The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
The NPT Review Conference 2005: Acronym Special Coverage
Imagine "a nuclear catastrophe in one of our great cities":
NPT Review Conference Day 1 (May 2)
Rebecca Johnson
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As the seventh review conference of the NPT states parties
opened in New York on May 2, 2005, two very different attitudes
were on display. Though lip-service was paid to the NPT as the
"cornerstone" of nonproliferation, the great hall of the General
Assembly, which should have been packed with the representatives of
nearly 190 states parties, was half empty. By contrast, hundreds of
NGOs and representatives of civil society, including elected Mayors
and officials from cities and towns around the world, queued for
hours to get into the United Nations building because they wanted
to bear witness to the vital importance of eliminating nuclear
weapons.
On Sunday, thousands of people from some 120 countries had
marched through New York to call for a nuclear weapon free world,
together with the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a brave
number of 'hibakusha' - atomic bomb survivors. On Monday, the
newly-elected President of the Review Conference, Ambassador Sergio
de Queiroz Duarte of Brazil, admitted that there was still no
agreement on an agenda for the conference. Duarte pushed for the
agenda to be agreed by the end of the week and exhorted states to
show "genuine cooperation, wisdom and enlightened
statesmanship".
Meanwhile, the conference elected various officials by silent
acclaim and began its 'General Debate' of national and group
statements. Again, there was a marked contrast between the
compelling urgency of the speeches delivered by the UN
Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, and IAEA Director-General Mohamed
ElBaradei, and the first 12 statements, which can be accessed
directly from http://www.un.org/events/npt2005/statements/
These came from a range of different positions and some were
delivered by senior Government Ministers. Though many tried to be
positive, there was an air of defeatism, as if most delegations
were just going through the motions. The salient issues were
checked off one by one, with some differences of emphasis or
characterisation, but very little was offered that could give hope
of the kind of "bold", constructive decisions that Mr Annan had
called for.
The Secretary-General's Vision
The most effective speech of the day was that of the UN
Secretary-General. To jolt states out of their complacency, he had
them imagine "a nuclear catastrophe in one of our great cities":
was it terrorism, an act of aggression or an accident? Depicting
the impact - not just the obvious annihilation and pain of those
directly affected, but the less thought-about implications for
hard-won freedoms and human rights, development and trade (such as
accompanied the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington) - he posed
the question we would have to ask ourselves, "Could I have done
more to reduce the risk by strengthening the regime designed to do
so?". He acknowledged that the states would view the NPT's
challenges and tasks differently, and called on the states to
"recognise all these truths... [and] to agree that they are all too
important to be held hostage to the politics of the past. And I
challenge you to acknowledge that they all impose responsibilities
on all states." Secretary-General Annan then identified a number of
actions:
i) strengthen confidence in the integrity of the NPT and work
out how to address violations and withdrawals.
ii) make compliance measures more effective. In this regard he
called for the Model Additional Protocol to be universalised and
made the new standard for verifying compliance.
iii) reduce the threat of proliferation not only with regard to
states, but also non-state actors, including the "universal
obligation on all states to establish effective national controls
and enforcement measures".
iv) get to grips with the "Janus-like character of nuclear
energy". He commended the IAEA Director-General for working to
advance consensus on how to manage the fuel cycle.
The S-G went further, calling for prompt negotiation of an FMCT,
reaffirmation of the moratorium on nuclear testing and to early
entry into force of the CTBT; dealerting of all nuclear weapons;
further irreversible reductions to bring warhead numbers down to
hundreds, not thousands... "But you must go further. Many states
still live under a nuclear umbrella, whether of their own or an
ally. Ways must be found to lessen, and ultimately overcome, their
reliance on nuclear deterrence."
Before closing with a quote from Robert Oppenheimer, the S-G
concluded "our world will not come close to this vision if you
accept only some of the truths that will be uttered during this
conference. As custodians of the NPT, you must come to terms with
all the nuclear dangers that threaten humanity".
