtedly attempt to lower the bar set today by NGOs in the Cluster Munition Coalition. The biggest immediate challenge, however, would seem to be finding a room large enough to fit all participants in the Oslo Process. As of tomorrow morning, about 500 representatives of governments, NGOs and international organisations will begin to engage with one another in earnest.

Things are just getting interesting so stay tuned and feel free to add your voice to the debate by using the comment function below.

Patrick Mc Carthy


Photo: Wanda Munoz, Head of Victim Assistance, Handicap International (photo by the author)

Clusters: Dah-dump... Dah-Dah-Dah-dump (bsssh!)

Ah Vienna. Eat your heart out Midge Ure and Ultravox (check the outfits)...

This is a quick post to note that Patrick Mc Carthy and I are in Vienna this week to attend an international conference here on addressing the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions, which is being hosted by the Government of Austria, as part of the Oslo process.

We're aware that there's a lot of interest out there in the progress of the meeting, and we'll try to give you updates over the next few days about what's going on, (hopefully) starting with tomorrow's civil society forum on cluster munitions.

Additionally, if there are any questions you want us to try to answer, just drop us a line using the comment function on this blog (see below).

John Borrie

Cluster munitions: a CCW mandate

The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) agreed a mandate on cluster munitions today after a difficult week of talks in Geneva, as foreshadowed in our preceding posts.

The text agreed by consensus is as follows:

"The Meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the CCW decided that the GGE [Group of Governmental Experts] will negotiate a proposal to address urgently the humanitarian impact of cluster munitions, while striking a balance between military and humanitarian considerations.

"The GGE should make every effort to negotiate this proposal as rapidly as possible and report on the progress made to the next meeting of the High Contracting Parties in November 2008.

"The work of the GGE will be supported by military and technical experts. The GGE will meet in 2008 not less than three times for a total of up to seven weeks, as follows:

- 14-18 January
- 7-31 July
- 1-5 September
- 3-7 November. "

When set alongside the Oslo Declaration, this text is weaker. It lacks a firm commitment to complete its work by the end of 2008, which the Oslo Declaration contains. While the Oslo Declaration focuses on addressing the humanitarian effects of cluster munitions, the CCW text balances this against military considerations. And while it is explicit in saying the GGE's work will be supported by military and technical experts, it doesn't mention humanitarian perspectives like those from the field.

Moreover, while there is a call for urgency, it doesn't seem to be borne out in the caveated language of the rest of the decision (the CCW will only meet to work for a single week in the first half of the year). Nor is it explicit that the CCW is working to achieve a legally-binding international treaty, saying instead that it "will negotiate a proposal".

Overall, the CCW mandate poses as many questions as it answers. Several countries with preferences for more - such as Canada - much more (Norway) as well as less (Russia) pointed this out in their own ways. Canada warned that the CCW could end up "wasting a great deal of time" reaching agreement on how to interpret the mandate, which would belie addressing cluster munitions "urgently". Norway, in a measured statement, said it would continue to work in the CCW even as it helps to lead the Oslo Process. Ireland, another Oslo core group country, expressed its disappointment that more couldn't have been achieved in the mandate.

Russia said it still harbours doubts, noting "considerable" (read: yawning) differences of approach expressed in the CCW over ways and means of addressing the impacts of cluster munitions on civilians, as well as uncertainties (read: major disagreements) about basic provisions like definitions. In a carefully scripted statement, it set out specific parameters of what it wanted to talk about in 2008.

Not an air of celebration then. The International Committee of the Red Cross noted its regret the mandate doesn't contain a strong commitment to a legally-binding instrument. The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) was the most outspoken, regarding "this as a wholly inadequate outcome. We cannot view this as a credible mandate". Later, in a press conference, HRW Arms Unit Director Steve Goose paraphrased the mandate outcome as "go slow and aim low".

Ouch. NGO views came as no surprise, however. A question on the minds of many diplomats and others here is: what does the CCW mandate mean for the Oslo Process?

In the short term, the likely answer is: probably not much. Next week, states parties to the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention meet in Jordan (I too will be there): that Conference's margins will be buzzing with competing prognostications. A yet-to-emerge "Vienna text" will be another topic of interest. Regardless of events this week in Geneva, the Vienna Conference on cluster munitions in early December - the next major event in the Oslo Process calendar - will meet and may attract a hundred participating states. It's chair will be working to focus minds there on the substance of a possible treaty.

