Update on effective measures for nuclear disarmament

A new posting in the series of comments on 'effective measures' for nuclear disarmament (envisaged in article VI of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT)) can be found on the joint UNIDIR/ILPI site.

Our intention is to stimulate discussion on a possible way forward for overcoming the current stand-off on multilateral nuclear disarmament.

A recipe - and a venue - for convening some form of exploratory talks needs to be found.  Could the recent Explanation of Vote in the First Committee of the UN General Assembly by the five NPT nuclear-weapons possessing states provide such an opening?

Tim Caughley
Resident Senior Fellow

First Committee: a weather report

The 2012 session of the First Committee of the UN General Assembly was notable not only for the disruption caused by super-storm Sandy but also for a stirring of the winds of change in multilateral disarmament machinery. Winds at the other end of the Beaufort scale to Sandy, admittedly, but discernible nonetheless...

The endless debate over the causes of deadlock in the Conference on Disarmament and of under-achievement in other disarmament forums has had its instructive moments, but it has not yet thrown up a game-breaker. We seem no closer to getting the CD re-started than to mothballing it.

Not surprisingly, therefore, attention has begun to turn away from the institutions and to concentrate instead on the issues that are trapped within them.  More particularly, on finding other ways of “taking forward multilateral disarmament negotiations”, to use the terminology of the First Committee’s agenda...

This was certainly the case with three new (or revamped) resolutions tabled by the NAM, Canada, and a cross-regional group supporting an initiative by Austria, Mexico and Norway.  Canada’s (annual) proposal on fissile material took a different tack from previous years and included a request for the UN Secretary-General to establish a group of government experts (GGE) drawn from 25 states to meet in Geneva for 2 weeks in 2014 and 2015  to make recommendations (but "not negotiate") on possible aspects for a treaty banning the production of such material.

The other two proposals dealt with another core issue on the CD’s agenda, nuclear disarmament. Under the NAM resolution (adopted without opposing votes and with only 5 abstentions), this topic will be the subject of a high-level meeting of the UNGA on 26 September 2013 “to contribute to the goal of nuclear disarmament”. The remaining measure sought the setting up of an open-ended working group for up to fifteen working days in Geneva in 2013 “to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the achievement and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons”.

The NAM resolution, although comparatively modest, is nonetheless significant in that it reflects dissatisfaction over the apparent unwillingness of some CD members to treat nuclear disarmament at least on parity with fissile material. Interestingly, Canada’s proposal - born of frustration with getting negotiations underway in the CD on a fissile material ban  – was adopted by the First Committee with only one negative vote (cast by Pakistan, although the idea of a GGE had, in an earlier, separate vote, been opposed also by Iran and Syria).  In the decision on the resolution as a whole there were 148 votes in favour of it and 20 abstentions (including those of China and a number of Middle East states).

This level of support for the Canadian proposal needs to be seen, though, in the context of its explicit readiness both to offer the CD a further year to resolve the deadlock before the GGE meets as well as to ensure that the Conference will overtake the latter as soon as the CD agrees to negotiate a ban on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.

The last of the three proposals just mentioned takes a much more arms-length approach to the CD.  The open-ended working group (OEWG) would report primarily to the UN General Assembly, although its report would be copied to the CD as well as to the UN Disarmament Commission.

The significance of this distinction between the UNGA and the CD can best be illustrated by an extract from India’s explanation of vote. Explaining why it had abstained on the resolution, India said that “an OEWG established outside of the CD under GA rules of procedure may not lead to productive outcomes in taking forward the multilateral nuclear disarmament agenda with the participation of all relevant countries”.

In other words, the OEWG would proceed not under the CD’s sole decision-making rule – consensus – but under those of the General Assembly which, as laid down in Article 18 of the UN Charter, contemplate voting. As for the vote on the proposal itself, the measure easily carried in the First Committee with the support of 133 members. There were 4 against (France, Russia, UK and US) and 20 abstaining (including China, Pakistan, and Israel as well as India).

For those states that are ready to engage directly in the issues rather than merely in how to prioritise the treatment of them, new avenues have clearly opened up.  For nuclear disarmament, 2013 offers a packed programme with an OEWG, a high level meeting and a NPT PrepCom in the offing,  as well as a conference scheduled for March in Oslo on the humanitarian impact of a nuclear detonation.  Whether or not the CD – bending to the winds of change – manages to wrest back the initiative in 2013 and forestall the convening of the GGE on fissile material in 2014 remains to be seen.

