 Disarmament Diplomacy
Issue No. 89, Winter 2008
Between Irrelevance and a New Era:
Report on the 2008 UN First Committee
Michael Spies
See also: 2008 First Committee
Resolutions: Summary and Explanations
The 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly First
Committee (Disarmament and International Security) concluded its
work just days before the US election on November 4, 2008. As a
consequence, the Committee's conduct was business-like but rather
flat, with an air of anticipation as many waited to see who would
become the next US president. Chaired by Ambassador Marco Antonio
Suazo of Honduras, the Committee ran through its agenda in four
weeks, approving 54 draft resolutions and four draft decisions. As
shown in the table below, all but the resolution on an arms trade
treaty were subsequently adopted by the General Assembly on 2
December.
Such productivity, however, did not generally translate into
political consensus on the pressing disarmament and security
questions of the day-the purpose for which the General Assembly and
its First Committee were created. On many important issues the
Committee faced the same quasi-permanent paralysis that has seized
other parts of the UN-based disarmament machinery over the past
decade. Illustrating some of the divisions, it was necessary for
the First Committee to vote on more than half of its texts-31 out
of 58.[1] Eleven of those were
adopted despite significant opposition, with groups of more than
twenty states voting against or abstaining. It was also notable
that nineteen adopted texts were opposed by five states or fewer.
In this telling sign of the Bush administration's record, the
United States stood out once again, opposing 23 texts, in seven of
which it cast the solitary vote against. The United States also
stood alone or in dubious company on several votes taken separately
on specific paragraphs or aspects of some of the resolutions.
Following a brief assessment of the challenges that will face
the new US administration, this report provides an overview of the
2008 First Committee, including a review of the main discussion
points organized according to the structure of this session. There
follows the Acronym Institute's usual comprehensive appendix,
giving a detailed breakdown of the resolutions, including
information on key sponsors, opponents, position statements and
voting figures.
Waiting for Obama
First Committee delegations are hoping that one of the first
priorities of the Obama administration will be to repair the damage
to multilateralism and arms control inflicted by eight years of
President George W. Bush. During that time, the General Assembly
was returned to the kind of polarized dynamics that had paralyzed
multilateral action for most of the cold war, when breaking ranks
with oft-anachronistic bloc politics to accomplish common and
long-identified goals was a rare exception rather than the norm. It
would be too simplistic to lay all blame for the troubles
confronting multilateralism on the Bush administration. Using
procedure as a weapon to frustrate consensus, a few other
governments have also shown a short-sighted capacity for placing
narrowly-perceived national interests ahead of the common good. US
exceptionalism and obstructionism, however, achieved dizzying new
heights in recent years, hitting its peak in 2006 when the United
States lodged opposition votes against 27 majority-adopted
resolutions in the First Committee, twelve times on its own.[2]
The casualties of these US policies have spanned the spectrum of
disarmament issues, inside and outside the First Committee. They
left an eviscerated disarmament machinery, with a list of broken
commitments that included: preventing adoption of a protocol to
strengthen the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) after
six years of negotiations; leaving the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (CTBT) for dead; abandoning consensus on the mandate to
negotiate a fissile materials cut-off treaty (FMCT); and reneging
on consensus decisions and agreements from past Review Conferences
of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Since the UN General Assembly is meant to act as a
consensus-building body, its First Committee is not burdened by a
consensus rule. The international community learned that it could
get on with some pressing tasks in spite of US opposition. However,
the lack of US support, and more critically its leadership, has
negatively impacted on numerous processes to various extents,
including: review of the implementation of the 2001 Programme of
Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW); studies on issues
such as an arms trade treaty, the safety and security of excess
ammunition stockpiles, and emerging threats to telecommunications
and information technology. Beyond simply reversing the
rejectionist proclivities of the Bush administration, renewed US
leadership could reinvigorate the prospects for entry into force of
the CTBT and negotiations on the FMCT; securing the global commons
of outer space by negotiating a code of conduct and a treaty
prohibiting the deployment and use of weapons in space; achieving
an arms trade treaty; and reforming the UN disarmament machinery.
In this regard, if the US lifts its opposition to convening a
fourth special session of the General Assembly devoted to
disarmament, for which there is overwhelming international support,
it might now become possible to update the UN's disarmament agenda
and machinery for the first time since the cold war so that it can
better reflect and address the security challenges of the 21st
century.
The incoming US administration has the benefit of being
perceived as a beacon of hopeful change. This provides Washington
with a rare window of opportunity when it may be perceived as
having both moral credibility and political capital. What remains
to be seen is how the new government will choose to spend that
capital and whether they will work with other governments and civil
society to develop a progressive, transformational agenda or show
up with an agenda in hand that they seek to impose. Or will they
miss the moment and end up fire-fighting to defend an out-dated
status quo?
