Disarmament Diplomacy

A President's Assessment of the 2005 NPT Review Conference

Sergio de Queiroz Duarte

There are probably as many assessments of the outcome of the 2005 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as there were divergent views and positions during the three-year preparations and throughout the Conference itself. In a June lecture he gave in Brazil, Dr. Hans Blix said that "different States are gloomy for different reasons".

Good guys and bad guys may take different shapes, according to different interests and perceptions. By and large, as far as I am able to discern, there are some who did not consider the Conference a failure, probably reasoning that the lack of concrete results left the existing situation in place, though perhaps in suspension: no additional constraints were required from either non-nuclear or nuclear parties. I would add, however, that a large number would agree that by failing to produce at least some of the expected results, the lack of progress at the Conference contributed to a worrying trend that is weakening the multilateral system of checks and balances in the field of disarmament.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan deemed the Review Conference "a missed opportunity", and I fully concur with that opinion. In my view, there seems to exist a much deeper gulf between the aims and interests of those who possess atomic weapons and of those who took the decision to forgo the nuclear military option. At stake, as I see it, is confidence in the ability of the NPT to face old as well as new challenges to the regime it instituted. Several member states came out of the Conference unconvinced that the Treaty can still provide reasonable assurance that proliferation has been checked and that progress in nuclear disarmament can be achieved. Nevertheless, it is still regarded as the 'cornerstone' of the international non-proliferation regime and as a fundamental pillar of peace and security.

In evaluating the 2005 Review Conference, one should not succumb to the temptation of apportioning blame to individual states party or decrying specific positions that were taken before and during the actual work in New York. Each party has every right to conduct its arms control and non-proliferation policies and to seek support for them as it sees fit, provided, of course, that these policies do not betray the obligations undertaken in the NPT and other international agreements. Individual or group positions taken at the Conference are to be respected on their merits.

By the same token, it is not for the president to decide who is right or who is wrong; all that is expected from the person entrusted with steering the meeting is fairness, impartiality, commitment and above all, infinite patience. The rest is mainly incumbent on the parties themselves; in the accepted system of absolute consensus that rules international meetings on security matters, it takes only one dissenting voice - provided it is strong enough - to thwart the most carefully crafted agreement.

The president of a conference of such importance is also entitled to the respect of member states, observers and the public at large, as long as he or she displays the attributes mentioned above, however difficult it may prove to be. As for myself, I am deeply grateful and proud of the expressions of support I received from virtually every delegation, individually or through regional groups, during the Conference and at its disappointing end.

Since the previous Review, five years before, the preparations for the 2005 Conference had been the object of intense interest by the international community because of the unprecedented strains that the Treaty has been put under in recent years. Concern over the credibility and resilience of the NPT increased in the last decade of the 1990s and particularly in the first few years of the 21st century. In many capitals and in academic circles, much thought was devoted to devise ways and means to strengthen the regime in order to face the challenges of today's world. As president-designate, I received from the third session of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom), in 2004, the mandate to carry out extensive consultations with states parties, to try to find common ground both on questions of procedure and of substance that might allow for progress. These consultations showed to me, even before the start of the Conference, that concerns and positions were very wide apart. No convergence towards meaningful agreement seemed possible. The high level of mistrust and intransigence made me very sceptical about the possibility of achieving even partial success.

Disagreement was painfully obvious even before the Second PrepCom, when the opinion was voiced that the success of the forthcoming Conference did not necessarily depend on a final consensus document. Contrariwise, most parties believed that in order to achieve progress it would be necessary to find convergent views on practical solutions for several pressing problems to be faced by the Conference: alleged violations of non-proliferation obligations, perceived lack of willingness to uphold previous commitments in the field of nuclear disarmament, withdrawal by one party and concern over the possibility of further defections, emergence of nuclear-capable states outside the Treaty, and the need to reinforce verification and institutional mechanisms, to name only a few. Moreover, these Parties felt that unless the level of agreement reached on specific measures could be adequately recorded, the success of the Conference would be in jeopardy.

