Disarmament and development in Commonwealth states

One publication that's recently come across our desks here at UNIDIR is Vidya Abhayagunawardena's new book Commonwealth States on Disarmament and Development: A Socioeconomic Analysis.

The nature of the multilateral disarmament context in New York and Geneva often results in practitioners like diplomats, civil society advocates and United Nations staff being accustomed to slice-and-dice categorisations of the international community in certain ways  such as Non-Aligned, Eastern Group, Western Group. These categorisations help to shape mindsets. This is also true in the sphere of development work, which has its own typical categorisations. It matters because what we name things, and how we sort them in our minds, has an influence on the way we subsequently think and act.

However, all politics has a cultural substrate. Whatever the political or economic differences between states in the Commonwealth after independence from British colonial rule in the 20th century (and there are many), it's also clear that there is a common bank of institutions, practices and cultural references that has kept the Commonwealth relevant as an idea and an institution. One only has to see the huge popularity of a sport like cricket - a pastime unfathomable to most non-Commonwealth outsiders - in post-colonial entities as diverse as New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies and Abhayagunawardena's own country, Sri Lanka. Without overstating their decisiveness (after all, India and Pakistan have fought wars on several occasions, despite the popularity of cricket in both countries), such commonalities can, in principle, strengthen cultural, social and business links between nations, and in that way strengthen peace and the rule of law.

So it's refreshing to see an analytical frame like Abhayagunawardena's. His book explores Commonwealth member states' commitment toward and adherence to six international treaties related to disarmament and development: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the newest one of them all - the Arms Trade Treaty.

Abhayagunawardena argues that adherence to these international legal instruments provides a pathway to peaceful societies and to their greater commitment to human security. Their disarmament treaty commitments are analysed alongside various socioeconomic indicators, including population, GDP per capita income, the Human Development Index, the Millennium Development Goals and so forth.

I'm not sure it's yet possible to declare a verdict on Abhayagunawardena's thesis, especially on the basis of only six legal instruments. It would be interesting to see rates of adherence to human rights treaties in a future edition, for instance, to provide greater context. (The Disabilities Convention is foremost a human rights instrument, although placed in a disarmament and development context here.) And, for all of the steps forward in greater international adherence to the treaties he analyses, there have also been some steps back. These can't really be blamed on economic indices but on political decision making and priorities in those countries. 

In this respect, Abhayagunawardena argues that within the Commonwealth, "Trade and aid should be increased in proportion to the extent developing member states support disarmament." And this is fine in principle, although the politics of military aid aside, it's increasingly difficult in a rules-based international trade system for states to create such preferential trade systems.

Moreover, the author notes that only four Commonwealth countries of the 26 he analyses - Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK - contribute much overseas development aid, and none of them have met the Commonwealth's modest target of 0.7 per cent of their respective GDPs recently. Affecting policy in huge countries such as India or Nigeria through such relatively modest amounts of aid would stretch credulity. And, in Australia and New Zealand's cases, much of the aid these countries give is concentrated on their local neighbourhood in the Pacific. Their difficulties in influencing Fiji's regime over the last two-and-a-half decades underline the limitations aid policies have, even in a region in which Australia and New Zealand are the big fish in economic and development investment.

This just underlines that Commonwealth States on Disarmament and Development raises many interesting questions - far more than any book of this type could reasonably answer. By bringing a wealth of information together in one volume, the author has created a valuable resource for anyone seeking to familiarise themselves with the most internationally significant Commonwealth countries' adherence to recent disarmament law. Abhayagunawardena's recommendation that the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings should begin to hold regular disarmament and development discussions (and maintain a disarmament 'index') is thus intriguing, and might usefully help to focus attention on the dissonance sometimes observed between member states' words and deeds.

John Borrie

Humanitarian Lens on Nuclear Weapons

There is renewed and deep international concern about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would result from the detonation of nuclear weapons in populated areas. Yet 25 years after the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence remain central to the security doctrines of a significant number of states. Drawing on a range of perspectives, the volume depicted above explores what viewing nuclear weapons through a humanitarian lens entails, and why it is undergoing such a revival. Recent developments in this respect are examined, as well as what these could mean for nuclear arms control in the near future.

The new publication was launched at UN Headquarters in New York on 16 October 2013.  To read it, use this link.

Tim Caughley and John Borrie, UNIDIR

http://www.unidir.org/NucHumanitarianLens

CD 2012: the endgame

At the end of an item posted on this site on 30 May this year, the comment was made that the adoption by the Conference on Disarmament (CD) of a schedule of activities was a step in the right direction.  It would have been more momentous if this schedule had been recognised for what it is, in practice – the essence of the elusive “programme of work” required by the rules of procedure. With its priorities adequately reflected in the schedule of activities, the CD could then have turned its energies to negotiating the necessary mandates for dealing with the chosen subjects. 

Such a return to keeping mandates separate from the programme of work might have been viewed by the UN General Assembly during its scrutiny of the CD later this year as a positive sign that the Conference was capable of responding to deep concerns about its effectiveness.  The Gordian knot tying the main priorities inextricably together would have been cut.  But, on the contrary, it was made clear by some CD members that the schedule of activities was not to be a Trojan horse for the programme of work.  The schedule, they stated, was to be no more than a timetable for the formal thematic debates that followed.

So, can signs of progress be gleaned from the debates themselves?  Possibly.  Lines perhaps have become a little more clearly drawn on the ranking of the four core issues. A fissile material ban and nuclear disarmament are neck-and-neck, with negative security assurances and preventing an arms race in outer space both following behind – running strongly in the race though not in first or second place but seen by some as possible compromise candidates for future focus if the deadlock on fissile material and nuclear disarmament persists.

This state of affairs had been recognised in the work programme proposed by the President (Egypt) on 14 March, albeit in a document including both a schedule of activities and mandates for working groups and special coordinators.  The mandates for the working groups on nuclear disarmament and fissile material would require the latter to “deal with elements” of a treaty banning fissile material production for use in weapons (FMT) while the former would simply “deal with nuclear disarmament”. This distinction softened the earlier disparity between “negotiate” a FMT and “exchange views and information on practical steps for" nuclear disarmament (see CD/1864).

The divergence of views over which of these two topics is the “riper” for treatment continues, but it sounds increasingly ritualistic.  The respective champions of these subjects know that the endgame entails either broadening out the mandate on a FMT to cover existing fissile material thereby expanding the nuclear disarmament value of the exercise, or launching parallel working groups dealing separately with a FMT and nuclear disarmament either contemporaneously or (more workably) in sequence.