One consequence of the years of impasse and setbacks in
international arms control and disarmament efforts, there has been
an increasing tendency for interested states to circumvent
paralysed diplomatic bodies and establish alternative venues for
negotiations. Some hope that the new US administration will
reinvigorate and reform UN machinery so that it works more
effectively, which might obviate the necessity to go outside the UN
and risk undermining its institutions. However, it would be naive
to expect a new US government to solve all the problems or herald
the start of an era of multilateral cooperation, since a
multiplicity of complicating political factors is responsible for
the present paralysis. Nevertheless, the renewed engagement of the
United States, with a government that is less-hostile to both the
multilateral pursuit of collective security and to the many
specific issues that have been frozen, would make progress across a
range of issues more possible once again.
Overview of the 63rd First Committee
The year 2008 was not one for major new initiatives to originate
from the General Assembly, which appeared to be sitting in its own
version of a lame duck session. In the First Committee, 26 texts
featured no substantive changes at all from the resolutions
submitted in previous years, while another 16 included only minor
revisions. Delegations put forward only two resolutions that had
not been submitted in previous years: these dealt with cluster
munitions and combating illicit weapons brokering. Due to ongoing
disagreements on how to deal with cluster munitions, the core group
that spearheaded the Oslo Process tabled a strictly procedural
text, noting the conclusion of negotiations and date for the
Cluster Munitions Convention to be opened for signature. The other
new resolution, on synthesizing efforts to combat illicit brokering
of both conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction,
appeared broad in scope but largely limited its calls for action to
implementing existing initiatives-many of which are pursued outside
the auspices of the UN.
In keeping with a recent trend, topics relating to conventional
weapons generally garnered a greater proportion of new and forward
moving processes, as well as the Committee's time and attention.
Various actors continued to push through a variety of initiatives,
moving forward efforts to: regulate the trade in conventional arms;
deal with health, safety and security issues relating to excess
ammunition stockpiles; and examine the potential harmful effects of
the use of depleted uranium munitions. Notably, the First Committee
also commissioned new studies on improving the UN Register of
Conventional Arms and on implementation of the UN Programme of
Action on small arms and light weapons.
On nuclear weapons issues there were no new initiatives and the
First Committee did little other than approve stagnant, unchanging,
symbolic, and hortatory texts. Opting to await the change of
administration in Washington in the hope that it will unfreeze some
of the current deadlocks, many delegations devoted less time to
these static resolutions than to areas where progress has been
possible in recent years. In its nuclear cluster, the First
Committee voted on all but two of its 17 resolutions and decisions.
Half these texts faced opposition or abstentions from blocs of 20
states or more. Apart from slight textual developments, there were
no new or game-changing developments on most issues. Once again it
was decided to withdraw the FMCT resolution rather than face a
divisive vote, while the votes on other issues such as the CTBT,
the operational status of nuclear weapons, legally-binding negative
security assurances, non-first use of nuclear weapons, nuclear
disarmament and non-proliferation merely reflected pre-election
realities without giving much indication of the prospects for these
issues if the new US administration chooses to prioritise some of
them for action.
The First Committee also failed to make any significant progress
on nuclear weapon free zone (NWFZ) issues, adopting a number of
traditional and unchanged resolutions dealing with the Middle East,
Central Asia, and the southern hemisphere. The sole exception
involved the case of Mongolia's single-state NWFZ, in which the
General Assembly's role is largely limited to endorsing the
initiative. The only other resolution in the nuclear weapons
cluster to be adopted without a vote was the customary lowest
common denominator text on a Middle East NWFZ, unchanged for many
years. Voting figures on a more specific resolution on the risk of
proliferation in the Middle East demonstrated the continuing deep
divisions on this issue.
On issues related to other weapons of mass destruction and outer
space, the First Committee seemed to be on autopilot. It again
adopted by consensus its two largely procedural, annual texts
supporting the BWC and the Chemical Weapons Conventions (CWC), with
the focus for both on congratulating states parties on the
successful achievement of recent review conferences. The Committee
remained unable to overcome differences on either of the two texts
on outer space and on keeping the issue of new types of weapons of
mass destruction under review. One exception to the continued
forwarding of static and perfunctory resolutions, though falling
outside the scope of the First Committee, but arising from the 2006
UN global strategy to combat terrorism, was that the UN Office for
Disarmament Affairs continued its development of a Biological
Incident Database.
Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear disarmament
The drafters of the three long omnibus resolutions dealing with
nuclear disarmament chose not to attempt new initiatives this year,
probably to keep their powder dry and assess the prospects for
support depending on whether the US election would deliver a McCain
or Obama government. As each of the three resolutions included only
minor changes to last year's texts, their level of support remained
virtually static.
Japan's annual resolution, "Renewed determination toward the
total elimination of nuclear weapons", continued to focus on
implementation of a select subset of disarmament steps agreed to at
the 2000 NPT Review Conference, including entry into force of the
CTBT and conclusion of a fissile materials treaty. New language
addressed the troubled US-Russian relationship, calling for
increased transparency and confidence-building from the two nuclear
superpowers and for a legally-binding post-START arrangement. This
year, Israel joined the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(DPRK), India and the United States (which cited the resolution's
support of the CTBT) in voting against the resolution. France and
the United Kingdom voted in favour, while China again abstained. It
was notable that for the first time in several years all the
members of the New Agenda Coalition (see below) supported Japan's
resolution in 2008. The GA vote was: 173 votes in favour, 4
against, with 6 abstentions.
