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Arms Bizarre

Not much of good cheer in the disarmament field this year: a little, not much.

Nukes. Dread begets amnesia: nukes are still the greatest imminent threat to life on this planet, 35,000 nukes alive. Progress is in the hands of the two big ones, U.S. and Russia; and as of this writing, START II (the second phase of U.S.-Russian nuke rundown), despite prodding by Acting President Putin, is stuck in the Duma, the Russian Parliament. In 1998 India and Pakistan, defying NPT, set off their bombs. Subsequently India said, in effect, that its "strategy" for security is nukes. In 1999, expanded NATO reaffirmed its reliance on nukes. As for CTBT the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, achieved and approved in 1996-- last year the U.S. Senate refused its ratification, although the U.S. had already signed. (As of February 2000, 155 countries had signed, 52 ratified.)

Fissile materials. Treaty to ban their production stuck in the Geneva CD (Conference on Disarmament). Missiles. 1972 ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty), a Cold War achievement by the US/USSR, is in jeopardy. In the Middle East and Asia, governments are developing and testing long-range missiles. The U.S. is moving towards a revival of Star Wars. CD is paralyzed.

No wonder, is it, that the Assembly's First Committee had a gloomy time of it. Another high-level debate on the whole global issue of disarmament-- a Special Assembly Session on Disarmament (SSOD) remains a theoretical possibility, but there is not the energy, the will, to push for that. Divisions are so deep and positions so entrenched that an SSOD might be a shambles. All the world is waiting for the sunrise to thaw this Cold War glacier. Working still from the 1978 Special Assembly Agenda, the First Committee dealt mostly with mass weapons (including outer space) and "conventionals."

On nuclear disarmament, three overlapping resolutions were passed (initiated by Japan, Myanmar and the New Agenda coalition). All aim at eventual elimination of nukes, the New Agenda being the most specific on how to get there. Despite strong public pressure back home, Canada once more stood aside, abstained, when the New Agenda vote was called. The rationale, I guess, is tactical: you have more influence in the club (NATO) than out of it. Maybe. Scary is the U.S. Senate's vote against CTBT along with the U.S. resumption of anti-missile tests. The G.A. was surprisingly subdued about CTBT, but not so about missiles. Introduced by Russia and supported by China and France, a new resolution was adopted, affirming ABM as the cornerstone for disarmament. More significant was the resolution on peaceful use of outer space, urging that the general principles in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty be given real strength by the Geneva Conference on Disarmament. Only the U.S. and Israel opposed this. With the recent conclusion of a pact for Central Asia, Nuke Free Zones now extend over Africa, Latin America and South East Asia. Prospects for a constructive review conference on the NPT (Non-Proliferation of Nukes Treaty), 24 April-19 May 2000, are not good.

The other two mass killers are chemical weapons and biological weapons. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which helps countries implement the Convention (in force since 1997), on 25 January 2000 reported substantial progress: over one million weapons and 4,000 tons of materials destroyed. On biological weapons, for which a control Convention has been in force for over 25 years, work is well advanced on a verification protocol along the lines of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

On "conventional" weapons, this G.A. reaffirmed its support for the Ottawa land-mines treaty, noting the successful review conference by parties to the Treaty in Mozambique last May. The target-- to clear land-mines in 4 years-- was reaffirmed. The UN Register of trade in heavy conventional weapons has received reports from 77 countries accounting for over 80% of 1998 trade in these weapons. Besides reporting on international trade, 31 countries reported their holdings and 26 reported on arms acquired from local production. So far no one is making much use of this important information, which confirms the flow of these arms to trouble spots, especially in the Middle East and Asia.

On small arms, a decisive step was taken towards an international conference in 2001 on the illicit trade in small arms: the Assembly mandated a Preparatory Commission. The black-market trade in small arms feeds civil wars and transnational crime; it probably is one-half of total trade in these weapons. Canada and Norway have been in the lead on this; the latest gathering of 18 concerned governments was held in Oslo on 6-7 December 1999. Many concerned NGOs, in the wake of their land-mines achievement, have come together in the International Network on Small Arms (IANSA) to keep the fires burning; and a ground-breaking report on small arms wheeler-dealers has just been released by the "Norwegian Initiative" and BASIC (British American Security Council).

That the Assembly came alive to these little killers was in part a response to the Security Council's ministerial-level meeting on small arms, on 24 September 1999. The Council said that small arms, being easily available, are important in causing armed conflict; so that exporting countries should control this trade, especially to troubled places. And arms embargoes must be enforced, said the Council.

Let us also commend the West African moratorium on the small arms trade, led by Mali, a model for regional approaches to control.

I now invoke Kofi Annan to wind up this pretty discouraging account. Here is a part of his message to the current meeting of the Conference on Disarmament, a free-standing intergovernmental body charged with the nitty-gritty of disarmament treaty negotiations. After reviewing progress on land-mines, small arms, and ways to verify the Biological Weapons Convention, he said: But at the same time, there was a deplorable lack of progress on the disarmament and international security issues which the international community considers the highest priority: the multilateral search for genuine measures of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, and for ways to prevent an arms race in outer space. The fact that your Conference remains deadlocked on those issues is part of a wider and disturbing stagnation in the overall disarmament and non-proliferation agenda.

The START process has stalled. The entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty does not appear likely in the near term, though it is encouraging that the States involved in nuclear testing in 1998 are continuing their moratorium on further nuclear tests. A fissile material treaty has not even begun to be negotiated. The NPT review process itself, due to culminate at the next Review Conference in April, is shrouded in uncertainty. Conflicting priorities for the post-Cold War era have prevented agreement on convening a fourth special session of the General Assembly on disarmament, which could set universal goals for the future.

Indeed, one of the more disturbing trends in 1999 was the emergence of new tensions between the major players over disarmament and international security issues. At the last General Assembly, concerns were expressed about both the proliferation of longer-range missiles and the development of missile defenses. I strongly believe that the ABM Treaty occupies an important place in the contemporary body of arms control agreements and remains the cornerstone of strategic stability. If that regime is threatened, another long-sought goal the prevention of an arms race in outer space may elude us.

Towards the end of last year's session, your Conference came very close to reaching consensus on mechanisms for dealing with both nuclear disarmament and prevention of an arms race in outer space. Such consensus would have unlocked the programme of work and allowed work to begin in earnest on a range of issues. This year, I hope you will continue your search for compromises in a spirit of flexibility and with a real sense of urgency. If you make tangible progress on items on your agenda in the first part of this session, the NPT Review Conference stands a better chance of succeeding.