Are the signs of entering the endgame sufficient to warrant a sympathetic consideration by members of the UNGA when they “review progress made in the implementation of [last year’s resolution A/66/420] and, if necessary, to further explore options for taking forward multilateral disarmament negotiations”? 

Many members made it clear during the thematic debate on revitalising the CD that their patience is wearing very thin. The debate was marked by urgings for members to show more “political will”, a thoroughly hollow imprecation as pointed out by the US Disarmament Ambassador who noted that the problem was not an absence, but a clash, of political will.  As an aside, perhaps it will be a measure of progress of sorts when members, instead of lamenting the lack of political will, spell it out more clearly in terms of an absence of willingness to compromise.

After its current recess the CD will have seven weeks in which to satisfy the doubters that it is responsive to concerns about its viability. It may choose to do so either by seeking the solution for the disagreement over its priorities by developing a less complicated programme of work shorn of its linkages. Or it may take some overt step such as appointing a friend of the President to explore the scope for compromise on the mandates for nuclear disarmament and a FMT without discounting the validity of other core issues.

Whether such steps would be sufficient to re-engage disaffected members remains to be seen. But in light of the current impasse it is unsurprising that alternatives to the CD are being voiced in the margins of the Conference, albeit without any option emerging yet as the most favoured. Meanwhile to help breathe life into these issues Germany and the Netherlands have initiated meetings of scientific experts on fissile material, and, on nuclear disarmament, Norway will host a meeting in Oslo early next year on the humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons.

This is a guest post by Tim Caughley. Tim is a Resident Senior Fellow at UNIDIR – for other comments on the CD see also here. 

The Essence of Agreement

In my recent post on "Moving closer to an Arms Trade Treaty," I stated that,

As the recent 3rd Biennial Meeting of States to consider implementation of the UN Programme of Action on small arms and light weapons demonstrated, many States are losing patience with the low level of results being posted by multilateral disarmament and arms control processes...

An anonymous reader of our blog added,

Seems to me this began not with the BMS, but the more significant agreement of the Oslo Treaty.... surely, it must have shown some of the diplomats that progress is possible...

S/he makes a good point. Certainly, the Oslo Process on cluster munitions, like the Ottawa Process on anti-personnel mines before it, is a clear demonstration of a significant grouping of States (1) losing patience with inadequate or non-existent progress on pressing humanitarian issues and (2) deciding to go outside of the framework of the United Nations in order to achieve collective security goals. The success of these processes has indeed brought home to many disarmament diplomats that 'progress is possible' even if more traditional routes seem to be blocked.

However, it may also have some other, unforeseen effects on multilateral disarmament diplomacy within the United Nations. Many of the States that participated in the Oslo Process and that adopted the new Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) in Dublin in May were nevertheless uncomfortable with having to move outside of UN structures to achieve results. Given the choice, they would have preferred to achieve the same result in the UN. Despite its success, therefore, there is not much appetite for moving outside of the UN in order to overcome obstacles in other areas of disarmament and arms control unless these have very clear and tangible benefits.

On the contrary, it would seem that the Oslo Process experience, generally speaking, has actually made States more committed to making progress on disarmament and arms control within UN structures. As such, the Oslo Process has strengthened the UN, not undermined it. It's shaken things up by demonstrating that there are alternatives to traditional processes and that, if the UN wishes to remain relevant in disarmament and arms control, it must deliver results that demonstrably improve state and human security.

These new demands on the UN system would also seem to be leading States to re-assess their understanding of the level of agreement that must exist before progress on any particular issue is possible. More and more States would now seem to be questioning the hitherto widely-accepted notion that that negotiations on issues related to security, disarmament and arms control must proceed on the basis of what has become known as 'consensus.' The most fundamental question that is being asked is, 'What does agreement by consensus actually mean?'

So, what does 'consensus' mean? According to the Oxford English Dictionary it means "general agreement or concord." Dictionary.com prefers "majority of opinion." So, the first thing to understand, obviously, is that consensus is not the same as unanimity, where absolutely everyone is in agreement. The concept of consensus encompasses the possibility of disagreement. Consensus means that almost all parties agree.

This (and in my view correct) understanding of consensus has been largely overshadowed in disarmament diplomacy by an interpretation that equates consensus with unanimity, thereby granting de facto veto power to every party to a negotiation. What's more, some States have become so used - or, indeed, addicted - to wielding veto power that they no longer think twice about blocking progress that is obviously desired by most, or even all, other UN Member States.

One of the perhaps unintended consequences of the success of the Oslo Process is that this overly restrictive interpretation of consensus is now being reconsidered. The concept of consensus is perhaps finally being rehabilitated and put in its proper context.

A clear illustration of this is the vote that took place at the end of the 3rd Biennial Meeting of States to monitor implementation of the UN Programme of Action on small arms and light weapons (see "UN small arms process 'back on track'"). In that instance, Iran was the only hold-out on an agreement to move the UN small arms process forward. A few years ago, Iran's action might have scuppered the possibility of an agreement. This time, the many other States that wanted an agreement did not shy away from voting to settle the issue. In the end, Iran, joined by Zimbabwe, decided to abstain from voting. All other States present and voting (134 in all) voted in favour and the agreement passed.

This is how the consensus mechanism should work. If this new way of working becomes more widely applied to disarmament and arms control negotiations, we may well see more progress being made, albeit with some States deciding to opt out. And the need to make progress in disarmament and arms control is, I think, something on which we can all agree.

Patrick Mc Carthy


Photo Credit: José Puche's 1998 'Monumento a la Paz y a la Concordia' (Monument to Peace and Agreement), Plaza de la Vírgen, Valencia, Spain. Photo by henneorla on Flickr.

CCM: humanitarian or disarmament treaty?

At a pre-briefing meeting in Geneva on 8 May for the Dublin conference on cluster munitions, the President-Designate of the Conference, Ambassador Dáithí O’Ceallaigh of Ireland, said that the Conference would not be a disarmament conference but a humanitarian one with a humanitarian purpose.

Throughout the Dublin negotiations, a number of states echoed this view in their statements. And many States and civil society representatives said that the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) was a milestone of humanitarian law (IHL) after the treaty text’s adoption and during the closing ceremony. A few States, such as Indonesia, also mentioned that the Convention contained important disarmament provisions.

What difference does it make, whether an instrument of public international law is described as a humanitarian or disarmament treaty?