This is a guest post by Tim Caughley, Resident Senior Fellow at UNIDIR.

A Global Year of Action on Cluster Munitions

Although in many senses, 2008 has been a whole global year of action on the weapon, next week (27 October - 2 November) has been declared Global Week of Action Against Cluster Munitions by the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), the consortium of Non-Governmental Organisations active in the Oslo Process that achieved a Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) in May.

The CMC hopes that the Global Week of Action will encourage all governments to sign the Convention at the Oslo Signing Ceremony on 3 December, and to promote awareness of the treaty. 107 states adopted the CCM in Dublin on 30 May, so it's a reasonable expectation that many - if not most - will sign on the dotted line (so to speak) in Norway.

In the meantime, there are a number of cluster munition-related events happening. Many are in support of the CCM: there have been regional meetings in Sofia for Southeast European countries, in Kampala, Uganda for African states, a meeting this week in Lao PDR for ASEAN states, and one in Croatia. There will also be a workshop in Beirut in the second week of November for field practitioners in the region focusing on cluster munition clearance and a regional conference for states in Ecuador next month.

There is also the annual conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which will embark on its final week of work according to its November 2007 mandate to "negotiate a proposal" on cluster munitions, as well as time allocated to implementation of Amended Protocol II (on mines and booby traps) and Protocol V (on explosive remnants of war).
In the meantime, most disarmament diplomats in Geneva are in New York attending the annual UN General Assembly's First Committee, at which there will be both CCM and CCW resolutions. These are not in competition, and are basically procedural, so the expectation seems to be that both may attract consensus, or at least near consensus. (The good folks at WILPF are providing ongoing commentary of the First Committee, including on the CCM resolution, here.)

New York, of course, is also a good opportunity for the Chair of the CCW's Group of Governmental Experts, Ambassador Bent Wigotski of Denmark, to consult with delegations about how to proceed, following the events of the last round of talks in September.

There are two big, related questions: firstly, over whether Ambassador Wigotski will put forward a proposal for a draft protocol to CCW states, and whether they will be in a position to accept such a proposal by consensus. The CCW's September session saw some discord, and concern among many states that talks were headed toward a low common denominator outcome - one which might undermine or conflict with the obligations of the CCM already agreed. On the last day of those talks, the Chair allowed square-brackets to be inserted into key articles of his paper, which to some seemed to move the meeting's dynamic further away from (rather than nearer to) agreement.

The CCW Chair subsequently said he would develop a new text of his own to circulate to states by now, but one has yet to emerge publicly (at least to my knowledge). A proposal might well emerge shortly, or the CCW might decide to continue work next year, which at the very least would allow Denmark to conclude its 2008 period at the helm having taken the CCW cluster munition talks forward.

November's CCW meeting, then, will be interesting. For those who would like to know more about the story of the emergence of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and the winding path of CCW work on these weapons over the last several years, you can of course read previous postings on this blog. In addition, I've just had an article published in 'Disarmament Diplomacy', which might be of interest.

John Borrie


References

John Borrie, 'How the Cluster Munition Ban Was Won: Oslo Treaty Negotiations Conclude in Dublin', Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue No. 88, Summer 2008.

John Borrie, 'The Road From Oslo: Emerging International Efforts on Cluster Munitions', Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue No. 85, Summer 2007.

Photo: 22/05/2008. Cluster Munitions Dublin Diplomatic Conference. Cluster bomb conference participants lying in O'Connell Street to make a cluster bomb shape with their bodies. Photo: Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland.

Dealing with Deadlock in Multilateral Disarmament Negotiations

We've had a very interesting start to the week on the disarmament front here in Geneva.

On Monday, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy organised a Negotiation Day to analyse the state of the art of multilateral negotiation with the help of the PIN Group (PIN stands for 'Processes of International Negotiation').

Today, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, made a statement formally presenting the Conference on Disarmament with a draft treaty on the 'Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space, the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects' (PPWT).

The same question ran through my mind at both events: How can multilateral negotiation processes best deal with deadlock when it occurs? In other words, when parties to a multilateral negotiation find themselves in a mutually hurting stalemate but cannot find an obvious way out, what options are open to them?

Moday's negotiation day offered a number of mostly theoretical answers that focused mainly on diluting or re-interpreting the consensus rule in order to allow for more fluid decision-making. This may seem like a good idea but, unfortunately, is not always practicable.