The New Agenda Coalition (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New
Zealand, South Africa and Sweden) revised their annual resolution,
"Towards a nuclear-weapon-free world: accelerating the
implementation of nuclear disarmament commitments", to focus on the
2010 NPT Review Conference and recent public initiatives for
nuclear abolition. The resolution calls on the 2009 NPT Preparatory
Committee to identify where urgent progress is required to achieve
a nuclear weapon free world, building on the outcomes of previous
NPT conferences. The resolution, adopted by the GA with 166 votes
in favour, picked up support from several states that abstained in
2007, including Australia and NATO allies Greece, Hungary, and
Poland. The five states that voted against the New Agenda
resolution in 2007 also opposed in 2008: the DPRK, France, India,
Israel and the United States (which criticized the resolution for
not reflecting all elements of the NPT, including non-proliferation
and peaceful uses of nuclear energy).
The annual resolution introduced by Myanmar (Burma), entitled
"Nuclear disarmament", remained a compendium of Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM) positions. Its only revision this year added a few
words urging quicker action. This static, out-dated text continued
to lose ground, even among NAM states, garnering only 105 votes in
favour in the First Committee, though the number rose to 117 in the
GA, attributable to NAM delegations that do not typically
participate in the work of the First Committee. Notably, this
resolution failed to gain the full backing of the sponsors of the
other two omnibus nuclear disarmament resolutions, as Japan and the
two European members of the New Agenda Coalition, Ireland and
Sweden, abstained.
The text of three other annual resolutions that deal with
nuclear disarmament-related issues remained unchanged, as did their
levels of support. These were: Malaysia's resolution following up
on the 1996 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice
(ICJ) on the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons and two
hangovers from the cold war and Indian-Pakistani rivalry that
repeat standardized calls for legally-binding negative security
assurances and a convention on the prohibition of the use of
nuclear weapons.
Fissile Materials
For the second year in a row, the Canadian delegation announced
at the outset of the First Committee session that it would not
table a draft text on negotiating an FMCT.[3] In his statement to the general debate, Ambassador
Marius Grinius blamed a "small handful of countries that wish to
retain the capacity to produce fissile material in the future" for
indefinitely blocking forward movement on the treaty.[4]
Pakistan is believed to be the principal state blocking
consensus on the commencement of FMCT negotiations in the
Conference on Disarmament (CD). In his general statement,
Pakistan's Ambassador Zamir Akram rejected as "not factually
correct" the argument that a fissile materials treaty is more
"ripe" than any of the other priority issues in the CD, which
include negative security assurances, prevention of an arms race in
outer space, and nuclear disarmament. He also said his country
would endorse any programme of work in the CD that treats the four
core issues "in a balanced manner", suggesting Pakistan would allow
negotiations to proceed on a fissile materials treaty if the CD
also agrees to negotiating mandates on its three other core
issues[5] -an idea not
supported by many states. Later, in the thematic debate, by
contrast, Akram affirmed that Pakistan supports "negotiation of a
verifiable treaty on fissile material in the Conference on
Disarmament", but reiterated his country's longstanding position
that the treaty must also include past, present, and future
production to avoid, inter alia, "freezing regional asymmetries".[6]
In their general and thematic statements, only a dozen or so
delegations took time to reiterate their desire to see negotiations
commence. These included China and the 30 countries attaching to
the European Union statement, while Australia, Switzerland and the
Rio Group specified that negotiations should commence without
preconditions. The United States, which in 2006 tabled a draft text
in the CD for an FMCT without verification, only made reference to
this draft in its general statement, declining to repeat past calls
for states to use it as a basis for negotiations. While many
delegations had reluctantly indicated a willingness to consider the
US text, it had also been widely criticized for omitting
verification provisions, a position consistent with the Bush
administration's scepticism about multilateral verification, seen
also in its opposition to the verification protocol that had been
negotiated for the BWC.
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
Mexico introduced a virtually unchanged text of the annual
resolution calling for early entry into force of the CTBT. Entry
into force is held up because nine states out of the 44 named in
Annex 2 of the Treaty have still not ratified. Of these nine, six
voted in favour of the resolution, including Pakistan which
(together with India and the DPRK) has not yet signed. In keeping
with Bush administration policy, the United States cast the lone
vote against the resolution. Three other delegations including
India abstained. The DPRK, which joined the United States in
opposing this resolution in 2006, chose to be 'absent' from the
vote this time.
The Operational Readiness of Nuclear Weapons
On behalf of the six sponsors of the resolution on "Decreasing
the operational readiness of nuclear weapons" (UNGA res. 62/36),
introduced for the first time in 2007, Switzerland submitted an
unchanged text this year. With just one operative paragraph (OP)
calling "for the taking of further practical steps to decrease the
operational readiness of nuclear weapons systems, with a view to
ensuring that all nuclear weapons are removed from high alert
status", the resolution garnered a comparable vote to last year,
receiving 141 votes in favour, including seven members of NATO.