IAEA Priorities
IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei gave a comprehensive and
detailed overview of the situation from the point of view of the
agency charged both with promoting nuclear energy and overseeing
safeguards to prevent nuclear weapons programmes. These
included:
i) ridding the world of nuclear weapons; "zero tolerance" for
new states developing nuclear weapons; and supporting peaceful uses
of nuclear energy;
ii) strengthening the IAEA's verification authority;
iii) "better control over proliferation-sensitive parts of the
nuclear fuel cycle: activities that involve uranium enrichment and
plutonium separation;
iv) securing and controlling nuclear material;
v) show firm commitment to nuclear disarmament - "as long as
some countries place strategic reliance on nuclear weapons as a
deterrent, other countries will emulate them... we cannot delude
ourselves into thinking otherwise";
vi) verification efforts should be backed by more effective
mechanisms for dealing with non-compliance - "the Security Council
must consider promptly the implications for international peace and
security, and take the appropriate measures";
vii) address the security concerns of all.
NPT Housekeeping
As noted above, Ambassador Sergio de Queiroz Duarte of Brazil
was confirmed as President. Also agreed were:
Chair of Main Committee I (nuclear disarmament): Ambassador
Sudjadnan Parnohadinigrat of Indonesia;
Chair of MC II (safeguards etc): Ambassador Laszló
Mólnár of Hungary;
Chair of MC III (nuclear energy): Ambassador Elisabet
Borsiin-Bonnier of Sweden.
Chair of Drafting Committee: Ambassador Doru Costea of
Romania.
Jerzy Zaleski replaced Sylvana da Silva as Secretary-General of
the Conference, to manage the Secretariat and related
functions.
The NPT also adopted the draft rules of procedure agreed in a
rush at the 2004 PrepCom. Some of the vice-chairs and vice
presidents have also been nominated, but too many to list. Various
international organisations were also granted observer status,
including: OPANAL, OPCW, PrepCom of CTBTO, NATO Parliamentary
Assembly, ICRC, African Union, League of Arab States, Organisation
of the Islamic Conference.
Checking off the issues in general statements
Featuring statements from New Zealand on behalf of the New
Agenda Coalition (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand,
South Africa and Sweden); Luxembourg on behalf of the EU and
associated states; Malaysia on behalf of the Nonaligned States
(NAM); Japan; the United States; Australia; Ireland; Germany;
Canada; Uzbekistan; Argentina; and Peru, the afternoon lent itself
to a kind of Bridget Jones checklist:
- number of exhortations for CTBT entry into force - 11 (not the
United States, obviously, which completely ignored the test
ban);
- number of calls for a fissile materials cut-off treaty
(everyone) but
- with (or without) verification? most fudged this salient
question. The United States, with breathtaking chutzpah, claimed
credit for calling on the Conference on Disarmament to initiate
negotiations on a FMCT last year (conveniently ignoring its own
role in repudiating verification for the treaty and so reneging on
an agreed mandate).
- concerns about DPRK withdrawal and development of nuclear
weapons (almost everyone), though ideas for what to do about North
Korea seemed to consist mostly of encouraging more of the same
(exhort resumption of six-party talks) and keeping fingers crossed
(a superstitious gesture more in hope than expectation).
- concerns about Iran - everyone except the non-aligned
statement, for obvious reasons, since Iran is a NAM member;
- leading to concerns about the nuclear fuel cycle - mentioned
widely but with significantly different emphases on what to do
about it;
- leading also to much underlining of the importance of nuclear
energy, portrayed either as an inalienable right or as something to
be shared only under strict conditions of compliance with articles
I, II and III;
- references to the IAEA Additional Protocol for enhanced
safeguards and inspections - almost everyone, though there were
differences between those who wanted it to be adopted as the
safeguards standard for the NPT, those who wanted it made a
condition of supply, and those who didn't really want it but felt
obliged to check this box like everyone else (so damned with faint
praise, or related to voluntary uptake only);
- need for stronger NPT powers - two so far (Ireland and
Canada);
- universality of the treaty - lip-service almost universally
paid, as most statements called on India, Israel and Pakistan to
accede to the NPT as non-nuclear weapon states, but the mentions
were largely perfunctory, so we should not expect initiatives in
that direction.