Scholarly opinions diverge over how to categorise treaties like the CCM, which contain elements typically associated with both IHL and arms control/disarmament law. These categories can be seen as mere manifestations of functional specialization among diplomats and academic experts. But the significance of this is that special rules of interpretation and practices may have more or less relevance depending on how the problem at issue is described, reflecting the object and purpose of the respective regime (for more details, see the ILC’s Fragmentation of International Law Report: details at the foot of this post). Repeated affirmation that the CCM is an instrument of IHL therefore affects the future interpretation of its provisions.

Under general rules of international law, a treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to its terms in their context and in the light of its object and purpose. The CCM’s preamble clearly supports interpreting the treaty text in conformity with principles of IHL – and even human rights law. Future State practice in the application of the treaty will play an important role. But where practice leaves the meaning of a provision ambiguous or obscure – as may be the case of Article 21 on “interoperability” – recourse may be had to the preparatory work and the circumstances of the treaty’s conclusion (sometimes known as the 'diplomatic' or 'negotiating 'record). State’s emphasis on the CCM’s humanitarian objective will be a factor to take into consideration here.

The characterisation of the CCM as a humanitarian instrument also has a bearing on the consequences of a material breach of the treaty. Normally (and particularly for arms control agreements), such as situation would entitle all or some state parties to suspend or terminate the treaty. However, suspension or termination as a reaction to a violation of the CCM will not be allowed regarding “provisions relating to the protection of the human person contained in treaties of a humanitarian character” (cf. 60 (5) Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties).

Finally, international law recognises certain situations in which the non-performance of a state’s obligations may be justified and so – in legal parlance – not engage its responsibility. However, in IHL states are typically not allowed to invoke such “circumstances precluding wrongfulness”. With regard to the CCM, this is evidenced in the formulation of its Article 1, which obliges state parties “never under any circumstances” to engage in prohibited activities. In keeping with the humanitarian object and purpose of the CCM, states parties may not use cluster munitions either in self-defence or as a means of belligerent reprisal.

Designating treaties as humanitarian or disarmament ones may seem to be an academic exercise, but establishing and reaffirming their object and purpose through State practice does have a real effect on a treaty’s interpretation, and eventually its impact on peoples’ lives. And, stepping back from matters of legal understanding for a moment, it’s clear that - in political terms - the CCM outcome is both humanitarian and disarmament.

Maya Brehm


Reference

Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission, Finalized by Martti Koskenniemi, (UN document A/CN.4/L.682, 13 April 2006, available online at: http://www.un.org/law/ilc/).

Photo credit: Kees de Vos, from Flickr.

Gut Feelings

On the long flight back from New Zealand last week following the Wellington Conference on cluster munitions, I read Gerd Gigerenzer's recent book, Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious.

The popular science and pop psychology shelves of book shops are packed with titles purporting to explain the mysteries of decision making, or how to get a leg up in business, love or just making friends and influencing people. Gigerenzer is notable, though, in the sense that he's Director of the Centre for Adaptive Behaviour and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, and was formerly a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago. He has academic credibility on these issues and, rather than offering advice, his book seeks to explain how human gut feeling operates and also describes some recent empirical research into how the human mind actually solves problems.

Gigerenzer has a knack (no doubt thanks in part to a good editor) for explaining constraints on how human beings see the world in cognitive terms in a way that's easy to follow and punctuated by entertaining examples.

Some of my colleagues - particularly social scientists for some reason - sniff at 'popular' science books or lectures. This mystifies me. Of course, one can't expect a book aimed at a general audience to always be as precise or technically nuanced as a scientific journal article or a volume of research - although the best writers often manage it. But in an increasingly specialised age, in which knowledge is often highly compartmentalized, it's unreasonable to expect readers to have a deep background or advanced education in all domains of research. As long as the writing is accurate, and not just interesting, books like Gigerenzer's are a means for literate people to keep themselves abreast of developments outside their domains of expertise in more depth than can be achieved by a newspaper article or television documentary. Otherwise, we end up as people knowing a lot about very little.

And good popular writing on scientific research often encourages useful cross-fertilization of ideas, even among so-called experts. Many developments have occurred as serendipitous connections in the web of knowledge. Cross-fertilization of ideas is so important we made it a mantra of our Disarmament Insight workshops in 2007, bringing in outside experts from fields like economics and economic modelling, physics and even primatology to work with disarmament diplomats and prompt them to make new connections.

Gigerenzer's book is a neat introduction to a field of research that strongly suggests we need a new way of seeing the way the mind works that recognizes we are often not rational optimizers. As he said in a recent interview for Edge (The Third Culture):

"Human rationality cannot be understood, I argue, by the ideals of omniscience and optimization. In an uncertain world, there is no optimal solution known for most interesting and urgent problems. When human behavior fails to meet these Olympian expectations, many psychologists conclude that the mind is doomed to irrationality. These are the two dominant views today, and neither extreme of hyper-rationality or irrationality captures the essence of human reasoning. My aim is not so much to criticize the status quo, but rather to provide a viable alternative."

Gigerenzer's book should be of interest to multilateral disarmament practitioners because it's a light introduction to problems of intuition and decision-making they face in the complex environments in which they operate.

For instance, many of the heuristics or cognitive rules-of-thumb we use in everyday life are "fast-and-frugal" - depending on very simple unconscious rules that are often products of our adapted minds. We use these in the way we frame problems (and their solutions) and in our social interactions, usually without thinking about it.

Acknowledging and mapping these rules-of-thumb has led, for example, to improvements in medical diagnostics for coronary care unit allocation - by devising protocols that leverage the intuition of doctors and specialist nurses, rather than baffling them with complex calculations that, empirically, are no more effective.

Gigerenzer also notes that in some institutional settings, when our intuitive rules-of-thumb are at cross-purposes with due process (he draws on various studies to look at magistrates' rulings in the English legal bail system as an example) a gap can emerge between what practitioners do, and what they think they're doing.

Similar arguments could be made in looking at some multilateral disarmament and arms control processes - something we described as "cognitive ergonomics" in our third volume of research. It's hard to achieve good outcomes in dysfunctional environments, especially if those working in such environments don't know any different. Which just proves the value of cross-fertilization of the kind Gigerenzer's short book offers.

John Borrie

Photo of Gerd Gigerenzer courtesy of Edge.org.

See Gerd Gigerenzer, Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious, London: Allen Lane: 2007.

