Disarmament Diplomacy

Issue No. 42, December 1999

Editor's Introduction

December's issue offers reports from NATO's Ministerial meetings in Brussels and the efforts of States Parties to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) to negotiate a verification protocol in Geneva. The Acronym Institute's senior analyst, Nicola Butler, looks at NATO Defence and Foreign Minister's deliberations on national missile defence (NMD), Kosovo and European security and concludes that NATO is fiddling while its relations with Russia burn. Henrietta Wilson brings us up to date with the ongoing negotiations in the BWC Ad Hoc Group, focussing particularly on the opposing positions on compliance measures, technical co-operation and export controls.

In Opinion & Analysis Angie Zelter sets out the details of the legal case against nuclear weapons that captured British headlines in October after it led to the acquittal of three peace activists facing charges of damaging a nuclear weapons research laboratory connected with Britain's Trident nuclear submarine base in Scotland.

George Bunn of Stanford University considers the impact of the United States' NMD plans on arms control and explains why NMD could spell "No More Disarmament". Nicholas Sims of the London School of Economics considers the conceptual distinction between arms control and disarmament treaties and concludes that withdrawal clauses are inappropriate for disarmament treaties.

Documents and Sources includes recent key statements from December's NATO Ministerial meetings in Brussels, the new Scottish legal ruling on nuclear weapons, Madeleine Albright on arms control after the Senate CTBT vote, CFE Treaty amendments, the new OSCE Charter, and Tony Blair on Britain's new global role. Relevant website references are also given.

The News Review includes reflections on recent newswire coverage of the Security Council's adoption of a new resolution on Iraq, a new breakthrough on implementing the US-North Korea framework agreement, US discussions with South Korea on its missile plans, Russian claims on the ABM Treaty, the Duma on START II, and Yeltsin's response to criticism over the war in Chechnya, the US Stockpile Stewardship Program review, approval for a new US tritium production plan, the recent arrest of Los Alamos nuclear scientist, Wen Ho Lee, the question of whether or not the US based nuclear weapons in Japan, and South Asian nuclear diplomacy.

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