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Disarmament Diplomacy

Issue No. 53, December 2000 - January 2001

Editor's Introduction

Consideration of the impact of the Bush Administration's approaches on global non-proliferation and disarmament efforts features prominently in our first edition of 2001. Ralph Cossa, Executive Director of the Pacific Forum CSIS, surveys the tensions likely to dominate the US-Sino arms control relationship. Jack Mendelsohn, Executive Director of the Lawyers Alliance for World Security (LAWS), urges the White House to review with open mind the case for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Douglas Roche, Chair of the Middle Powers Initiative, assesses the dilemma faced by Canada in balancing its friendship with Washington with support for arms control agreements potentially endangered by US policies.

The Conference on Disarmament (CD) opened its annual session on January 22. As our Geneva analyst, Jenni Rissanen, reports, National Missile Defence (NMD) looks set to dominate and no-one can yet see a way out of the stalemate. We also include presentations made at a recent UNIDIR seminar on breaking the impasse, at which H.E. Vladimir Petrovsky, Secretary-General of the CD, and Rebecca Johnson, Executive Director of the Acronym Institute, suggest ways out of the deadlock.

Documents and Sources and News Review trace a packed eight weeks of reports, statements and developments, much of it concerning the transition from the Clinton to Bush administrations. Other material includes NATO ministerial meetings and a study on the Alliance's current and potentially enhanced contribution to arms control, Russian allegations of US non-compliance with the Strategic Nuclear Reduction (START) and Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaties, preparations for a major UN conference on small arms and light weapons, the third anniversary of the Ottawa Convention, and ongoing efforts to rejuvenate UN-Iraq relations ten years after the Gulf War.

Erratum

We apologise that four UN General Assembly resolution numbers were omitted from our First Committee Report featured in the last issue. The missing designations are as follows: Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space, UNGA 55/32 (L.25); Implementation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction, UNGA 55/33H (L.18); Reducing Nuclear Danger, UNGA 55/33N (L.32/Rev.1); Follow-Up to the Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, UNGA 55/33X (L.48).