Ideas, Homework and Message

Randall “Randy” Forsberg was best known as the creator of the Nuclear Freeze idea that blossomed into a movement in the early 1980. Randy passed away in the fall of 2007 after the recurrence of cancer that had first appeared twenty-some years earlier (see Patricia Lewis' posting, "Randy Forsberg: A tribute to an inspiration").

In today’s political culture she would be seen as a great messenger. The idea of a “freeze” on the nuclear arms race was the right way to frame an issue for the times and, indeed, it took off as a popular movement in way that nothing had for arms control before that time.

Today it is important to remember that the Freeze did not come about as a result of a messaging exercise. Randy did not say to herself that she wished for disarmament and that the freeze might be a good way to market that dream. Rather, Randy came to the freeze idea from analysis of data. Randy was someone who believed passionately in the power of ideas when grounded in rigorous analysis of facts established by carefully assembled data.

After laboring for years over accounts of national holdings of armaments and delivery vehicles, in a sort of gestalt moment, she recognized the fact of essential parity in the arms race. Parity to her mind meant a precious moment when serious arms control measures could be pursued without one side in the Cold War exposing to the other a prolonged period of vulnerability to the other’s advantage.

The moment could only be seized for the cause of disarmament if there was a “stop in place” for the arms race. Negotiations take time and an arms race ‘stop’ would be a necessary confidence building measure. From understanding the logic of the dynamics of the nuclear arms race, grounded as always in analysis of data, Randy came upon the notion of a Freeze.

The Freeze had its years in the ‘80s. Meanwhile Randy was already thinking beyond the Freeze. She moved to endorse the concepts of cooperative security and alternative defense which had been developed in Western Europeand ultimately helped end the Cold War when Gorbachev took up the core ideas in Moscow – thereby creating new opportunities for disengagement and disarmament in central Europe. Randy traveled to Moscow in those years and maintained regular contact with Gorbachev’s security thinkers.

Randy wrote:

The ultimate goal of cooperative security policies is to demilitarize the international system and end large-scale conventional warfare.

Again and again she would tell all who would listen that the surest route to nuclear disarmament was through ending large-scale conventional warfare.

In 1987 she and Rob Leavitt wrote that:

Reducing the risk and fear of major conventional war is necessary in order to reduce the risk of nuclear war…

Popular attitudes continue to accept the legitimacy of using military force for purposes other than true national defense. Alternative defense policies challenge this status quo by looking to 1) end intervention, 2) de-legitimize the use of military force as a tool of international power politics, 3) increase proficiency at using nonmilitary means of resolving conflicts and crises, 4) reduce and restructure conventional forces so they are less threatening, less capable of aggression, less vulnerable to attack and more purely defensive.

In probably Randy’s most ambitious engagement with ideas, her 1997 Ph.D. thesis called “Toward a Theory of Peace: The Role of Moral Beliefs”, Randy wrote:

…this essay attempts to articulate imaginable conditions under which war might end, and plausible paths – sequences of events reaching out from the present into the future – along which these conditions could be realized.

For too long, the general question of the conditions for peace has languished, leaving the field of war and peace studies to narrower issues.

Randy was a great believer in the power of ideas!!


This is a guest posting by Charles Knight, Co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives at the Commonwealth Institute


Photo: "Everything starts with an idea" by Voodooboo (A.S.) on Flickr

Disarmament & Globalisation: Old & New Wisdoms

Around the time that the Wall Street Journal published a well-received and watershed opinion-editorial by Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, Charles Schultz and others signalling a potential new beginning in nuclear disarmament public policy, a new project emerged—entitled ‘Disarmament and Globalisation’—based at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, United Kingdom. As was reported on this blog later in 2007, momentum picked up in June when the UK Foreign Secretary echoed the op-ed’s call and those of many others for a world free of nuclear weapons. Great: the ‘D-word’ was making something of a comeback, this could only be a good thing and we pressed on with our work.

However, with this apparent progress there still seemed to be a disparity between calls for nuclear disarmament and the Trident renewal in the UK or the continuing debate over the Reliable Replacement Warhead program in the United States.

What also appeared evident, and at SOAS we heard it most clearly, was that there were still no clear links being made between disarmament of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and the problems caused by conventional weapons, especially the huge stocks and holdings of heavy conventional weapons, that are so damaging to development in the Third World. Efforts to understand demand for WMD by smaller countries—perhaps in order to counter Western conventional supremacy—must be given greater emphasis. It should also be recognised that the fallacy that interstate conflict was a thing of the past actually permitted the decline of the arms control and disarmament agenda.

Our project aims to build on the growing consensus in many constituencies that action on disarmament must be a priority for national governments in the run up to what will be a crucial review conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2010, and that this should be done by reference to disarmament in its humanitarian context. A large part of this emerging work will be an emphasis on the development of public policy surrounding both issues—nuclear and WMD disarmament on the one end and conventional weapons and the impact on development on the other. Currently, work on these two large fields is largely undertaken in separate universes, both in the way policy is developed (i.e. in separate departments) and in the way it is studied and taught. Yet there is no logic for them to do so.

There is also often a disparity between the academic findings on disarmament issues and the policy development at the national and multilateral levels. John Borrie and Christian Ruge have written about a gulf between policy-making and research communities in disarmament that can be difficult to bridge. Policy-makers sometimes pay only cursory attention—if any—to research. It is also the case that academic research, particularly in the International Relations field, has fallen behind reality. Bridging these gaps is a key part of finding innovative solutions to old problems, as well as emerging ones.

We hope to play a part in understanding how governments formulate their approach to a major multilateral process like the NPT, in understanding how civil society and the media above all can influence this at the national or regional level. Don’t forget that without the public campaigns backing up the scientific evidence, negotiations on climate change, for example, could not have progressed to the extent they have, with even the US making major changes to its traditional standpoint in order to reach consensus.

The project aims to culminate in a world summit in 2009 or early 2010, timed to coincide with the NPT RevCon and impact on it. An interesting research theme will be to research how it is possible to reverse the negative expectations surrounding these negotiations, especially considering the failure of the 2005 NPT RevCon to produce a final document. A thread of the work then will focus on affecting governmental negotiation positions and on creating useful advocacy proposals both for national representatives and the major intergovernmental or supranational institutions.

