The Conference on Disarmament (CD) concluded its debate on new weapons of mass destruction and radiological weapons at the final plenary meeting of the Russian Presidency, June 22. The Foreign Minister of Myanmar made a statement to the Conference, as well as representatives from China, Norway, India, Switzerland, France, United States, Italy and the Russian Federation.

In its statement as outgoing president, Russia hoped the themed discussions organized by this year's presidents provide food for thought on the tabled proposals for a programme of work, and that "a sober analysis of the results of the Conference's this year's session will help us reach an agreement on the CD program of work, or at least come closer to such an agreement without breaking the balances and taking into account of the real situation, leaning on pragmatism, realistic approach and due consideration of the opinions and interests of all Member States."

Nuclear Disarmament
H.E Mr., U Nyan Win declared that Myanmar's priority in the CD was Nuclear Disarmament. "We do perceive that the continued existence of nuclear weapons poses a grave danger to mankind. Myanmar firmly believes that the only effective defense against nuclear catastrophe is the total elimination of these weapons." Myanmar, who annually introduces a resolution on nuclear disarmament in the UN General Assembly's First Committee, would like to see an ad hoc committee on nuclear disarmament established as the highest priority by the CD.

Radiological weapons
According to China, discussions on new weapons of mass destruction and radiological weapons should include definitions and principles. States should explore a commitment to not develop, produce, stockpile and use any radiological weapons, a commitment not to attack nuclear facilities, how to prevent radiological materials from transferring and how to stop non state actors from using this radiological material. However, China also believed that it was necessary have domestic laws and regulations to strengthen the management of radiological material.

India pointed out that the CD last gave this matter serious thought in the summer of 2002, and though it was unlikely that any state would resort to developing, producing and using radiological weapons "the threat of their use by terrorist is now well recognized and we see merit in the Conference reaching an understanding on banning radiological weapons, and foreswearing the development of such weapons in the future."

The United States, the only country of 182 to vote against a UN General Assembly resolution prohibiting the development of new types of weapons of mass destruction, rejected the term "new types of weapons of mass destruction" as an entirely hypothetical concept.

Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS)
The Foreign Minister of Myanmar called upon all states, particularly those with major space capabilities, to contribute to the peaceful use of outer space and the prevention of an arms race. Myanmar supports "elaborat[ing] a legally binding instrument on the prevention of an arms race in outer space and on the threat or use of force against outer space objects."

Switzerland, which is working with France on civilian critical infrastructure, called the growing dependence on space assets an important part of civil infrastructure in need of protection. Switzerland recommended the CD continue to discus PAROS, and because many space applications can be used for civilian and military purposes, examine greater interaction between the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) and the CD.

Russia said more than 20 delegations made statements, states introduced eight working papers and experts from seven states participated in the PAROS discussions, succeeding "in modeling, in a way, the function of the future CD Ad Hoc Committee on PAROS, where political and professional elements would be intertwined." Ambassador Loshchinin warned that if the ripe PAROS "overripes", it will be too late.

Terrorism and Fissile Materials
The United States spoke about combating terrorism through the emerging international framework against terrorism, new gap-filling and in-depth measures, and recommended the CD make "a direct and meaningful contribution ... through the immediate negotiations of a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty under the draft mandate" (CD/1776) they presented in May. Italy also linked the two subjects, reminding the conference of their May 16 working paper "Banning the Production of Fissile Material to Prevent Catastrophic Nuclear Terrorism" (CD/1772).

As well as stopping the production of new fissile material, states can reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism minimizing the use of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) in the civilian nuclear sector. Mr. Kjetil Paulsen of Norway shared highlights from an international symposium in Oslo earlier this week, where 130 experts and diplomats from 45 countries discussed minimizing the use of HEU in the civilian nuclear sector. Ambassador Paulson remarked on the business-like exchange among the experts, and noted that it greatly facilitated the policy discussions. "When experts, by and large, agree that something is doable it is difficult to ignore by diplomats and policy-makers," he said, "Though sometimes we do it anyway."