The CCW mandate calls for almost seven weeks of work in Geneva in 2008. Quite what delegations will do throughout the CCW's 2008 work schedule is unclear in view of substantial differences of scope and ambition there, but almost seven weeks is a quite a burden on even large governments. In contrast, all of the entire projected Oslo Process from Oslo in February 2007 until the end of May 2008 (in Dublin) adds up to around 23 days, not including regional meetings.

But will those states inside the Oslo Process who've maintained in public statements their preference for CCW work (particularly some of the Europeans) bail out now that it has a mandate?

Probably not. The CCW's agreed mandate falls well short of the European Union's own mandate proposal, as its current President (Portugal) noted this morning, which contains an end-of-2008 deadline and is much more robust - drawing in part on Oslo Declaration language. Given domestic pressures in many countries such as the UK and Germany, it would be difficult for them to walk away from Oslo without severe criticism. And if they do leave the Oslo Process, it will be much harder for them to influence the negotiation's direction and the end-result's content.

The reality is that the continuation of the Oslo Process is useful to efforts in the CCW. After all, there would be no mandate without the Oslo Process's emergence.

The big question in all of this nobody should forget - especially not diplomats and national decision-makers - is one of human security: what will be the positive impact on people living with the hazards posed by cluster munitions? There it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the Oslo Process seems to win hands down.

The CCW might yet amaze us all. But to my mind, when seen alongside the Oslo Declaration, the mandate agreed today simply underlines the difficulties ahead for the CCW in achieving a credible result.


John Borrie


Photo of the cluster munition exhibition by Handicap International Switzerland and the Broken Chair sculpture outside the Geneva Palais des Nations by John Borrie.

NPT: Vienna Meeting Showdown

Friday was the day of the rushed endgame for the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)’s troubled two-week first preparatory meeting in Vienna. Delays caused by deadlock over agreeing the meeting’s agenda during its first week (see previous postings) were felt more keenly on its final day than any other day since the agenda’s adoption.

The substantive discussion, focusing on compliance and the right to withdraw, took place in the morning with a good set of substantive papers and some genuinely interactive debate. But until this debate had actually occurred, the meeting Chairman’s summary could not take it into account. Thus getting the nine-page – typo-free – factual summary out by 14h30 was truly a feat of efficiency on the part of the Chairman’s team and the UN secretariat.

However, this of course meant that delegations had very little time to read the Chair’s summary and come to agreement on whether it could be annexed to the report of the PrepCom. So there we were at 17h45 (with the meeting due to end in 15 minutes) following intensive consultations with regional/political group leaders, Iran, the US and others, awaiting the outcomes of group meetings.

The alternative available to the Chair – his fallback position – would be to remove paragraph 21 from the draft report (its reference to the factual summary) and deposit his factual summary as a working paper.

Then we heard that Iran, along with Cuba, Syria and Venezuela, had threatened that they would only agree to adopt the report if the Chair agreed to not even table his summary. This was an unprecedented move and in the end it failed. Why were the “Fab Four” trying to block the Chair’s summary? Probably it was to do with the balance of the paper: in other words, Iran, along with North Korea and the nuclear weapon states (NWS) came in for a bit of stick.

To me, the summary seemed to be just that – a summary of the discussions, without taking a strong political stance, and mild in criticism all round. The paper was particularly useful for those working on promoting a weapon of mass destruction free zone in the Middle East (coincidence? Perhaps not). Others, however, felt that it was too gentle on the NWS and too hard on Iran as well as those outside the Treaty, especially on North Korea.

However, as luck and Austrian business life would have it, the conference room was booked for another event in the evening and so the traditional UN-spinning-things-out-until-midnight option was not available to NPT delegations. For reasons still unclear to me, the “Fab Four” backed down and allowed the report to go through, without the Chair’s Summary text directly attached but instead as a listed working paper.

So in the end the NPT had a successful outcome, although it wasn’t easy. All those delegation that bit their tongues and allowed silence to prevail over fury are to be strongly congratulated. As is Ambassador Amano, the Chair, along with his (very large) team of experts and the UN secretariat – all of whom kept focused on achieving a result throughout the tricky two weeks – thus strengthening, not weakening, the NPT.