During the round of consultations in several capitals prior to the opening of the Conference, one could already feel that the high level of mistrust would make it very difficult to achieve agreement on the procedural aspects left over from the Third PrepCom, so as to allow the Conference to adopt an agenda at the very start of its work.

Unfortunately, my efforts to put together acceptable formulations for the crucial point 16 of the Provisional Agenda and other organisational aspects in time for the opening of the Conference were not successful. As we know, it was almost three weeks into the time allotted for the Conference before the Main Committees and their subsidiary bodies could finally sit down to look into the substance of the items under their purview. By then, of course, the sometimes angry tone of the wrangling had taken its toll, and in any case very little time was available for any useful work.

The indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995 represented the achievement of a goal set out in the text of the Treaty by their original proponents. Agreement on the extension, which consolidated the international regime of non-proliferation, became possible because of the acceptance by the nuclear-weapon Parties of a certain number of further commitments in the field of disarmament. Five years later, at the 2000 Review Conference, faith in the validity of the NPT as both a non-proliferation and a nuclear disarmament pact was solidified by the acceptance of the 13 practical steps for the systematic and progressive efforts to implement Article VI, backed by the "unequivocal undertaking" by the nuclear weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament.

The 1995 and 2000 Review Conferences can rightfully be regarded as a high mark in the history of the NPT. During the preparatory phase leading to the 2005 Review Conference, several parties argued that the regime would be irreparably compromised if the agreements achieved in the previous two Conferences would somehow be revoked or downgraded. Despite contrary arguments, there was a widespread sentiment among non-nuclear parties that this was exactly what had been happening during the few years between 2000 and 2005. At the 2005 Conference some parties even voiced regret over their agreement to extend the NPT indefinitely without having extracted in exchange stronger commitments from the nuclear-weapon parties. Although no defections are contemplated, at least for the time being, such expressions of dissatisfaction and frustration are certainly matters for concern.

Naturally, different parties and groups of parties pursued widely different objectives at the Conference. That is not in itself a negative trend; after all, multilateral diplomacy is about the reconciling of divergent, or even opposing, interests, in order to push forward a common cause.

At the Conference, however, it soon became clear that some would not accept any result unless their national concerns were fully represented in the final outcome of the discussions, to the detriment or exclusion of other parties' views. Delegations were so entrenched in their positions, opinions were so strongly held and mistrust so pervasive, that mutual accusations frequently replaced serious discussion, and at the end of the day no common ground could be found. The Chairs of the Main Committees and of their subsidiary bodies tried very hard, in the short time available to them, to find agreement on the major issues facing the Conference. But it became clear that wider questions would have to be resolved before any meaningful results could be achieved.

Fundamental differences were also evident within the main regional groups, whose coordinators tried their best to achieve workable common positions. If they can claim success in helping solve some of the procedural aspects, as was the case of the hard-fought agreement on the agenda and programme of work, asterisks and all, it was unfortunately too little too late. Neither could other groupings of parties muster enough energy and creativity to overcome the dark atmosphere of suspicion and extreme views.

One can only regret that even the five nuclear weapon parties, which have important responsibilities and interests in common regarding disarmament and nonproliferation, were not able to arrive at a joint declaration, despite having worked hard since well before and until the last few minutes of the Conference. From all indications, their main, albeit not the only, source of disagreement centred around a question that also concerns the wide majority of states parties, namely the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Ultimately, as we know, the 2005 Conference could not produce a single recommendation of substance. In the last few days of the work, after intense consultations, and with the help of the able Secretariat, I came to the conclusion that it would be impossible even for myself to make a meaningful Presidential statement that would not be challenged by one party or another. Rather than producing a soon-to-be-forgotten piece of my own wisdom, and suffer a hollow debate on its status, I decided to let the Conference face its own responsibility for the failure, and closed it without attempting to sum up the proceedings. In fact, there was very little, or virtually nothing, that could have been summed up. The final statements of many delegations provide a clear picture of disappointment and regret at the absence of a substantive outcome.