Article VI of the NPT requires States to negotiate both nuclear disarmament and a final treaty for general and complete disarmament. While the latter is generally regarded as being a long way off, it is our belief that we actually possess a good number of effective treaties (the ‘old wisdoms’) that can be extended and combined with the newer legislative and export-control measures encapsulated by UNSCR 1540 (the ‘new wisdoms’) to produce a comprehensive approach. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that by establishing and reinforcing the notion that disarmament commitments under the NPT do not just end at the comma, an effective trajectory for arms control in the 21st century can be found.

After a year or so of start-up, the project launches at a conference on 7 January 2008. I hope to report back on progress in the coming months.


This is a guest blog by Poul-Erik Christiansen, a researcher at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, at the School for Oriental and Asian Studies (www.cisd.soas.ac.uk).

Reference

Photo of United Nations Security Council chamber in New York, courtesy of Paula Eyzaguirre and Thomas Nash.

BWC: 2007 Meeting of Experts

If you were in the Palais des Nations last Friday morning, you might have heard applause emanating from one of the conference chambers. That was the end of the 2007 Meeting of Experts of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). In comparison to other events in the Palais like the Human Rights Council, it was a low-key gathering. It is, however, the latest chapter in the reinvigoration of multilateral efforts to strengthen the norms against poisoning and deliberate spreading of disease.

One of the highlights of the meeting was the official launch of the new Implementation Support Unit (ISU) for the BWC. The ISU has three staff. As the ISU’s size suggests, it isn’t designed to solve the problem of biological weapons by itself. Rather, it was created to help states help themselves. They decided not to contain resources dedicated to addressing these weapons in a single monolithic institution but to keep them in the hands of governments and other international organizations, where most of the time they are dedicated to other issues, such as tackling naturally occurring infectious disease.

The ISU, however, will be key in bringing these resources together when necessary, and ensuring that they are interwoven to form a new type of fabric - one that will offer the flexibility of lycra, the strength of silk but be as soft on political sensitivities as cashmere is on skin. (Ed – Piers, I think we need to get you to the pub for a pint and a game of darts.)

Last week’s BWC meeting was an important opportunity for experts from governments, international and non-governmental organizations to meet and discuss national and regional measures and approaches to implement the provisions of the Convention. This year’s discussions had a special focus on law enforcement. While clearly not the stuff of newspaper headlines, this kind of collective work is absolutely crucial to building a norm that’s effective in preventing biological weapons, and identifying emerging risks to the regime.

By all accounts the BWC meeting was considered a success, with many substantive proposals. As importantly, there’s a renewed sense of confidence present despite past difficulties stewardship of the Convention has faced. This will help move the BWC higher up national agendas and strengthen impetus for implementing its obligations.

Although it’s clear that there’s no ‘one size fits all’ solution to implementing the BWC, a number of common understandings, themes and elements emerged during the course of the meeting. There was also a shared sense that better use could be made of the new ISU as a catalyst in better coordinating and managing implementation activities. Another important sense was that there’s a need to build national capacities – in addition to guidance and advice on enacting legislation and regulations, some states need practical assistance to be able to enforce and manage such measures.

The ideas and proposals tabled at this meeting come on top of more general discussions on national implementation held in BWC meetings in 2003 and the review of the BWC’s operation late last year. The next annual Meeting of BWC States Parties, due to be held this December, will be tasked with ‘cooking up’ these raw ingredients into something more accessible and polished that can then be ‘served’ to those states looking to improve or enhance their national arrangements or who have just joined the treaty (4 countries already have this year.)

There is an old maxim that a chef is only as good as his last meal. So if the BWC is to continue to be at the forefront, it will be critical that each and every one of its meetings add something new to the ‘stockpot’. This one certainly did, and it bodes well for December’s menu.


This is a guest blog by Dr. Piers Millett, a member of the BWC Implementation Support Unit team.


References

The BWC Implementation Support Unit’s website can be viewed here.

Video entitled "What You Should Know About Biological Warfare (1952)", available on Youtube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6NdxEmqvtk.

Is there a Geneva / New York divide?

Bob Dylan played a sold-out concert in Geneva recently, mixing songs from his latest album, "Modern Times," with some of his old classics, including "Like a Rolling Stone," which contains the following cryptic lyrics:

"You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat / who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat..."

Nobody quite knows what this means, and Bob isn't giving any clues. I prefer a straightforward interpretation: The female subject of the song riding through Manhattan on a Harley Davidson driven by, well, a diplomat; possibly from South-East Asia (which could explain the Siamese cat reference).

All of this set me to thinking about the very different experiences that diplomats dealing with disarmament and arms control must have in Geneva and in New York - apart, that is, from featuring or not in Bob Dylan songs.

On one level, diplomats posted to Geneva and those posted to New York are supposed to be doing the same thing: defending their national interests in the face of competing interests of other countries and, in the process, providing and demanding concessions in order to squeeze the collective national interests of UN Member States into the frameworks of multilateral agreements.

On another level, however, New York and Geneva are like chalk and cheese (excuse the pun). New York is the political epicentre of the United Nations. The city is famous for its fast-paced, no nonsense, in-your-face way of doing business. Geneva, on the other hand, is the United Nations' workshop for disarmament and arms control with a reputation for being quiet and laid-back and with a history of promoting humanitarian causes. These contrasts must translate into quite different experiences for diplomats posted to each place.

But what if it goes further than that? It seems to me that differences between the political environments and ways of working in Geneva and New York is opening up a divide between the two UN centres that is making it harder for creative ideas on disarmament developed by States in one place to gain traction in the other. What a ridiculous idea, I hear you say. Surely diplomats, no matter where they're posted, will be following the same set of instructions from their Capitals, making it inconceivable that policy inconsistencies could develop between Geneva and New York? This is a reasonable view. But it doesn't match up with what we are seeing.

Geneva is less politically-charged than New York. Its permanent missions contain a much higher proportion of disarmament specialists. Also, disarmament diplomats in Geneva have a greater degree of informal interaction with non-governmental experts than do their colleagues in New York. All of this naturally translates into a good number of ideas and initiatives on disarmament and arms control being generated in Geneva. These aren't always well received in New York, however. I suggest that there are two main reasons for this:

First, while all 192 members of the United Nations are represented in New York, only 158 have permanent missions on Geneva. States without representatiion in Geneva are mainly developing countries, many of them from Africa and the Pacific. This makes it more difficult for proposals developed in Geneva to gain traction in New York, particularly if they concern conventional arms control issues with important humanitarian, development and assistance dimensions.