This is a guest blog from Dr Patricia Lewis. Patricia is Director of UNIDIR.


References

Text of NPT Chairman Amano’s factual summary paper can be viewed, along with more analysis, at the Acronym Institute’s website (www.acronym.org.uk).

In due course, we anticipate that the UN’s official webpage on the NPT preparatory meeting will be updated with downloadable copies of its final documents: www.un.org/NPT2010.

Photo retrieved from Flickr

“Happy Birthday Mr President”

Things are in full swing at the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) preparatory meeting in Vienna, and the atmosphere has changed completely. Interventions are constructive and chock full of ideas, information and proposals for ways forward. It may be only a temporary spurt, but this boat has all its sails up and a spinnaker at full wind. By Friday we may be back in the storm and heading for the doldrums as the delegations grapple with how to finalise the report, but for now everyone is enjoying the steady, sunny breeze.

Both on its own behalf and as part of the reinvigorated New Agenda Coalition (NAC), South Africa has often taken the helm – witness their save-the-day proposal that resulted in the “asterisked agenda” (see previous postings for details). Today, along with two excellent papers, South African Ambassador Abdul Minty announced to the room that today was the Chairman’s birthday.

Well, after that of course everybody – and I mean everybody – had to congratulate Ambassador Amano, who disclosed that it was the big 6-0 no less, and things began to get pretty repetitive. If only Ambassador Henrik Salander of Sweden had been there with his guitar, we could have all burst into song as happened a few years back. A breathy Marilyn Monroe would have just put the icing on any cake she had popped out of – and given the mood swings of the last couple of days, I have a feeling that few would have been too surprised.

For me the highlight of the day was the lunchtime panel held by the Global Security Institute and the Government of Sweden on the connections between preventing the weaponization of space and nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Apart from yours truly, the other speakers were Dr Hans Blix (see my “On the Ropes” posting from 8 May) and Ambassador Robert Grey, former US Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. Both were excellent speakers, who brought quite different perspectives to the topic. Hans was, as ever, forthright and focused on the big picture. Bob (who had earlier spoken at UNIDIR’s seminar on the CTBT on Monday) was hard-hitting, critical of his own government, yet tempering his hope for the future with reality.

It is certainly the season for anniversaries. At the panel presentation, we marked the 40th anniversary of the Outer Space Treaty and the 50th anniversary of the first satellite in orbit, Sputnik. In Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is celebrating its 50th and the Comprehensive nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) provisional secretariat its 10th. In Den Hague the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is also celebrating its 10th year of operation.

Ambassador Amano is in good company. And, so as not to be out of line: “Otanjou-bi Omedetou Gozaimasu Amano-San!”


This is a guest blog from Dr Patricia Lewis. Patricia is Director of UNIDIR.

Disarmament Insight note: we promise, no more maritime references will be allowed on this blog for the rest of the month.


References

For more information on the NPT preparatory meeting, visit the UN’s page at: http://www.un.org/NPT2010/

Webcasted video interviews with Patricia and other participants in the NPT meeting are available online at: http://www.BanningTheBomb.tv.

Photo of Marilyn Monroe retrieved from Flickr, image by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS

Love in the Afternoon

In the warm afterglow of the decision to adopt the agenda, the States Parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) got quickly down to the business of reviewing the Treaty and preparing for 2010.

Yesterday afternoon was allocated to discussion of Cluster 1 issues, namely implementation of the provisions of the Treaty relating to: non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, disarmament and international peace and security; NPT articles I and II and preambular paragraphs 1 to 3, Article VI and preambular paragraphs 8 to 12, and security assurances.

There was a scramble for speaking slots. This will undoubtedly be the recurring complaint as we try to squeeze in 10 days work into three and half – a bit like going clothes shopping after holiday eating. Tomorrow morning will be dedicated to the specific issues of nuclear disarmament and security assurances; a little spillover into tomorrow will not be noticeable.

More verbal overspill however will make listening uncomfortable in the conference room as speakers either speak for too long or speak at too fast a pace in order to get through their points in record time. Having said that, there were ten minutes left at the end of yesterday for interactive debate – an opportunity taken up by Canada and Germany. Not long enough but at least something.