The result (or lack thereof), of the 2005 Review Conference indicates that the international community has reached a crossroads with regard to nuclear disarmament and proliferation. Several observers of the world scene concur with the opinion that a situation in which a handful of nations claim the exclusive privilege of possessing and maintaining indefinitely their deadly arsenals cannot last for long. Yet, concrete steps toward nuclear disarmament seem as distant as ever and the danger of proliferation is today more concrete than it was at the inception of the NPT. There are now at least three nuclear weapon states besides the five recognised by the NPT; and the world cannot dismiss the threat of additional states coming to achieve nuclear weapon capability, particularly if these are found out to have violated the obligations set by the NPT for non-nuclear parties.

The possibility that non-state actors get their hands on such weapons is a frightening prospect, and the NPT can play an important part in preventing it from happening. But the immediate task, which the 2005 Conference failed to accomplish, is to achieve a workable balance between the need to reduce further, and eventually eliminate, arsenals which threaten everyone's security, on the one hand, and the need to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons without jeopardising legitimate aspirations for economic and technological progress, on the other.

In the years of the cold war, the NPT was able to provide an acceptable answer to this thorny question; for the 21st century, however, it is imperative to strengthen the basic bargain that made the Treaty possible. For the overwhelming majority of delegations to the 2005 Review Conference, this could only be accomplished by building on the progress achieved in past conferences, particularly 1995 and 2000. Others held a different view.

International efforts to achieve enhanced security for all seem to be now in serious jeopardy. During the past decade or so, the international community witnessed recent setbacks or serious difficulties in related areas, such as the entering into force of the CTBT and the operation of the Conventions on biological and chemical weapons, not to mention wider issues such as the establishment of universal legal regimes on penal responsibility, humanitarian law or the environment. This perception was reinforced immediately after the Review Conference, at the Millennium Summit.

The international community must overcome this situation through cooperation rather than confrontation. At the Review Conference, a strategy that would have forced it to confront publicly divisive issues in an atmosphere of deep suspicion might only exacerbate existing disagreement and hasten the alienation of essential, indispensable players. I believe it is more constructive to see the failure of the Conference as a warning signal that may encourage responsible governments, both in nuclear and non-nuclear States, to search for realistic, multilaterally acceptable ways to face the hard choices of our time. Public opinion, including concerned civil society organisations, should concentrate their work on those who are entrusted with taking decisions, rather than apply pressure on agents who operate under strict instructions. The limelight is not always a wise guru.

Above all, confidence in the multilateral system must be strengthened if the NPT is to be strengthened. And for confidence to be strengthened, treaties and agreements must be fully complied with; multilateral progress in ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction must be pursued; and intentions must be clearly stated and supported by action. Compliance, implementation and verification are vital concepts to ensure that existing treaties and agreements in the field of disarmament and international security are respected.

The key word here is accountability: every party, without exception, must be accountable for its behaviour. If parties are seen as backtracking from previous commitments or harbouring hidden objectives that contradict the obligations they entered into, confidence is reduced and it becomes harder to maintain the health of the system.

It is important to recall here the central objectives of the NPT: to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to new states, to promote the goal of nuclear disarmament and to further the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Progress on all three fronts must be simultaneously pursued, and progress in one direction does not preclude progress in the other. Those who attach absolute priority to one or another of those objectives should understand that they are complementary and mutually reinforcing, and must thus be pursued in parallel. There is no possibility of success if each group or party clings to its own narrow perceptions. One cannot expect to reinvent the wheel at each turn of world events. In my view, that was one of the main reasons for failure in 2005. We must prevent it from happening again in 2010.

Ambassador Sergio Duarte was unanimously elected President of the 2005 NPT Review Conference, after a distinguished 48-year career in the Foreign Service of Brazil, from which he retired in November 2004. In addition to other responsibilities, he has served in different capacities in Brazilian Delegations to several multilateral disarmament bodies since 1966, including the ENDC, the fore-runner of the Conference on Disarmament, as well as the CD, UN General Assembly and Disarmament Commission. He represented Brazil on the IAEA Board of Governors from 1999 to 2002, serving as Chair of the Board of Governors for the period 1999-2000.

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© 2005 The Acronym Institute.