In the case of the Conference on Disarmament, for example, this strategy simply won't work since the consensus rule is formally enshrined in the Conference's rules of procedure. Changing these rules to allow for majority decision-making would itself require consensus; an impossible prospect given that the States likely to be marginalised by such a development would never support it.

In any case, the consensus rule in the Conference on Disarmament did not come about by accident. It is similar in some respects to the veto power of permanent members of the UN Security Council insofar as it reassures the larger powers that the Conference cannot agree disarmament or arms control measures against their respective wills. Whereas only 5 States wield vetoes in the Security Council, however, in the Conference on Disarmament all 65 member States do so.

The presence of Mr. Lavrov in the Conference on Disarmament today provided a more practical illustration of another strategy that may be used to overcome deadlock in multilateral negotiations - bringing in the big guns to apply a high-voltage defibrillator to what some describe as a moribund body (clear!).

Mr. Lavrov is just the latest in a stream of top-level officials to have passed through Geneva in recent weeks in an attempt to revive the Conference. Last week it was the UK Defence Minister, Des Browne, and the Administrator of the US National Nuclear Security Administration, Thomas D'Agostino. The week before that it was UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who delivered a particularly frank call for the Conference finally to begin negotiating. Nor is Mr. Lavrov likely to be the last high-level official to stop by Geneva in an attempt to get things moving again.

But there is also a third strategy for dealing with deadlock in multilateral disarmament negotiations and that is changing the forum in which the negotiations take place. This strategy may not always work, but there is evidence for its effectiveness in some cases.

The most obvious example is the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention. When the best that States Parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) could do in 1996 was to agree to regulate, not ban, the use of anti-personnel mines, this led a small group of States and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines to take the negotiations out of the United Nations. By the following year, this stand-alone process produced a treaty banning anti-personnel mines that today has 156 States Parties.

A similar thing has recently happened with cluster munitions. Again, it was the inability of States Parties to the CCW to agree a negotiating mandate that would address the humanitarian impact of cluster munitions that led Norway at the end of 2006 to invite interested States to Oslo to begin a stand-alone process to negotiate a treaty banning cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians. Over 80 States now subscribe to the Oslo Process, over 110 are registered to participate in its next meeting in Wellington, New Zealand (next week) and a diplomatic conference in Dublin at the end of May will negotiate a new Cluster Munitions Convention. In the meantime, the CCW has also been spurred into action and has agreed a negotiating mandate, albeit a vague one, on cluster munitions with the result that, from nothing, we now have two parallel negotiating processes on this issue.

Interestingly, a similar strategy of changing the venue of negotiations has also been tried out on the Conference on Disarmament. In 2005 at the UN General Assembly's First Committee on disarmament and international security, a group of States proposed to create ad-hoc committees in the General Assembly that would essentially do the Conference on Disarmament's work until such time that the Conference was in a position to do so itself. Unsurprisingly, the idea did not go down well with the Permanent Members of the Security Council and the proposal was withdrawn, albeit with the proviso that it might be re-introduced at a later date if there was still no progress in the Conference on Disarmament.

That was over two years ago and the Conference on Disarmament is still deadlocked. Time to try another strategy perhaps? Any bright ideas out there?

Patrick Mc Carthy


Photo Credit: 'Locked' by Pedro Da Silva on Flickr

The Opportunity Cost of Arms Control Meetings

UN meetings and conferences on disarmament and arms control are hugely expensive. Member States spend vast sums of money every year sending delegates to meetings in Geneva, New York and elsewhere and in housing and feeding them while there are there; often for extended periods of time.

By way of illustration, the First Committee of the UN General Assembly (the one that deals with disarmament and international security) meets at UN Headquarters in New York for four whole weeks every autumn. The UN Disarmament Commission meets there every spring for three weeks. This year in Geneva, there will be a total of seven weeks of negotiations on cluster munitions in the framework of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, albeit split into shorter sessions and spread throughout the year. The list goes on (for the full picture, see the Geneva Forum's 2008 disarmament calendar).

On top of travel, room and board expenses, one must also count the high costs associated with translation and interpretation into the UN's six official languages; the cost of printing, copying and distributing countless paper pages; and the expense of paying the salaries of the UN officials who organise these meetings. All of these additional costs are also covered by UN Member States though their assessed contributions to the UN budget and, in some cases, through additional voluntary contributions.