France, the United Kingdom and United States comprised the 3 votes
against, and there were 34 abstentions, mostly NATO. Co-sponsored
by Chile, New Zealand, Nigeria, Sweden, and Switzerland, this
initiative was regarded as one of the most controversial in 2007,
sparking a debate on what constitutes "high alert" and the
implications of such postures. Though the resolution drew less
controversy this year, its sponsors (now joined by Malaysia)
described the discussion as more substantive than the previous
year, though it has not necessarily moved collective understanding
of the issue in a useful direction.
A number of abstaining delegations, including China, Russia, and
many members of NATO, offered a new rationale for their
reservations, pointing to the language on the operational status of
nuclear weapons used in Japan's annual nuclear disarmament
resolution. OP 8 of Japan's resolution relied on language agreed by
consensus in the final document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference,
and so "Calls for the nuclear-weapon States to further reduce the
operational status of nuclear weapons systems in ways that
promote international stability and security" [emphasis added].
Several of the abstainers criticized the operational status
resolution for not incorporating this language on international
stability.
Considering that the language on stability had been demanded by
Russia in 2000, NATO members were far from consistent in their
approach. Belgium, Germany and Italy, NATO delegations that
co-sponsored Japan's resolution and also voted in favour of the
operational status resolution clearly did not regard the texts as
mutually exclusive. Canada, by contrast, another NATO country that
has long been a co-sponsor of Japan's resolution, cited the
omission of language on strategic stability as a primary reason for
its abstention on the operational status resolution. Other NATO
states that abstained from the operational status resolution voted
in favour of Japan's resolution, with the exception of the United
States, which opposed both.
Beyond the strategic stability rationale, some abstaining
delegations offered alternative reasons for their positions. China
expressed the desire to pursue de-alerting only as an intermediary
measure in the context of the disarmament process and reiterated
its call for no-first use declarations. Russia claimed the
initiative was not feasible for technical reasons, but did not
elaborate on what these might be. Lithuania and Canada emphasized
the importance of deterrence to NATO.
The General Assembly adopted a third resolution that deals with
the operational status of nuclear weapons-India's annual
resolution, "Reducing nuclear danger". First introduced in 1998,
soon after India had conducted a series of nuclear weapon test
explosions, this resolution continues to attract open opposition
from NATO-affiliated and western European states due more to its
dubious provenance than any controversial language. The General
Assembly adopted the text, unchanged from past years, by a vote of
117-45-19.[7]
Nuclear Proliferation
In the general and thematic debates, the Committee's discussion
on nuclear proliferation issues focused largely on Iran and the
DPRK. On Iran, a number of delegations, exclusively from Western
states, continued to emphasize the need for compliance with
relevant International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and UN Security
Council resolutions. Others reiterated calls for political and
negotiated solutions. On the DPRK, most statements reflected recent
setbacks and developments following the February 2007
denuclearization agreement. With the exception of Japan, the other
participants in the six party talks either chose not to comment on
the DPRK or limited themselves to anodyne remarks. US Ambassador
Christina Rocca acknowledged only that the process had experienced
"up and downs." Of the representatives of the six-party
participants, only Ambassador Kim Bong-hyun of the Republic of
Korea made reference to the DPRK taking action to restart its
plutonium production reactor at Yongbyon, describing these setbacks
as "highly regrettable" and urging the DPRK to resume disablement.
Australia and the EU also raised concerns about reports of
clandestine nuclear work in Syria.
Though non-proliferation was referenced in many resolutions that
dealt with nuclear weapons, the First Committee took action on only
two resolutions that addressed nuclear proliferation directly. The
US-drafted, triennial resolution, "Compliance with
non-proliferation, arms limitation and disarmament agreements and
commitments", was adopted by the General Assembly by a vote of
158-0-18, as similar margin as in 2005 when the US delegation had
hardened its tone to reflect the views of the Bush administration.
The current resolution, which included only minor textual changes,
picked up about a half-dozen more abstentions than in 2005, all
from Arab states, reflecting continuing dissatisfaction with the
text, which retained all the controversial changes included in
resolution 60/55. Abstaining delegations, which included Russia,
Iran, Pakistan, Venezuela and most Arab states, generally repeated
their criticism of the 2005 text, broadly maintaining that its
balance had been skewed to favour non-proliferation over
disarmament and that it seemed to endorse unilateral compliance
assessment and enforcement.
The General Assembly adopted a second resolution in this
section, with the title "The risk of nuclear proliferation in the
Middle East." This annual resolution, introduced by Egypt on behalf
of the Arab Group, specifically calls upon Israel to accede to the
NPT, not to develop, test or acquire nuclear weapons, to renounce
the possession of nuclear weapons, and to place all its nuclear
facilities under IAEA safeguards as a confidence-building measure.
Adopted by the General Assembly by 169-5-6, the negative votes were
cast by Israel, the United States and a handful of US Pacific
dependencies. For many, the main reason for supporting the
resolution is to demonstrate their support for universalizing the
NPT. However, in recent years, some Western states have expressed
greater reservations about this text on grounds that it does not
address the full scope of proliferation issues in the region. In
this case, as made explicit by Australia and France, on behalf of
the European Union, they mean that the resolution omitted mention
of the nuclear controversies involving Syria and Iran. While the
European Union had taken a collective decision to vote in favour of
the resolution, Australia and Canada joined the abstainers.