One key feature of the this NPT meeting is that the New Agenda Coalition (NAC) of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden are once again cohesive and active. On behalf of the NAC, Ambassador Paul Kavanagh of Ireland characterized the task for review cycle to identify particular aspects on which incremental progress can be made with a view to advancing the objective of a nuclear weapon free world. (A link to the NAC working paper is included below).

The US, France, the UK and China all spoke in the afternoon session, all – as we well know – committed to nuclear disarmament (and singing their own praises on how much they have achieved). As mentioned in Disarmament Insight’s blog posting of 8 May, the US has produced a whole set of papers that they circulated in advance of the NPT preparatory meeting (link below), part of a new approach to engage and enhance dialogue.

The US has confirmed its commitment to nuclear disarmament and refers frequently to “our shared vision for a nuclear weapons free-world”. The papers produced by the US are detailed, informative and engaging. Not everyone will agree with everything in them, of course, but why should they? Indeed, we need to set out our views and interests so that others can engage in debate. The US is to be applauded for the effort and for their openness. They’re worth a read and, if you’re so moved, you can respond to their challenges by commenting on this post.


This is a guest blog from Dr Patricia Lewis. Patricia is Director of UNIDIR.


References

The New Agenda Coalition’s working paper mentioned above (NPT/CONF.2010/PC.1/WP.15) can be found at: http://www.un.org/NPT2010/documents.html

US papers presented to the NPT preparatory meeting are available at: http://www.state.gov/t/isn/rls/rm/c20988.htm

Photo of the Austria Centre Vienna, where the NPT meeting is taking place (retrieved from the Austria Centre Vienna website)

NPT newsflash - Bingo! Game On!

(For background about the NPT preparatory meeting see our 6 May posting further below.)

Walking into an NPT conference is always a bit of a surreal experience. Here in Vienna we have governmental and non-governmental representatives from over 180 countries sipping exceedingly stimulating coffee and debating the not-so-finer details of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Except that, until now, they haven’t been.

The conference to prepare for the 2010 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference began over a week ago and still they have yet to adopt an agenda. So out of a ten day meeting, we are on day seven with no substantive discussion. This is reminiscent of what happened at the Review Conference in 2005 when Egypt, the US and France, along with a number of other states were locked in battle over how to characterise recent review meetings in the agenda.

This year it has been Iran. And only Iran. The US and Egypt are basking in the praise for their restraint and having put their differences behind them – at least for now and of course only on the decision of the agenda.

So the big question at this meeting has been: will we even get started?

And I can now answer that question at last with an alleluia, shout of proclamation, yes!!

Iran objected to a phrase in the agenda referring to full compliance with the treaty (who could possibly object to that? Indeed, you may wonder). Last Friday, South Africa proposed a fix that a decision could be recorded that:

"The meeting decides that it understands the reference in the agenda to 'reaffirming the need for full compliance with the Treaty' to mean that it will consider compliance with all the provisions of the Treaty".

Following a long statement in which Iran made critical comments regarding the Chair’s conduct of consultations (Ambassador Amano responded in a dignified manner, thus not letting such criticism pass), Iran has just accepted the constructive fix this morning in a “display of goodwill and flexibility”. The fix will be in the form of an asterisk noting the South African-proposed text as a footnote to agenda item six (that deals with the substantive agenda including the phrase on reaffirming the need for full compliance with the Treaty). The agenda was therefore adopted at 11.40am and substantive work can now begin officially.

But why was all this happening?

After all, Iran has received the censure and disapproval of the international community through Security Council resolutions and through the IAEA Board of Governors reports. Why should they be worrying about a mild slap on the wrist contained within a chairman’s summary at a preparatory meeting of the NPT? Why would they isolate themselves in this way and prevent substantive work and development of the Treaty?

A number of explanations have been mooted by varying shades of political opinion and over the next few days in the margins of the official work that will now begin, I may be able to test them out against the evidence.

So now, from the Austria Conference Centre: onwards and sideways!


This is a guest blog from Dr Patricia Lewis. Patricia is Director of UNIDIR.


Reference

Photo of the Austria Centre Vienna, where the NPT meeting is taking place (retrieved from the Austria Centre Vienna website)