Disarmament Diplomacy

Issue No. 59, July - August 2001

Editor's Introduction

With the international arms control regime in a period of evident crisis and change, our editorial sounds alarm bells over current and planned levels of support and resources dedicated to disarmament within the United Nations.

Recommendations on effective measures to secure the future of two key nuclear agreements, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), form the subject of two far-reaching analysis papers. Four senior former diplomats - Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jack Mendelsohn, John Rhinelander and Alexander Yereskovsky - set out a possible way of preserving the ABM Treaty while allowing a period of limited testing and development of missile defence systems. Underlining the vital importance of the CTBT, both in itself and as a bulwark of wider nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts, Rebecca Johnson and the new Executive Director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, Daryl Kimball, explore the best means of keeping the goal of entry-into-force within reach in the face of threats to repudiate the accord and signs that the United States and others may be planning to resume nuclear testing.

The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) is also facing an uncertain future, following the US rejection of efforts to elaborate a verification and compliance mechanism for the treaty. Jenni Rissanen reports from Geneva on the impact and repercussions of Washington's stance. Rissanen also provides her latest update on the Conference on Disarmament (CD), nearing the end of another inconclusive session.

The remainder of the issue seeks to document eight hectic weeks of meetings and discussions on a range of arms control issues. The UN Conference on Small Arms and Light Weapons, held in July and resulting in the adoption of a hard fought but watered down Programme of Action, features prominently in Documents & Sources, alongside extensive and diverse US, Russian and British comment on missile defence and nuclear reductions. News Review includes coverage of the 56^th anniversary of the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, comments on weapons in space by a senior US military official, resurgent tension in US-North Korea relations, faltering discussions between India and Pakistan, and a depressingly familiar combination of diplomatic stalemate and military action as the UN struggles to reconstruct policy towards Iraq.