The DPRK's nuclear programme came up in a number of other annual
resolutions, including the nuclear disarmament resolutions of Japan
and the New Agenda Coalition, which called for the DPRK to comply
with relevant UN Security Council resolutions and return to the
NPT.
Missiles
The General Assembly took action on two competing approaches to
missiles: the proliferation and export control-focused Hague Code
of Conduct (HCoC) Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation backed by
the European Union and Iran's resolution for a comprehensive
multilateral approach to missiles in all their aspects under UN
auspices.
Iran's brief resolution, entitled "Missiles" was co-sponsored by
Egypt and Indonesia, welcomes the third report of the Group of
Government Experts (GGE) on Missiles, which was sent to the
Secretary-General in July 2008. Following the basic approach of
Iran's past few resolutions on this subject, the text calls for a
comprehensive, balanced, and non-discriminatory approach to
missiles. Seizing on the report's conclusion that the UN should
provide a more structured and effective mechanism to continue
deliberations and build consensus on the increasingly complex
issue, the resolution directs the Secretary-General to seek the
views of states and to submit them to the 65th (2010) session of
the General Assembly.
The General Assembly adopted the resolution by a vote of
120-10-50, following the voting pattern of previous years. Despite
participating in the work of the third GGE panel and agreeing by
consensus to its report, members of NATO and the EU continue to
oppose or abstain from this resolution. For many this is because of
its provenance, but there is also the view that deep divisions
between GGE panellists mean that the process is going nowhere.
The preferred approach of NATO and the EU was reflected in
resolution 63/64 on the "Hague Conduct of Conduct Against Ballistic
Missile Proliferation". Introduced by France on behalf of the EU,
the text was unchanged from resolution 60/62 of 2005. The
resolution, which focuses on preventing the proliferation of
ballistic missiles capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction,
invites all states to subscribe to the HCoC and encourages
exploration of other ways and means of dealing with ballistic
missile proliferation.
The General Assembly adopted the HCoC resolution by a vote of
159-1-18, with Iran (as in past years) casting the sole vote in
opposition. The other two sponsors of "Missiles", Egypt and
Indonesia, both abstained from the HCoC resolution, expressing the
view that the UN should take the lead on the issue. Egypt
criticized the HCoC as a discriminatory export control regime
developed outside the UN and Indonesia called again for a
multilateral and non-discriminatory international instrument on
missiles.
Nuclear Weapon Free Zones
Middle East
The General Assembly again adopted without a vote its
traditional resolution calling for states in the Middle East to
consider steps to implement a nuclear weapon free zone in the
region. As in past years, Israel joined consensus on the
resolution, entitled "Establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone
in the region of the Middle East", and reiterated its familiar
position that peace and confidence-building must precede progress
on nuclear issues.
Central Asia
The five Central Asian states, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, were unable to find any
new support for their biennial resolution, "Establishment of a
nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia". Virtually unchanged from
2006, this resolution supported the 2006 Semipalatinsk Treaty
establishing a nuclear weapon free zone in the region. The five
states signed the treaty despite concerns expressed by France, the
United Kingdom, and the United States that it gives precedence to
cold war-era nuclear agreements between the five states and Russia.
In light of the fact that the parties have not resumed
consultations to deal with these differences over the text, NATO
continued to abstain from the resolution, which the General
Assembly adopted by a vote of 141-3-36. As in 2006, the three
Western nuclear powers voted against and a group of eight
industrialized states friendly to NATO voted in favour.
The General Assembly adopted without a vote an unchanged draft
of Mongolia's biennial resolution, "Mongolia's international
security and nuclear-weapon-free status", co-sponsored again by
France and the United States. Mongolia, a self-declared,
single-state nuclear weapon free zone, reported that it had made
progress in consolidating its nuclear weapon free status.
Landlocked between nuclear powers China and Russia, Mongolia also
reported that it had prepared a draft trilateral treaty for China
and Russia in 2007, with regard to maintaining its sovereignty and
nuclear weapon free status.
Southern Hemisphere
The General Assembly adopted the annual resolution headed by
Brazil and New Zealand on "Nuclear-weapon-free southern hemisphere
and adjacent areas", by a vote of 171-3-7. As in previous years,
France, the United Kingdom and the United States remained adamantly
opposed, despite language in the resolution asserting the primacy
of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The three Western
nuclear weapon states apparently fear that the initiative, which
calls for the ratification of nuclear weapon free zone treaties,
would build a norm against the presence and marine deployment of
nuclear weapons in the entire southern hemisphere, which
potentially would have significant impact on their practice of
carrying nuclear weapons on vessels through or on the high
seas.