Second, proposals generated in the relatively calm and specialised Geneva environment often fall victim to the political maelstrom of issue-linkage and horse-trading that characterises United Nations politics in New York. This process is sometimes helped along by plenipotentiary Ambassadors who, on occasion, exercise their powers in New York by sacrificing "made in Geneva" initiatives on the alter of some higher national priority, despite that fact that their own country may have played a role in developing them in the first place.

All of this begs the question, what can be done? Apart from Geneva-based actors becoming more politically savvy and New York-based people becoming more willing to accept proposals from outside their sphere of influence, I'm not sure. I would be very interested in hearing other people's views on this, particularly those of diplomats and others working in New York.

Is there a Geneva / New York divide on disarmament and, if it does exist, what can we do about it? The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind...


Patrick Mc Carthy


Reference

Photo Credit: Bob Dylan by legduma on flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/legduma/457080723/

Beckett & Nunn: It’s okay to use the “D” word again

Friday it was the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons expert meeting in Geneva, Monday it’s the Carnegie Non-Proliferation Conference in Washington D.C. It’s a jet-set life, and I have the jetlag to prove it (cue: yawn, hair swish. Eat your heart out Paris Hilton).

In disarmament and non-proliferation terms, the U.S. scene is a bit of a fish bowl. Viewed from the outside certain things in there can seem distorted, and from the inside the outside world is definitely distorted. So it’s useful from time to time to dunk one’s self into it to try to get a sense of what’s really going on, hence Carnegie.

The last Carnegie Conference I attended was, I think, in 2002. At that time the U.S. was still reeling from the September 11 attacks and there was some uncertainty as to which direction the Bush Administration would go in arms control terms.

A lot has changed in the intervening five years, but some things remain the same. The Carnegie Conference itself remains – unsurprisingly – overwhelmingly American in the composition of its participants, albeit with a smattering of Eurotrash and others like me. The coffee is still bracingly North American bad. And, after years of fierce noises and metaphorical hand smacking from the government arms control establishment here whenever the D-word “disarmament” is mentioned, the concept still seems almost entirely excised from the collective vocabulary of American-based thinktankers and policy makers – despite it remaining alive and well in other parts of the world, for instance in the output of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission.

But the wind seems to be changing direction. This morning, Senator Sam Nunn signaled the changed by wearing his newfound commitment to nuclear disarmament on his sleeve in remarks to the Conference. Although head of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Nunn had until recently apparently considered talk of disarmament as irresponsible. Not now. In nuclear proliferation terms, he said, the world was in "a perfect storm".

Meanwhile, although six months old, there is still buzz about Nunn’s Wall Street Journal op-ed with Henry Kissinger, George Schultz and Bill Perry – not a pinko, liberal among them - calling for a world free of nuclear weapons. Arms control greybeards (there are plenty of them here) are still pinching their arms in confusion.

But there was more to come. British Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett delivered the lunchtime keynote. Yesterday the Financial Times had carried the scoop that Beckett might have something significant to say, and she didn’t disappoint. Forget the summary of her remarks on the FCO website, below is a link to the full speech in which Beckett, referring to the Wall Street Journal op-ed by Nunn et al, called for a truce

“in a sterile stand-off between those who care most about disarmament and those who care most about proliferation. The dangers of such mutually assured paralysis - as [Kofi Annan] termed it - are dangers to us all. Weak action on disarmament, weak consensus on proliferation are in none of our interests. And any solution must be a dual one that sees movement on both proliferation and disarmament - a revitalisation, in other words, of the grand bargain struck in 1968, when the Non-Proliferation Treaty was established.”

Bold words and a good speech outlining some constructive, albeit modest, steps the U.K. is taking or is prepared to take in company with others. From where I was sitting I certainly felt Beckett’s conviction. And it sent a firm signal nuclear disarmament is going to assume some priority for incoming British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.

It remains to be seen, of course, what influence this will have on Gordon Brown’s counterpart dwelling just a couple of streets away on Pennsylvania Avenue, or how much political capital Britain will be ultimately prepared to expend to this end. But although there were many sobering issues to consider during today’s discussion (Iran, North Korea, nuclear terrorism to name but a few) Beckett’s statement was welcome indeed. Signs of renewed progress toward a nuclear-free world would be even more welcome.


John Borrie


References

Transcript of British Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett’s speech is here.

The Wall Street Journal op-ed by Nunn etal is here (subscription required).

An interesting 25 February New York Times article analyzing Nunn’s change of heart (apparently thanks in part to media mogul Ted Turner) is here.

The WMD Commission’s report and other resources are here.

The 24 June FT article is here.

Photo courtesy of author.

In memory of Clive Pearson

In 1997, negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva on a Comprehensive nuclear Test Ban Treaty had recently been completed. Internationally there were widespread hopes that further negotiations would soon commence on fissile materials, and then further steps toward nuclear disarmament as part of the post-Cold War peace dividend. The CD just needed to settle a couple of niggles concerning its work programme first.

Into this environment arrived New Zealand's first Disarmament Ambassador, a flamboyant character named Clive Wallace Pearson. Clive was highly experienced in bilateral and trade diplomacy in various posts around the world, including as New Zealand's first Ambassador to Turkey. But he later said that nothing prepared him for the peculiarities of multilateral arms control negotiations, certainly not the baffling acronyms and the "late-night foul smelling rooms" he would spend so much time in during multilateral disarmament meetings over coming years.

A decade later, the CD still hasn't achieved consensus on its programme of work despite the best efforts of Clive and many others. Clive put his time as Disarmament Ambassador to maximum use, however, and was very active on the full spectrum of disarmament-related issues. He led New Zealand's delegation in the landmark negotiations in Oslo that resulted in the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention in 1997. The New Agenda Coalition, which Clive helped to found, played a major role in the 2000 review conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. As chair of that meeting's subsidiary body on nuclear disarmament and with the invaluable assistance of his great friend Dr. Joan Mosley (then New Zealand's Permanent Representative in Vienna), Clive brokered a deal that resulted in agreement on the (as he put it) "all-singing, all-dancing" 13-steps to a nuclear-weapon-free world. And he was involved in the informal "Interlaken Group" from 2000 to 2001 that helped to prepare for success at the 2001 UN conference on a programme of action to tackle the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.

These are just a sprinkling of Clive's contributions. But even had he achieved less, Clive would still be remembered with great affection by virtually everyone who knew him in the Geneva context. He was hugely charismatic and great fun, not to mention elegantly attired. Ambassador Pearson's ability to sweep into a room and make most ladies' (and not a few gents') knees go wobbly was widely envied by the other silverback alpha males - but not successfully replicated.