In addition to current political and legal international frameworks, like Security Council Resolutions 1540 and 1373, the Nuclear Terrorism Convention and the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, the United States recommended one gap-filler and one new in-depth strategy. They suggested that civil and administrative penalties, and possibly liability, could fill an existing gap in preventing and deterring unwitting facilitators in the public and private sector from engaging in high-risk activity that contributes to the proliferation of WMD to terrorists. A defense-in-depth approach to terrorism would require international cooperation across the full spectrum of partner government agencies, including Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defense, Interior, Finance, Science and Technology, Energy, Health, Environment and Commerce, as well as related regulatory, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies.

France investigated the purpose of critical civilian infrastructure further and pointed out the danger of terrorist attacks by asking what the consequences of the attacks at 9/11, Madrid and London would have been if they were done by weapons of mass destruction.

The next plenary meeting will be held next Thursday at 29 June at 10 am.

-Jennifer Nordstrom, Reaching Critical Will 
Beatrice Fihn, Disarmament Intern 
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

The Conference on Disarmament (CD) began its 2007 session on Monday, January 22, with a public plenary session. South Africa opened the session as the incoming President of the Conference, followed by a message from Ban Ki-moon, the new Secretary-General of the United Nations (read by Sergei Ordzhonikidze, Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament), and general statements from Poland, Slovakia, the United States, the Netherlands, and Russia. 

Incoming President Glaudine Mtshali of South Africa promised to spare no effort to wake the deadlocked chamber from its slumber this year. The Conference has not negotiated a treaty since the 1996 completion of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty because it has been unable to agree by consensus on a programme of work. Last year, however, the six rotating presidents of the Conference worked together to create a timetable of substantive discussions for the 2006 session. Although the Conference has been adopting an annual agenda that lists topics to be addressed during the year, last year's timetable was the first year-long schedule for substantive discussions since the deadlock began.

Even though he is currently considering downgrading the status of disarmament within UN bureaucracy, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moonreiterated that invigorating disarmament and non-proliferation is one of his priorities, and said he will ensure the UN is up to the task. He called on the Conference to "rise to the challenge". He reminded the Conference that the stakes are high, with world military spending at over 1.2 trillion dollars per year, or 2.5% of global GDP. "Even if one percent of it were redirected towards development," said the SG, "the world would be much closer to achieving the Millennium Development Goals."

The Conference indeed must rise to the challenge of generating an effective, comprehensive and in-depth programme of work, and much of this rests on the shoulders of the first 2007 President, South Africa. All six of the 2007 CD presidents (South Africa, Sri Lanka, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Syria, or the S6) have agreed to work together to guide the CD, but South Africa is responsible for conducting the negotiations on proposals for a schedule of activities and for presenting the proposal to the Conference. In her opening speech,Ambassador Mtshali said she had been consulting in bi-lateral meetings, with the regional groups, and at an informal meeting last week. We hope South Africa will be able to present a proposal that includes, in the words of Poland, "more refined, more focused and more in-depth discussions on the substantive issues". Last year, Poland presented the 2006 timetable with only one week dedicated to each of the seven substantive issues on the CD's agenda. The four core issues (Fissile Materials Treaty, Negative Security Assurances, nuclear disarmament, and Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space) of the Conference all need much more time allocated to them. 

Although South Africa has yet to formally present an S6 schedule of activities, members of the Conference apparently discussed a proposal for a schedule at the informal meeting last week. This proposal included designating seven Coordinators to coordinate work on each of the seven agenda items, building on last year's "Friends of the Presidents". Russia said that it saw the proposals so far as important, constructive and most promising. The United States commended the S6 "effort to craft an organization plan that was intensive, yet flexible", and said the S6 "may have found a way to break the deadlock that had stymied action in the Conference for over a decade." The Netherlands reiterated that it was "ready to start negotiations on a treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and other nuclear devices, while being flexible on the further makeup of the programme of work." 

As always, the CD must first adopt its annual agenda, a traditionally unchanging list of topics to be addressed during the year. The Netherlands called this agenda "all-inclusive", and, remembering that the Conference adopted it in one week last year, hoped it would be adopted just as smoothly this year. Slovakia strongly discouraged any attempts to change the agenda. Russia agreed, and advised that they could change it later if necessary.