Other Weapons of Mass Destruction
Biological Weapons
The General Assembly adopted resolution 63/88 on the BWC without
a vote. As many delegations continued to focus on implementing the
outcome of the Sixth BWC Review Conference, a wide cross-section
commended the progress of the intersessional programme of work,
including the August meeting of experts, which focused on biosafety
and biosecurity measures and on development of a code of conduct to
prevent misuse of bioscience and biotechnology. NAM states
generally repeated their calls for a binding verification protocol
and for universalization of the Convention.
Chemical Weapons
The drafters revised the annual resolution on the CWC to reflect
the consensus outcome of its Second Review Conference. Adopted as
usual without a vote, UN resolution 63/48 on the CWC continues to
carry forward a variety of national positions and priorities
relating to implementation of the treaty. This includes emphasis on
a number of the Convention's provisions, including, inter
alia, timely destruction of stocks and protections against use
of chemical weapons. Reflecting the interests of the NAM states,
the resolution this year places greater emphasis on safeguarding
the technological and economic development of members.
Other Issues
For the second consecutive time, the United States cast the only
vote against a customary triennial resolution requesting the CD to
keep under review the matter of the possible emergence of new types
of weapons of mass destruction. A short biennial NAM resolution
calling for states to withdraw their reservations from the 1925
Geneva Protocol was likewise prevented from gaining consensus by
abstentions from the United States, Israel, the Marshall Islands
and Palau. The General Assembly then adopted without a vote India's
annual resolution on measures to prevent terrorists from acquiring
weapons of mass destruction, which called on states to join
existing initiatives-most of which are non-UN based-and strengthen
national measures related to this issue. The resolution's implied
emphasis on the continued primacy of the Security Council and
various national and plurilateral initiatives was viewed critically
by at least one delegation (Pakistan), which considered the Indian
initiative to represent an under-utilization of the General
Assembly in developing a consensus-based approach to the issue.
Outer Space Security
In light of continuing policy disputes, principally between
Russia and China at one end and the United States at the other, the
General Assembly again failed to find consensus on either of the
two resolutions under the cluster heading of "prevention of an arms
race in outer space" (PAROS). Amid the ongoing disagreements,
stimulated in large part by US plans to develop and deploy missile
defences, which could include space-based weapons, the European
Union announced it was working toward drafting a non-binding code
of conduct on space activities intended to "promote the security of
space activities [through] voluntary confidence-building and
transparency measures".[8]
Diplomats familiar with recent work on this code, one of the key
policies initiated under the French presidency of the EU, think
that the EU will be in a position to release more information about
this early in 2009.
The United States continued to stand alone in its opposition to
the annual PAROS resolution, from which Israel cast the sole
abstention. Introduced this year by Egypt, the text of resolution
63/40 has remained unchanged for many years. Its key provisions
call for states to take action to prevent an arms race in space and
for the CD to reconvene an ad hoc committee on the issue. There
were useful formal and informal discussions on this issue during
the First Committee, but apart from the EU initiative, little was
new. As with many other matters in which the principal political
division lies between the United States and virtually everyone
else, the proponents of the PAROS resolutions have opted to wait to
see how a new government in Washington approaches this issue before
attempting to move forward their presently frozen initiatives.
While there is consensus in the General Assembly on the
desirability of transparency and confidence-building for space
activities, the United States continued to cast the only vote
against the Russian-drafted resolution first introduced in 2005,
which asks for states to submit concrete proposals for such
measures. The US delegation continues to object to the resolution's
linkage of the issue to PAROS. Israel cast the sole abstention. In
the present text, Russia included a reference to the draft treaty
on the prevention of the placement of weapons in space (PPWT),
introduced to the CD in February 2008 by China and Russia, which
the United States also opposes.
Conventional Weapons
Cluster Munitions
Like the campaign to ban landmines that came before it, the
initiative to prohibit cluster munitions has provided another
challenge to the realist maxim regarding the futility of pushing
for restrictions on weapons that continue to be highly valued by
major military forces. The present debate in the First Committee
mirrored the earlier arguments over the Ottawa Convention and
pitted advocates of advanced weaponry as the preferred option to
deal with security concerns against the humanitarian reality of
those weapons, which few were willing openly to deny.
The core group of the Oslo Process submitted a first-time,
procedural resolution, noting that the Cluster Munitions Convention
(CMC) would be opened for signature in December 2008, and directing
the UN Secretary-General to discharge his responsibilities as
depositary for the treaty. Despite the resolution's lack of
fanfare, during the Committee's general and thematic debates many
spoke in favour of the CMC. Canada, Finland, Lebanon, Malaysia,
Qatar and the Philippines highlighted their support for the CMC's
humanitarian aims, while Australia, New Zealand and Uruguay went
further and announced the intention of their governments to sign
the treaty.
Due its strictly procedural nature, resolution 63/71 on cluster
munitions was able to be adopted by the General Assembly without a
vote, despite the vocal reservations and opposition by some states,
who stated their preference for dealing with the issue in upcoming
negotiations among states parties to the Convention on Certain
Conventional Weapons (CCW). Israel, for example, asserted that only
the CCW is the appropriate forum for achieving the "necessary
balance between military and humanitarian considerations".[9] Resisting attempts to give primacy
to the CCW over the CMC, a number of delegations expressed the view
that the approaches taken by the CMC and CCW could be complementary
and that any text adopted by the CCW should be compatible with the
CMC, rather than compete with it.