Given the sums expended, it is only natural to ask whether all of these meetings provide value for money. Do they contribute to increasing (or at least maintaining) international and human security? If so, by about how much per dollar spent? (an impossible question to answer, but interesting to ask anyway). The killer question, however, is; could the money needed to organise these meetings be more effectively spent in some other way to achieve the desired outcome? If the answer to this question is affirmative, then the meeting in question carries an opportunity cost rather than security benefit.

It would be overly harsh, in my view, to apply this way of thinking to disarmament and arms control negotiations (or to discussions that are trying to lead to negotiations). Even when unsuccessful, good faith discussions or negotiations on new treaties or agreements are valuable in themselves because they can lay the groundwork for subsequent successful negotiations. The same cannot be said, however, of the discussions that take place among States on monitoring the implementation of agreements that they have already reached through negotiation. It is of these kinds of meetings that the most critical questions need to be asked.

A case in point are the meetings of UN Member States that take place every two years to consider the state of implementation of the UN Programme of Action on the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, a voluntary agreement dating from 2001 in which States agree to cooperate at the national, regional and global levels to 'prevent, combat and eradicate' the black market trade in guns. So far, two such biennial meetings have taken place (in 2003 and in 2005), each of one week duration at UN Headquarters in New York. Despite the best efforts of their respective Chairs, however, these meeting achieved little more than providing a platform to States to read long, general and, on the whole, self-congratulatory statements on how well they were implementing their commitments. NGOs participating on the margins of these meetings begged to differ. According to civil society, implementation of the small arms programme of action had barely begun and much more work remained to be done if States were to make any dent at all in the illicit small arms trade.

After five years in existence, it is customary for multilateral arms control agreements to undergo what is known as a 'review,' i.e. not just an implementation monitoring exercise but a proper evaluation of the impact the agreement has made in the real world. UN Member States met in the summer of 2006 to review implementation of the UN programme of action on small arms; this time for two weeks in New York. Once again, there were many long, self-congratulatory statements by States, too little focus on identifying and addressing problems with implementation, and similar stinging criticisms from civil society (who, it must be said, also played their part in the downfall of the meeting by consistently pushing issues not included in the original agreement). To cap the whole exercise, States could not agree on a final document and so the meeting ended with nothing concrete to show for two weeks of work carried out by hundreds of people representing over one hundred countries.

It is against this background that we approach a third biennial meeting of States that will take place in New York on July 14-18 of this year. The United States has decided not to participate in this meeting and was alone in the General Assembly last autumn in voting against it being held in the first place. Among its reasons, the U.S. State Department has mentioned that it would prefer to invest the rapidly growing pot of money it has earmarked for international small arms work in more practical endeavors; such as helping countries safely dispose of surplus small arms and light weapons and helping them to manage and account for their stockpiles of these weapons. In other words, one of the reasons the United States has decided to sit this one out is that it perceives the opportunity cost of biennial meetings as being simply too high.

Moves are afoot to do something about this, however. Drawing lessons from the past, the Chair of the forthcoming biennial meeting, Ambassador Dalius Cekuolis of Lithuania, is embarked on an extensive round of consultations with UN Member States with the goal of turning July's meeting into an effective means of advancing implementation of the small arms programme of action. In an address delivered on Thursday to UN Member States in New York, he outlined some possible departures from past practice that would go a long way towards achieving this; including focusing the biennial meeting on a small number of priority issues and setting targets and goals for the future. Ambassador Cekuolis will try out some these ideas in Geneva tomorrow, during informal consultations with States here.

So far, his words seem to be falling on receptive ears. There is a long way to go between now and July, however, and there will doubtless be calls from some quarters to continue doing things as they have been done in the past. Proposing to deviate from precedent in multilateral arms control processes is never an easy undertaking. Doing things differently is sometimes necessary, though, if only to make worthwhile the thing being done.


Patrick Mc Carthy


Photo Credit: "Piggy Homocide" by True Scot on Flickr.

Reflecting on First Committee: What was achieved?

Since Tuesday, the commotion surrounding the CCW and cluster munitions has died down, leaving in its wake a deep sense of puzzlement over what actually was agreed (see our last three postings for more details). But more on that later. The December Vienna Conference on Cluster Munitions, which forms part of the Oslo Process, will give us a chance to reflect on the outcome with a bit more distance, both geographical and temporal.

In the meantime, I would like to return to a theme I took up in a previous posting on the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, the one that deals with disarmament and international security. This annual month-long maelstrom of debate, lobbying, arm twisting and resolution drafting ended on November 2. What, then, does the First Committee have to show for its considerable exertion?