Some states are hoping the Conference will begin negotiating a treaty banning the production of fissile materials for use in nuclear weapons, or a Fissile Materials Treaty (FMT), this year. Such a treaty has been on the international community's agenda for many years, and the 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review and Extension Conference and the 2000 NPT Review Conference called on the CD to begin negotiating it. The CD has been unable to begin negotiations, however, due to deadlock on a programme of work and continued disagreement over a negotiating mandate. Nevertheless, the United States introduced a draft text and draft negotiating mandate for such a treaty last May. The United States urged others to use their draft text as a basis for finally beginning substantive work on the issue. Today, the Netherlands suggested that negotiations start without preconditions but with the understanding that nothing was excluded from the negotiations. These catch-phrases mean that the mandate need not take a position on verification of the treaty or existing stockpiles of fissile materials, but delegations could still address those contentious issues during negotiations. Slovakia said it would be appropriate for the Conference to "upgrade the level of its engagement" on an FMT.

- Jennifer Nordstrom, Reaching Critical Will

On February 22, Dr. Kim Howells, Minister of State, Foreign & Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom, spoke to the Conference on Disarmament (CD), focusing on the UK's recently published government White Paper on renewing its Trident nuclear submarines. Without a decision to renew, the weapons will essentially expire, and the UK would become the first nuclear weapon state to disarm. Minister Howells repeatedly stated that the UK still needs nuclear arms as a deterrent, explaining that because nuclear weapons are "uniquely dangerous", it is clear that "only the threat of retaliation in kind can deter attempts to blackmail us with nuclear weapons." In a world without unconditional and legally-binding assurances to non-nuclear weapon states that nuclear weapons will not be used against them, this kind of logic sends a clear message to those that feel threatened by nuclear weapons. 

Nuclear Deterrent
Minister Howells qualified the UK's expressed desire to maintain a nuclear deterrent, saying, "This does not mean that we are taking an irreversible decision that commits us irrevocably to possessing nuclear weapons in 40 or 50 years' time... It does mean, however, that the UK needs to ensure that we have the capability in 17 years' time to retain an submarine based deterrent; and that, on present evidence, we have to assume that we will need to do so." Minister Howells explained that the current international environment is not safe enough for the UK to unilaterally renounce their nuclear weapons, even though South Africa courageously and safely decided to abandon producing and stocking nuclear weapons in 1994, and 183 countries world-wide have been living without nuclear weapons, many even without a nuclear umbrella. 

Nuclear Disarmament Contributions
Minister Howells also reported the UK's nuclear disarmament contributions. He said that "since the end of the Cold War, the explosive power of UK nuclear weapons will now have been reduced by 75%. UK nuclear weapons account for less than 1 % of the global inventory." The UK has also decided to reduce its stockpile of available warheads by a further 20 %, to less than 160, to meet their duty under Article VI of the NPT. In terms of the effect the UK's potential renewal of its nuclear weapons system will have on the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime, Minister Howells hid behind the states with the most nuclear weapons. He said that it was clear to the UK that "considerable bilateral progress would have to be made in reducing the large nuclear arsenals before it will be helpful and useful to include the small fraction of the global stockpile that belongs to us." On the contrary, the UK could make history by being the first nuclear weapon state to eliminate its nuclear arsenal, and considerably bolster the world's confidence in the the nuclear weapon states' Article VI promise to disarm. 

The UK government expressed its intention to renew its Trident nuclear submarine system in a White Paper published in December, 2006, even though 59 % of people in UK oppose renewing the system (according to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) because it means developing more nuclear weapons. There is even a year-long campaign of sustained civil resistence to the weapons. 

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Dr. Howells said the UK would be working towards an atmosphere of "positive engagement and tolerance" for the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee in Vienna, saying governments should be "inclusive of others' views, discussing [their] differences openly and trying to find ways to resolve them-not using them as an excuse for progress." 

Arms Trade Treaty
The Minister also urged governments to respond to the Secretary-General's request for views on an Arms Trade Treaty by the April deadline, so that the Treaty would be "truly representative of the needs of all countries" and therefore be broadly supported and properly implemented.