Arms Trade Treaty
Although many NGOs and delegations remain enthusiastic and
optimistic about the prospects for a quick and positive outcome to
the arms trade treaty process, the troubles this initiative
experienced in the 2008 First Committee may presage difficulties
that lie ahead. Following on the report of the recently concluded
Group of Government Experts on this issue, which was convened at
the request of the General Assembly in 2006,[10] the core proponents of an arms trade treaty
put forward an updated resolution that attempt to push the process
forward. In response, other delegations reached for the procedural
brakes.
The key provision in resolution 63/240, co-sponsored by 114
delegations and approved in the General Assembly with 133 votes in
favour, convenes an open-ended working group in 2009 to explore
areas of consensus in a prospective treaty. Nineteen delegations
abstained in the General Assembly, down from the 24 abstainers in
2006. The key abstainers continued to be Arab states, though not as
a unified bloc, as well as China, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan,
and Russia. The United States was joined by the unlikeliest of
allies in opposing this resolution in the First Committee,
Zimbabwe, which ultimately switched to vote in favour in the
General Assembly, leaving the United States once again isolated in
its opposition. The US delegation also called for separate votes on
each of the resolution's paragraphs dealing with the working group
to further emphasize its opposition.
Opposing and abstaining delegations voiced a number of concerns.
They charged that the drafters of the resolution selectively
emphasized certain provisions of the GGE report; that the
resolution predetermines the outcome of the process to be a treaty,
departing from earlier consensus implying a so-called step-by-step
process; and that the current approach risks leaving out key arms
producing states, thus undermining the efficacy of any treaty. The
US delegation directly questioned the feasibility of an arms trade
treaty. Singling out Israel, a bloc of Arab states expressed
concern that the current approach would have the effect of freezing
the existing military advantages of arms producing states.
Such arguments, expressed as they were by an important, if not
numerous minority, have begun to cause even ardent proponents of an
arms trade treaty to admit to a degree of pessimism. Privately,
some delegations are concerned that the all-inclusive process for
going forward could result in an acrimonious process beset by
procedural tactics, such as those wielded in recent years to block
progress on other arms control initiatives that receive widespread
but less than universal support. One seasoned diplomat with an
interest in the process expressed fear that if this happened, the
process might end up with a lowest-common-denominator outcome that
contributes less than is needed to enhance international
security.
Small Arms and Light Weapons
The General Assembly made slow progress on issues relating to
small arms, overcoming Iran obstructionism and US rejectionism.
Introduced by Japan and entitled "The illicit trade in small arms
and lights weapons in all its aspects", the detailed omnibus
resolution 63/72 set out an agreed agenda through 2012 for the 2001
UN Programme of Action. In its key provisions, the resolution
endorsed the outcome of the third biennial meeting of states (BMS),
which took place in July 2008, and assigned the same agenda for the
2010 BMS, requiring also the convening of a one-week, open-ended
meeting of government experts in 2011, to address key
implementation challenges, and a two-week Review Conference in
2012. As in past years, the United States cast the lone vote
against the resolution, once again taking a stand against the
convening of additional meetings related to the Programme of
Action.
As another example of how governments can wield procedure toward
unrelated political ends, during the First Committee session the
Iranian delegation on numerous occasions reiterated its procedural
complaints regarding the outcome and consultation process of the
third BMS and opposed references to it. After the vote on draft
resolution L.36, these repeated criticisms prompted the Lithuanian
representative who had chaired the third BMS to exercise his right
of reply. In graphic, compelling and impassioned terms, Ambassador
Dalius Cekuolis described the global humanitarian impact of small
arms violence and defended the process leading up to the third BMS
as open and transparent. He further suggested that delegations had
gone out of their way to accommodate Iranian positions and that
Iran had been consulted more than any other delegation.
UN Arms Register
After a one-year gap, the Netherlands once again submitted its
resolution on "Transparency in armaments", which supports the UN
Register of Conventional Arms. The resolution does little more than
provide technical updates to resolution 61/77 of 2006, in which the
General Assembly endorsed the report of the 2006 GGE on
transparency in armaments. Following from that report, the Assembly
made some minor technical adjustments to the Register's definitions
and, mostly importantly, established small arms and light weapons
as an unofficial eighth category. The current resolution also
forwards the 2006 request to convene a GGE in 2009 to review the
operation and to continue developing the Register. The GA voting
pattern duplicated that of recent years, with 160 votes in favour,
none opposed, and with the Arab states abstaining as a bloc along
with a few others.
Following the practice of more than a decade, the Arab states,
joined as in past years by Iran and Myanmar (Burma), continued to
call for and abstain on separate votes on each of the paragraphs in
the resolution dealing with the operation of the Register and then
abstain on the resolution as a whole. Making the customary
statement on behalf of the Arab Group, Lebanon affirmed their
commitment to the Register and to transparency in arms but
described the Register as not sufficient for their security needs.
Saying that the Register did not take into account the situation in
the Middle East, the Arab Group repeated past calls to expand its
scope to cover nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.