In a relaxed moment, Clive would occasionally admit he could be a bit of a prima donna. Subordinates recall his preference for being called "Glorious Leader", although this was (probably) an affectation. Nevertheless, in line with the deadly professional seriousness with which Clive took his responsibilities, very high standards were expected of those who worked with him. He informed new subordinates, only half-jokingly, "your job is to make me look good". Fortunate then that he was so talented at getting the best out of those who were prepared to try to do so.

Those few people Clive had little time for invariably deserved it, usually being one or more of the following: lacking in deference, impolite, incompetent, deceitful, ungracious or a whinger. Perhaps it was his upbringing in the Presbyterian chill of Dunedin, but Clive detested miserliness most of all. And he wasn't fond of “puffed-up wind bags” either - as a select few in Geneva and even in Wellington discovered to their cost.

While always very conscious of his responsibilities as a senior diplomat and Head of Mission, Clive was also a loyal and supportive person, and was a formative influence in the professional development of a number of young diplomats in Geneva. When asked to be, Clive could always be depended upon to be a frank, yet good-humoured, sounding board. Indeed, if asked nicely enough he was also usually willing to take one for a spin around Lac Leman in his very rapid black Mercedes cabriolet “play car”. This was always good for one's spirits.

Meanwhile, it was the responsibility of any person on Clive's team to "look decorative". Newbies were inspected, spun-around and remedial advice proffered: "Lose those specs, you look like Nana Mouskouri" or "we need to get you into a new cozzie and some six inch heels, inst!" For the boys, French-cuffed shirts were mandatory. It was not entirely unheard of for colleagues at the Mission to be sent home to change for incurring his sartorial displeasure. "It's got to be immaculate", he would say.

Clive was also a widely respected authority on interior decoration, although his basic rule seemed to boil down to "everything in twos, and lots of cream and black". He only got half way there with his pair of marmalade Abyssinian pussycats, the adorable Benson and Hedges. While lacking in deference and uniquely destructive of New Zealand government furnishings, the pussycats gave him great companionship, not to mention the many official and informal dinner guests they harassed.

Like his Abyssinians, Clive had an acute sense of tactical opportunity. He loved nothing more than settling down with Mont Blanc fountain pen in hand and "ciggie on the go" to "dabble in a bit of drafting mischief". And his talents as a drafter were formidable, a crucial skill for good disarmament negotiators, as many speeches, multilateral agreements and diplomatic cables reporting on them come down to the appropriately nuanced formulation of words.

Combined with his drafting skills, Clive’s great powers of persuasiveness made him a difficult negotiator for others to hold back. "We're not having that,” he'd say with a sweep of his hand, and that would be that: others usually had no choice but to be carried along by his enthusiasm and scary competence for whatever he'd decide to have a crack at. This was a refreshing trait in an ambassador, and it kept diplomatic colleagues on their toes.

In 2002, after a distinguished posting, Clive returned to Wellington. There, after running various divisions of the foreign ministry, he became special adviser to the New Zealand government on multilateral affairs - tackling yet more tricky diplomatic challenges with his usual aplomb and humour. From time to time he would turn up briefly at some multilateral meeting in Geneva, usually with a cheeky grin and draft text in the back pocket: "we've got yet another triumph on the go" he would chuckle over a drink or comfort food with old friends in the Café Bourg de Four, which he had long before affectionately dubbed "The Slophouse".

All was not well, however, and ill health intruded more frequently. Recently he took a turn for the worse. Just after the Queen's Birthday weekend, Clive passed away in a hospice in Wellington, with some of his nearest and dearest such as Joan close by.

Clive’s funeral was held in Wellington cathedral last Friday, and messages were read from the Prime Minister and other notables. The head of the Foreign Service delivered the eulogy. The New Zealand flag draped Clive's coffin along with white lilies (his favourite flowers). The clergyman was appropriately sonorous, and the pallbearers were reported to be a judicious mixture of the distinguished and the decorative, as he would have liked.

We already miss him deeply, and can't really believe he's gone.


John Borrie

Cluster Munitions: The Road from Lima

Disarmament Insight note – although the world's biggest producers of cluster munitions - the United States, Russia and China - are still not among them, delegates from 68 countries met late last week in the Peruvian capital, Lima, to broaden support for a declaration agreed to in Norway in February calling for a ban on cluster bombs by 2008. More than a third joined the process for the first time, having missed the Oslo meeting. The post below from our guest blogger Jamie Stocker reports on the final day of the Lima Conference and offers some concluding thoughts.

Many predicted issues about how to define key terms for an international humanitarian instrument on cluster munitions to be the most contentious for the Lima Conference. With these rescheduled from Friday morning to Thursday (see previous posts) and now out of the way, the final day of the Lima Conference was more relaxed in tone, with transparency, compliance and procedural issues scheduled for talks before the closing ceremony.

Most delegates agreed that the transparency measures developed for the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention should generally be taken as a model for a cluster munitions treaty (although it was noted that certain improvements could be made). The NGO Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) made several suggestions in this regard, such as provisions requiring national reports to be made public. It also suggested that states consider making the disclosure of information regarding past use of cluster munitions mandatory, if it would help with ongoing clearance efforts.

Compliance measures were also discussed, including domestic penal sanctions for treaty violations. Talks also covered the number of accessions by states for any treaty agreed to enter into force internationally. The Mine Ban Convention required 40 signatures, while the fifth protocol of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) on explosive remnants of war required only 20. NGOs, predictably, pushed for a low threshold – of 20 – but others, such as the Netherlands, questioned this.

Other issues will also have an impact on the effectiveness of any treaty on cluster munitions. One challenge will be in determining how to coordinate humanitarian efforts to deal with cluster munitions, mines, and other explosive remnants or war: because there are three different treaties dealing with these related subjects doesn’t necessarily mean that there need to be three different forums and institutions to address these problems.

This withstanding, some aspects of any treaty on cluster munitions, notably clearance and international assistance, will need to be coordinated in order to ensure that resources are devoted to the most pressing needs on the ground. This same logic extends to a variety of other areas of the treaty, including the need for regular meetings.

In this regard, many delegates observed how useful an implementation and support unit for the Mine Ban Convention has been, and it’s likely that this kind of unit would be useful for implementing a future cluster munition treaty. But aspects of its work would be quite different in the case of cluster munitions. Among other areas, different information on stockpiles, destruction and other areas of implementation will be required. Further thinking seems to be needed here, not least as work in the Oslo Process evolves and the requirements of an international humanitarian instrument to deal with the humanitarian impact of cluster munitions becomes clearer.