- nuclear weapon free zones (NWFZ) - warmly endorsed by the Latin
American speeches, mentioned in passing by most others, with
supportive noises for the Central Asian nuclear weapon free zone
agreement that has hovered on the edge for several years now.
- Libyan deproliferation as a case to emulate (!) - the United
States, EU, and a few others.
Then there were the issues that some states underlined heavily,
while others ignored or glossed over. These included: the Middle
East (with more references to promoting a zone free of weapons of
mass destruction in the Middle East than a nuclear weapon free
zone); UNSC resolution 1540 and the proliferation security
initiative (PSI); the physical safety and security of nuclear
materials; and security assurances to non-nuclear weapon states
(NSA). In addition, the A.Q. Khan blackmarket/nuclear smuggling
network was generally agreed to be A Bad Thing, at least by those
states that mentioned it, but no-one spoke of the responsibility
their own nationals might bear.
Though everyone referred in some form to the Article VI
obligation to nuclear disarmament, there were significant
differences in characterisation. The New Agenda statement
reiterated that "nuclear disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation
are mutually reinforcing processes". Malaysia, on behalf of the
NAM, complained that "the stress is on proliferation, rather than
disarmament in good faith" and warned that the "lack of balance in
the implementation of the NPT threatens to unravel the NPT regime."
Australia called progress on nuclear disarmament a "core NPT
obligation" but rejected that "progress in nuclear disarmament
should be a precondition for improving the NPT". The EU position,
which appeared to reinterpret disarmament as the rationalising
elimination of "excess", is illustrated by this sentence: "The EU
recognises the importance, from the viewpoint of nuclear
disarmament, of programmes for the destruction and elimination of
nuclear weapons and fissile materials in excess of defence
requirements in the framework of the G8 global partnership." With
heavy emphasis on terrorism, compliance by NNWS and non-state
threats, very few of the 43 "essential issues" adopted as part of
the EU's common position referred to disarmament, though it was
heartening that the CTBT was endorsed in a significant
paragraph.
The United States focussed on the fact that by the end of 2012
when the Moscow treaty is fully implemented, it will have "reduced
the number of strategic nuclear warheads it had deployed in 1990 by
about 80%" and "reduced our non-strategic nuclear weapons by 90%
since the end of the Cold War, dismantling over 3,000 such weapons
pursuant to the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives of 1991 and 1992."
Though the New Agenda's statement was at pains to give credit
"where credit is due", New Zealand's Minister Marian Hobbs pointed
out that one way to assess NPT progress was the sad fact that today
there are still around 30,000 nuclear warheads in existence -
"almost as high as the estimated number of warheads that existed
when the Treaty entered into force in 1970". In relation to the
disarmament agreements adopted in 1995 and 2000, the New Agenda
gave a few dismal examples of lack of progress in implementation:
"The CTBT has not yet entered into force, negotiations for a treaty
banning the production of fissile material have not begun, a
subsidiary body on nuclear disarmament has not been established,
the majority of weapons reductions are not irreversible,
transparent or verifiable, and the role of nuclear weapons in
security policies has not been diminished." Malaysia in the NAM
statement criticised the nuclear-weapon states and those States
remaining outside the NPT (i.e. India, Israel and Pakistan) for
continuing "to develop and modernize their nuclear arsenal,
threatening international peace and security". The Hon. Syed Hamid
Albar, Minister Of Foreign Affairs Of Malaysia, continued, "We must
all call for an end to this madness and seek the elimination and
ban on all forms of nuclear weapons and testing as well as
the rejection of the doctrine of nuclear deterrence".
2.5.05
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© 2005 The Acronym Institute.
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