The next formal plenary meeting will be held on 27th of February, at 10:00.

20 February
Ambassador Juan Antonio March (Spain) presided over the first plenary session of his presidency of the the Conference on Disarmament (CD) on 20 February 2007. The CD discussed "new types of weapons of mass destruction and new systems of such weapons; radiological weapons" (Agenda item 5) and a "comprehensive program of disarmament" (Agenda Item 6). Germany took the floor twice on behalf of the EU, addressing each agenda item. In summarizing its positions, Turkey gave information on the informal discussions, including information on Norway's nuclear disarmament compilation paper of issues that require more attention during the CD's second session. In his opening statement, Ambassador March outlined the schedule for upcoming informal sessions under his presidency, which have not changed and are still available here: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/papers07/schedule_of_agenda_items2.html.

New types of weapons of mass destruction and new systems of such weapons; radiological weapons
The EU's statement on this agenda item focused on "dirty bombs", which they called "weapons of mass disruption," as opposed to weapons of mass destruction, because these weapons are more likely to cause havoc in populations than they are to cause mass casualties. The EU noted that an integral part of its security strategy is to "enhance the security of proliferation-sensitive materials, equipment and expertise in the European Union against unauthorized access and risks of diversion through-among others-improving the control of high activity radioactive sources." The EU recommended various measures to control such such materials, as dirty bombs might be the "weapon of choice for terrorists". 

Turkey said that the debate on preventing non-state actors from acquiring WMD should be conducted "in line with the letter and spirit of UN Security Council Resolution 1540", and should avoid "granting any sort of recognition to terrorist organizations."

Comprehensive Program of Disarmament
The EU explained how it understood the "Comprehensive Program of Disarmament", an agenda item that many have seen as vague or unclear. The EU noted that the 2001 Special Coordinator for the review of the agenda said this agenda item was flexible, leading to a general understanding in the CD that any disarmament issue could be addressed under this item. The EU noted that in 1997 the Conference used this item to consider a new issue-a comprehensive global ban on anti-personnel landmines-and then elaborated the successes of, and the EU's support for, the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. The Mine Ban Treaty was spurred by civil society cooperating with like-minded governments, and negotiated outside the CD because of the blocks in the CD. 

The EU then went on to discuss its support for another new issue, the proposed Arms Trade Treaty, which is also a product of civil society collaborating with like-minded governments. The EU co-sponsored the UN General Assembly resolution on an Arms Trade Treaty, and will "positively respond" to the Secretary-General's inquiries on the potential Treaty, as directed by the resolution.

Summary of recent proceedings
Turkey gave an overview of its positions on each of the agenda items, in some cases usefully illuminating the informal discussions, stating that Turkey's delegation "feels the need to highlight some of the key points of our contributions for the benefit of those Delegations who were not able to follow all of the meetings, as well as for the wider audience." This sort of public discussion of the closed informals is very helpful for civil society.

In particular, Turkey highlighted the work of Norway, the Coordinator for the nuclear disarmament agenda item (1), in putting together a compilation paper on the informal discussions called "Clustering of the concrete proposals for substantive issues that require more focused attention during the second part of the annual session, with a view to commencing negotiations." This compilation paper contains four sub-sections: Convention prohibiting nuclear weapons; Other legal instruments; Ad hoc committee-phased programme nuclear disarmament; and Transparency and Confidence-Building Measures. Civil society should examine this paper in-depth, as it will direct the discussions of the second session. The second session, which is yet to be scheduled in detail, will ideally allow more in-depth discussion of the most important issues. 

With regard to the nuclear disarmament compilation paper, Turkey advised a realistic assessment which would lead to "an incremental approach starting from the least common denominator." Thus, he added, "a good starting block would seem to be confidence building through increased information sharing and transparency".

Future CD Plenary Sessions
The CD will hold its next public plenary session on Thursday 22 February at 10am, when the Dr. Kim Howells MP, UK Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will speak. Spain noted that it is likely that there will be high level speakers addressing the CD the week of 12 March, because the high-level segment of the Human Rights Council will be taking place then.