Nuclear disarmament: Verification: recent survey

VERIFICATION SURVEY

UNIDIR recently published a survey on activities, studies and precedents relevant to a consideration of the mechanisms that will in due course be needed to verify the elimination of nuclear weapons and their components.  

Attention was drawn to that paper at a side-event organised by Norway during the 71^st United Nations General Assembly in New York. UNIDIR’s summary of its contents can be found at in an earlier posting on this site.

New Zealand, the funder of the project which produced the publication, also drew attention to the paper at a side-event on ‘Effective Measures for Nuclear Disarmament’ on 17 October 2016. Verification will be among the most crucial measures needed for the effective elimination of nuclear weapons and ultimate maintenance of a world free of nuclear weapons.

Tim Caughley

Resident Senior Fellow

Nuclear Disarmament: Humanitarian Consequences: OEWG

Dr. John Borrie, UNIDIR’s Chief of Research, made a presentation on 26 February to the Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) which is meeting in Geneva this year.

The presentation was entitled: 'Measures to increase awareness and understanding of the complexity of and interrelationship between the wide range of humanitarian consequences that would result from any nuclear detonation’.

The text of the presentation can be found on the OEWG's website via this link.

The OEWG was established by the United Nations General Assembly for the purpose of ‘taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations’. It opened in Geneva on 22 February. Its next session begins in Geneva on 2 May.

Tim Caughley
Resident Senior Fellow

NPT Review Conference: the problem pillar

      
In addition to recent postings here about various blockages in the path of multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations, you may wish to visit a site on which UNIDIR and ILPI are currently collaborating - a.k.a. effectivemeasures.

The purpose of that work is to offer insights into practical ways of facilitating nuclear disarmament.

The latest comment can be found at: http://unidir.ilpi.org/?p=339

Other postings in May of relevance to the recently-concluded NPT Review Conference are:

http://unidir.ilpi.org/?p=328

http://unidir.ilpi.org/?p=320

http://unidir.ilpi.org/?p=309

http://unidir.ilpi.org/?p=292


Separately, John Borrie of UNIDIR has continued to offer insights into the risks of accidents with nuclear weapons: see his latest personal remarks on:

http://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/17739#



Tim Caughley
Resident Senior Fellow

NPT - the nuclear disarmament pillar

NPT

Several recent postings on the joint UNIDIR/ILPI website may be of interest to those Disarmament Insight readers who are following the build up to the NPT Review Conference, and in particular the development of the humanitarian approach to nuclear disarmament.

The new posts can be found on the "Effective Measures" site under these links:

http://unidir.ilpi.org/?p=185

http://unidir.ilpi.org/?p=176

http://unidir.ilpi.org/?p=166

Tim Caughley

UNIDIR

CD: Nuclear Disarmament

Just a quick reminder to followers of this website that its usual contributors are currently contributing to another site 'Effective Measures', in joint cooperation with ILPI. 

The latest posting on the UNIDIR/ILPI website comments on recent efforts to get negotiations underway in the Conference on Disarmament (CD). 

The posting also offers a suggestion for an approach that would use the CD's rule requiring a programme of work in the manner originally intended by the Rules of Procedure (rule 28). 

And the posting explains briefly the shortcomings of the ambitious, multi-mandated approaches of recent years.

By the way, the UNIDIR/ILPI website contains a glossary of terms in common usage on matters relevant to nuclear disarmament and to the 'effective measures' which parties to the NPT are required by that treaty to negotiate. (Hence the title of that website.)

Tim Caughley
Resident Senior Fellow
UNIDIR

(Photograph: poster displayed in a temporary exhibition on nuclear disarmament in the Palais des Nations, Geneva)

Effective Measures: New Blogsite

While this is the first posting on this site for several months, readers should be aware of postings on an additional site.  The new site stems from collaboration between UNIDIR and ILPI, the International Law and Policy Institute of Norway.

The joint UNIDIR/ILPI site - http://unidir.ilpi.org/ - is entitled ‘Effective Measures’.  This is a reference to the legally binding commitment under article VI of the NuclearNon-proliferation Treaty (NPT) that obliges all NPT parties to ‘pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament …’.

The new site, thus, concentrates on nuclear disarmament.  Its principal objective is to offer analysis and thoughts on the development of the humanitarian initiative on nuclear weapons.

To date there have been 5 postings on the UNIDIR/ILPI site. They can be accessed as follows:

• Why so surprised?
• Outrunning a bear is a relative thing: US and UK participation in the Vienna conference
• Vienna Day 2: The end of the beginning
• Vienna Day 1: A rich and successful first day
• An ever clearer message from civil society

UNIDIR’s Disarmament Insight blogsite will continue in existence – comments, views, critiques continue to be welcome.

Tim Caughley