So what does it all mean?

Most delegates at Lima I spoke with came away from the Conference with the impression it was a success. Not only had a variety of issues been discussed in a productive manner, virtually all states there expressed commitment to reaching a treaty in one multilateral configuration or another (Oslo Process and/or the CCW).

It feels like a long time until early December and the next round of the work of the Oslo Process in Vienna. In the meantime, there are a few days of CCW experts’ talks in Geneva in June and its Meeting of States Parties in November. It is unclear what progress the CCW will make, although some states in that forum are pushing for a negotiating mandate on cluster munitions.

At Lima, some of these same states – who are in favour of more limited restrictions on cluster munitions – largely avoided engaging in substantial debate about the shortcomings of submunition self-destruct mechanisms and the testing of failure rates, which are nevertheless key elements of the rationales behind their postures.

The hope expressed by some in the Oslo Process is that the International Committee of the Red Cross’s (ICRC) Montreux Expert Meeting report due to be released shortly will prompt more direct engagement (John Borrie attended Montreux: see his post of 24 April for more details). Indeed, in the last minutes of the Lima Conference, the ICRC noted that the burden of proof is shifting to those who defend these technical approaches to show that those proposals are capable of addressing the humanitarian impacts cluster munitions cause.

Meanwhile, the Oslo process won’t stand still. At Lima, states announced initiatives to hold regional meetings in Latin America, Africa and possibly Eastern Europe. Peru announced that it would work towards a regional cluster munition-free zone. Hungary received a round of applause from NGOs and others on Wednesday when it announced that it would destroy its existing stockpiles of cluster munitions soon, demonstrating the ongoing value of national action from individual states. New Zealand announced it will host a round of the Oslo Process in Wellington from 18 to 22 February 2008.

Disarmament Insight will continue to follow these issues, so check in regularly.


This is a guest blog from James Stocker. Jamie is a researcher on UNIDIR’s project on “The humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions: practitioners’ perspectives”.


References

For more information about the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, visit the Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining's Implementation Support Unit website.

The ICRC expects to have its summary report of the Montreux meeting available in early June. It can be downloaded from the ICRC website.

Photo retrieved from Human Rights Watch,© 2006 UN Mine Action Coordination Center for southern Lebanon.

Lima: Defining cluster munitions and destroying stockpiles

Disarmament Insight note – although the world's biggest producers of the munitions - the United States, Russia and China - are still not among them, delegates from 68 countries met late last week in the Peruvian capital, Lima, to broaden support for a declaration agreed to in Norway in February calling for a ban on cluster bombs by 2008. More than a third joined the process for the first time, having missed the Oslo meeting. The post below from our guest blogger Jamie Stocker reports on the second day of this meeting: reporting on the Lima Conference’s final day will follow soon.

The second day of the three-day Lima Conference began with talks about storage and stockpile destruction of cluster munitions. Though the majority of delegates expressed support for the destruction of banned weapons as soon as possible, others thought it necessary to allow more time, as well as renewal periods for states “unable” to destroy their stockpiles within the set deadlines. Why the controversy over this seemingly mundane, technical issue?

Part of the problem is, well, technical. Many speakers acknowledged that the destruction of cluster munitions stockpiles is generally more complicated than, say, anti-personnel mines. Whereas many types of land mines can basically be stacked in a pile, lined with explosives and blown up (PLEASE don’t try this at home, kids), cluster munitions must often be disassembled and individual explosive submunitions destroyed separately.

Financial considerations also come into play. More “technical” disposal is likely to be more expensive, though exact figures aren’t available. In this regard, more expert input will be necessary down the road – Belgium noted that its experience in destroying its stockpiles could be useful.

Some states were also frank about another “financial” aspect: the costs of replacing prohibited cluster munitions with other types of weapons to perform missions that militaries currently use cluster munitions for. Others labeled this as a ”national security” rather than a security issue. Implicitly, this allows for the possibility of continued cluster munition use (at least, within this time frame) – precisely what this process is trying to prevent.

All delegations seemed to agree on the need for international cooperation, including developing countries, many of which took the opportunity to discuss their own problems with land mines and explosive remnants of war (ERW). This issue is relatively uncontroversial for the moment. But it’s likely to require coordination with other instruments that already address international cooperation in related areas, including the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention and the 2003 Protocol V of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Lunchtime was filled with discussion about what the afternoon definitions debate would bring (see previous posts). At its outset, the session co-chair wisely cautioned against getting hung up on the differences between regulating and prohibiting certain types at this point, but to rather have a discussion of the issues surrounding unacceptable harm.

However, this distinction turned out to be uncontroversial, since a number of states that have been assumed to support a more limited restriction (such as the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands) made it clear that they were here to ban a certain class of weapon. Nor did these delegations draw any “red lines” on weapons they’d like to keep, though they and a number of others insisted on the relevance of self-destruct mechanisms and failure rates for these discussions.

No one disputed this point, though several states and the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) did note that evidence is lacking to show that these devices are capable of preventing humanitarian impact. The CMC suggested that the burden of proof was now on states to prove that these weapons were not and could not be harmful, rather than the other way around.

Definitions, of course, aren’t just limited to that of cluster munitions themselves. As several delegations, including Germany, pointed out, other terms may need discussion, such as submunitions, victims, assistance, etc. The German draft proposal to the CCW, for instance, contains 13 different definitions, while the Lima draft discussion text only had one.

However, it might be asked if some concepts need to be defined, or whether they could left out of the text altogether. “Dangerous duds”, for instance, was considered by some to be a “dangerous definition” that could lead to the false impression that some duds are actually safe.

Too bad that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)’s report on its April Montreux meeting of experts wasn’t out in time for this week’s meeting (see John Borrie’s blog from 24 April). Although this meeting reached no outcomes, its report may shed light on these definitional issues in time for the CCW June expert meeting in Geneva.


This is a guest blog from James Stocker. Jamie is a researcher on UNIDIR’s project on “The humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions: practitioners’ perspectives”.


Reference

Picture of PTAB submunitions piled up near Bagram, Afghanistan, in 2002. These were part of a munition dump containing 60,000 tons of unexploded ordnance. Image courtesy of John Rodsted and Norwegian People's Aid. Downloaded from Norwegian People's Aid.