Other Issues
The Republic of Korea introduced a first-time resolution,
"Preventing and combating illicit brokering activities", which was
adopted without a vote despite its mixed reception in the First
Committee. The resolution addresses illicit brokering related to
both conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction and calls
on states to implement existing instruments and adopt national
legislation, consistent with international law. A wide
cross-regional group of states apparently bristled at the breadth
of the resolution, and in particular its sweeping provisions on
restrictions on transfers of dual-use technologies, though the
drafters included language to assuage these concerns. Some also
expressed the preference to keep conventional and unconventional
weapons proliferation issues separate.
The NAM built upon last year's first-time resolution drafted by
Cuba on the potential harmful effects of munitions containing
depleted uranium. Resolution 63/54, adopted in the General Assembly
with 141 votes in favour, requests states to submit their views on
the subject and ask relevant international organizations to
complete their studies on the issue. NATO remained split on the
initiative, with six members voting in favour, three against, and
the rest abstaining. Notably, the Netherlands switched it vote to
'yes' this year after its government reportedly encountered
domestic pressure from concerned groups.
Following on the July 2008 report of the GGE convened by the
General Assembly pursuant to the 2006 resolution on "Problems
arising from the accumulation of conventional ammunition stockpiles
in surplus", Germany and France sought to push forward their
initiative to address a range of issues related to ammunition
stockpiles. Though resolution 63/61 was adopted in the General
Assembly without a vote it was not without controversy. Encouraging
states to contribute voluntarily to developments within the UN of
technical guidelines for stockpile management, the resolution is
viewed as going outside the UN Disarmament Commission (UNDC),
thereby underscoring the sad reality that the UNDC has been unable
to produce any tangible outcome in almost a decade and has been
reduced to little more than a talking shop.
This report was written by Michael Spies. The report and
its appendix were compiled with the invaluable assistance of Ray
Acheson, project associate for the Reaching Critical Will (RCW)
project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom,
and also draws heavily on the First Committee Monitor, edited by Ms
Acheson, particularly the reports prepared by Ildikó Bors
(Middle Powers Initiative), Mark Marge (International Action
Network on Small Arms), Kavitha Suthanthiraraj (Global Action to
Prevent War), and Jim Wurst (Middle Powers Initiative). Rebecca
Johnson provided valuable analysis.
Notes
[1] This tally excludes the
inadvertent vote taken on draft resolution L.35 in the First
Committee, which was adopted in the General Assembly without a
vote. It includes resolution 63/62, on which a recorded vote was
intentionally requested, though no delegation cast any opposing or
abstaining votes.
[2] In some recent votes on
resolutions-in part or in whole-the United States has been joined
in its otherwise solitary opposition by such unlikely partners as
the DPRK, Iran, and Zimbabwe, in addition to its usual, reliable
list of nay-saying allies and dependents: Israel, the Marshall
Island, Micronesia, and Palau.
[3] The General Assembly
first adopted a resolution on an FMCT in 1993, by consensus. The
last time the General Assembly expressed support for an FMCT,
however, was in 2004, when it adopted resolution 59/81 by a vote,
with 179 states in favour, the United States and Palau against, and
with Israel and the United Kingdom abstaining. In 2006, the
Canadian delegation withdrew its draft resolution after it became
clear it would not gain consensus. In 2007, the Canadian delegation
found in preliminary consultations that it could not even find
consensus on a procedural decision to put the issue on the agenda
for the current session of the Assembly.
[4] Ambassador Marius
Grinius, Permanent Representative of Canada to the CD, Statement to
the General Debate, 7 October 2008. According to the International
Panel on Fissile Materials, only India, Israel, and Pakistan are
believed to be currently producing fissile material for use in
weapons. Both India and Pakistan are presently constructing new
weapons-related fissile material production facilities. Pakistan
may feel additional pressure to build-up its fissile material
stocks to offset India's production potential resulting from the
US-brokered lifting of nuclear trade restrictions. Indian
Ambassador Hamid Ali Rao reiterated in his general statement to the
Committee, however, that India supports negotiation in the CD of a
universal, non-discriminatory, and verifiable FMCT.
[5] Ambassador Zamir Akram,
Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the UN in Geneva, Statement
to the General Debate, 7 October 2008.
[6] Zamir Akram, Statement
to the Thematic Debate on Nuclear Weapons, 15 October 2008.
[7] Voting figures are
given as for:against:abstentions.
[8] Ambassador Eric Dannon,
Permanent Representative of France to the CD, European Union
statement on "Other Weapons of Mass Destruction", 17 October
2008.
[9] Dr Rodica Radian
Gordon, Director of Arms Control Department, Israeli Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, "Explanation of Vote on Convention of Cluster
Munitions (L.56)", 30 October 2008. Another CMC holdout, the
Republic of Korea, reported that it had recently taken steps to
mitigate potential humanitarian issues related to the use of
cluster munitions.
[10] Resolution 61/89-The
United States was the only delegation willing to vote against this
resolution.
See also: 2008 First Committee
Resolutions: Summary and Explanations
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