On the face of it, it was very productive indeed. Three hundred and fifteen official statements were delivered and 52 draft resolutions adopted on issues ranging from the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons to preventing an arms race in outer space. Add to this the numerous lunchtime seminars, informal consultations, power breakfasts and receptions that took place, and there can be little doubt that this year's First Committee kept representatives of governments, NGOs and international organisations very busy indeed.

Scratch the surface, however, and the picture changes. As Ray Acheson, editor of the excellent First Committee Monitor, puts it:

"If productivity can be measured by volume of paper circulated, then First Committee was extremely successful. If, however, we turn to [the] question of whether or not First Committee 'advanced the cause of disarmament and international security,' the 2007 session could best be characterized as underwhelming."

Why is this? Well, first of all, many of the draft resolutions that were adopted are repeats that re-appear every year or two, sometimes without any textual updating at all. These keep issues on the UN's agenda but do not contribute any new ideas to the debate.

Also, this year's First Committee underlined the continued isolation of the United States on many important issues. The US cast the sole 'no' vote on no less than 11 draft resolutions, pitting itself, unsupported, against an average of 161 other States who votes 'yes' on these resolutions. More than half of the time, the United States' sole negative vote went against 'yes' votes from all other permanent members of the Security Council - China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom. The issues on which the US took a defiant stance include preventing an arms race in outer space; nuclear weapons-related matters (including the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), negative security assurances, and a nuclear weapon-free zone in Southeast Asia); the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons; and the relationship between disarmament and development, among others.

It was not all re-runs of old resolutions and defiant stances by the US however. This year's First Committee did break some new ground. New Zealand led the charge on a new draft resolution on "Decreasing the operational readiness of nuclear weapons systems," which was opposed only by France, the UK and the US. The Non-Aligned Movement succeed in passing a draft resolution on the "Effects of the use of armaments and ammunitions containing depleted uranium" that split the vote of the NATO bloc. Some new UN studies were also initiated, including a Group of Governmental Experts to review the operation and further development of the Standardized Instrument for Reporting Military Expenditures, which China recently rejoined.

These seem like isolated innovations, however; more like flashes in the pan than indications that First Committee might be trying to reach beyond its traditional approach of 'more of the same.' This brings into question the function that First Committee serves in the overall disarmament machinery, as well as the continued relevance of the machinery itself.

One of the issues that the United States opposed on its own was the convening of a fourth special session on disarmament (SSOD IV) of the UN General Assembly that would re-think, and possibly re-make, a disarmament machinery suitable for the 21st century. As Patricia Lewis, Director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), asked delegates during one panel discussion, if SSOD IV is not the appropriate venue to review the disarmament machinery with a view to overhauling it, then what is? It's a good question.


Patrick Mc Carthy


Photo Credit: C.M. on flickr

The Arms Trade Treaty that States Want

I've just arrived back to Geneva from an eventful week spent in New York at the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, the one that deals with disarmament and international security. In my last posting, I described the First Committee as a "carnival," and it certainly lived up to expectations. Imagine representatives of almost 200 States crammed into a conference-room, each trying to persuade the others to support draft resolutions on some aspect of arms control that they are preparing. And that's just what happens on the margins! Only when one puts on an ear-piece does it become apparent that, somewhere in the cacophony of noise, a delegate is actually making an official statement or participating in a thematic debate.

Last week was the week for thematic debates on such issues as conventional weapons, regional disarmament and security, and the "disarmament machinery." This week, States will be voting on all draft resolutions before the First Committee wraps up its work on Friday. Once all the votes have been registered, I will do a retrospective posting analysing what has been achieved this year (you can also follow what is going on, week by week, by subscribing to the First Committee Monitor).

For now, I would like to focus on a number of lunchtime events that took place last week on an Arms Trade Treaty (see our previous posts on this issue). To recap, last year's First Committee passed a resolution calling for a new treaty to regulate the trade in all conventional weapons. As a first step, States were encouraged to send their views to the UN Secretary-General on the feasibility, scope and draft parameters of such a treaty. To date, some 97 States have done so; an unprecedented number for such an exercise.

These submissions have been analysed by two organisations, working independently. The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) presented an initial statistical analysis of the submissions, constituting the first part of a two-part analysis that UNIDIR plans to complete by the end of the year. You can listen to the presentation at the UN Audio Library. A coalition of NGOs - including the leaders of the Control Arms Campaign; Oxfam, Amnesty International and IANSA - presented a comprehensive analysis of the submissions entitled, "A Global Arms Trade Treaty: What States Want." So what do these two studies tell us about the kind of Arms Trade Treaty that States want?

First and foremost, it would seem that most States agree that such a treaty is feasible. 153 States voted in favour of the Arms Trade Treaty resolution last year. Of the States that have submitted their views to the Secretary-General, 89 specifically state their belief in its feasibility. Also, a number of regional and international instruments relating to the arms trade already exist. Finally, an Arms Trade Treaty would largely collect and codify fundamental principles of international law that also already exist.

What States think about the scope of an Arms Trade Treaty can best be illustrated by a quote from the UNIDIR study:

"Most States indicated that an Arms Trade Treaty should cover 'all conventional weapons.' Many gave specific examples such as 'tanks and other armoured vehicles', 'combat aircraft', 'helicopters', 'warships' and so on. Most states included 'small arms and light weapons', 'landmines' and 'Man Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS)' in their lists.

In addition, some States included within the scope of the treaty such items as ammunition, parts and components, technology, and manufacturing equipment, as well as activities like brokering, licensed production and technical assistance.

The criteria that States consider most important to take into consideration before authorising arms transfers are: Security Council arms embargoes, human rights considerations, potential violations of international humanitarian law, and possible diversion to terrorists or use in terrorist acts.

The Geneva Forum will bring the authors of the two studies together at the beginning of next year to compare results and to help transmit any lessons learned from the analyses to the Group of Governmental Experts that will conduct an Arms Trade Treaty feasibility study beginning in February 2008.


Patrick Mc Carthy


Reference

Photo credit: Control Arms

The First Committee Carnival Begins

Last week, the UN General Assembly's First Committee, which deals with disarmament and international security, began its annual 4-week marathon of arm-twisting and horse trading that will result, at the end of the month, in a crop of draft resolutions on almost every conceivable aspect of disarmament, arms control and international security. From guns, mines and missiles; through chemical, biological and nuclear weapons; to preventing an arms race in outer space; all this, and much more, will be discussed, debated and voted on in New York over these four weeks.

It's difficult, to say the least, for a casual observer to get an overview of what goes on at First Committee (not to mention understanding it all). We can be very grateful, therefore, for the excellent reporting provided by the First Committee Monitor produced by the Reaching Critical Will project. Even so, there's a lot of information to keep abreast of. 192 States (yes, all UN Member States are also members of the First Committee) barter and persuade, offer and demand concessions, in order to push through "their" draft resolutions, preferably without a vote (which implies consensus agreement) or with the highest number of votes possible.

In the first 2007 edition of the First Committee Monitor, Ray Acheson of Reaching Critical Will described the First Committee as being "generally redundant." While many may agree - and I would certainly agree that it could be approaching its work in a more effective manner - there is, nevertheless, something to be said for this annual orgy of disarmament debate.

First of all, voting happens. Unlike other arms control fora where the consensus rule or practice essentially hands every State a veto over every decision - e.g. the Conference on Disarmament, the Biological Weapons Convention, the Inhumane Weapons Convention, etc. - States have to publicly display their colours at the First Committee. They must vote either yes or no, or abstain, on every draft resolution. At First Committee, there is nowhere to hide. This is a huge bonus for civil society, since it tells them exactly where every State stands on every issue presented, allowing them to fine-tune their advocacy work as a result.

Even the permanent members of the Security Council, accustomed as they are to their Security Council veto, must sink or swim in the First Committee's flat organisational structure where the concept of sovereign equality reigns. This sometimes allows the First Committee to be instrumental in initiating important new arms control initiatives. At last year's meeting, for example, a resolution calling for a new treaty to control the trade in all conventional weapons (a so-called Arms Trade Treaty) was passed with 153 votes in favour and one against, the lone vote cast by the United States. This process is now underway and the United States is deciding whether to join an expert group that will conduct an initial feasibility study.

Some interesting new initiatives are already beginning to emerge at this year's meeting. For example, Chile, New Zealand, Nigeria, Sweden and Switzerland are reportedly manoeuvring to introduce a draft resolution calling on the nuclear weapons States to de-alert their nukes (i.e. to remove them from "launch on warning" status).

I'll be attending First Committee next week and hope to get an up-close view of what's going on. I'll provide my analysis in a later posting. In the meantime, I encourage you to tune in to the First Committee Monitor to find out where your country stands on these important issues.


Patrick Mc Carthy


Reference

Photo credit: Joe Kaehny on Flickr.