The Emotional and Psychological Trauma to Our People Can’t Be Measured In Real Terms

31 May

Editor’s Note:  Lia Petridis Maiello is a frequent contributor to this blog.   John Burroughs of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy is both an office mate and is also deeply involved with the Marshall Islands suits. 

The Republic of the Marshall Islands in the northern Pacific Ocean is not only a breathtakingly beautiful island state, but has recently moved into the public eye by starting a bold initiative that is widely interpreted as a “David against Goliath” undertaking.

The Marshall islands were subjected to dozens of nuclear tests, carried out by the U.S. after 1945.

According to the Associated Press, the island group filed suit in late April against each of the nine nuclear-armed powers in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. It also filed a federal lawsuit against the United States in San Francisco.

The Marshall Islands claims that instead of negotiating disarmament, the nine countries are modernizing their nuclear arsenals, spending $1 trillion on those arsenals over the next ten years.

“I personally see it as kind of David and Goliath, except that there are no slingshots involved,” David Krieger, president of the California-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, told AP. The Foundation is acting as a consultant in the case and is hoping that other countries will join the legal effort, Krieger points out.

Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea are included in the indictment. The last four are not parties to the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), but appear to be, according to the lawsuits, bound by its provisions under “customary international law.” The NPT, considered the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament efforts, requires negotiations among countries in “good faith” on disarmament, AP reports.

None of the countries had been informed in advance of the lawsuits. The case found broad recognition within the international press.

The Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands, Tony de Brum, explains in an interview the impact the nuclear tests had and still have for his citizens and what he hopes this lawsuit can achieve for the island state and the world community.

You grew up on the island of Likiep during the 12-year period when the United States tested 67 atomic and thermonuclear weapons in the atmosphere and under water in the Marshall Islands (1946-1958). What are your memories on the impact these tests had for the island of Likiep and its inhabitants? Environmentally, politically and psychologically?

My memories of the tests are a mixture of awe, of fear, and of youthful wonder. We were young, and military representatives were like gods to our communities and so our reactions to the tests as they took place were confused and terrifying. We had no clue as to what was happening to us and to our homelands. Our elders, including my grandfather, tried to stop the tests in petitions and communications to the UN but were not successful. I personally witnessed the injuries to some of our countrymen from Rongelap and to this day cannot recall in words my sense of helplessness and anxiety without severe emotional stress. But for as long as I can remember, the explosions and the bizarre effects that lit up our skies are still a source of pain and anger. How could human beings do this to other humans?

While in later life many attempts have been made, both in good and bad faith, to reconstruct the impact of the testing on our people, only the physical and environmental effects can be discussed with some confidence. The emotional and psychological trauma to our people, both young and old, cannot be measured in real terms. The pain is real and the uncertainty is overwhelming. As a young lady said to me when showing me pictures of her dead deformed infant child, “God did not create my baby. He cannot be so cruel.”

The Republic of the Marshall Islands recently filed an extraordinary lawsuit at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, suing all nine nuclear weapons possessors for failing to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. But only three of the nine nuclear states named by the lawsuit generally accept the rulings of the International Court of Justice. What do you hope for the outcome of this case?

My country has exhausted all means within our limited power to bring attention and closure to our outstanding nuclear issues with our former Administrative Authority, the United States. Mechanisms jointly established for dealing with outstanding claims for physical injury and property damage have fallen way short of satisfying even the basic findings of the Nuclear Claims Tribunal formed under treaty agreements. This is due mostly to the withholding of critical information necessary for us to make informed decisions regarding our nuclear past and our uncertain future. To this day the United States still refuses to release information we have identified and requested under established processes. All the while we have to cope with displaced communities, skyrocketing medical costs, dangerously radioactive environments, and deprivation of use of traditional lands.

The United States tells us they have satisfied their obligation under the Free Association Compact, a Treaty, and that they will not entertain any claims or requests for meaningful assistance in this issue. In fact, the US Supreme Court refused to hear the cases of the People of Bikini and the People of Enewetak seeking damages for their destroyed homelands. After seeing what mere testing of these terrible weapons of mass destruction can do to human beings it makes sense for the Marshallese People to implore the nuclear weapons state to begin the hard task of disarmament. All we ask is that this terrible threat be removed from our world. It is the best we can do as collateral damage in the race for nuclear superiority. Our sacrifice will be for naught if the nuclear countries do not stand up and take notice of the evil that nuclear weapons present to our earth.

Do you think that this case can help to create enough international momentum for the Non-Proliferation-Treaty (NPT) to be treated — due to its near universal adherence — as part of customary international law by which all states must abide, regardless of whether or not they actually signed the treaty?

We believe that it is sensible and logical for the world community to consider this matter as one of customary international law. To do otherwise is to gamble with the future of the world.

What effects would that have on the discourse of nuclear disarmament worldwide?

It should stimulate intelligent discourse and wise solutions. For what would it gain the world for instance, to be protected from climate change, only to suffer massive destruction from nuclear weapons? All our efforts to be sane about the future must be connected to survival and peace. The right hand cannot be out seeking climate peace while the left is busy waging nuclear war.

Looking at the status quo of this discourse, how do you evaluate the outcome of the recent NPT PrepCom at United Nations’ headquarters in New York City which closed without adopting the Chair’s draft recommendations to the Review Conference?

The outcome of the recent NPT PrepCom appeared to be more “business as usual,” with the nuclear-armed parties to the treaty essentially evading their Article VI obligations or claiming they were fulfilling them in a step by step manner, while at the same time continuing to modernize their nuclear arsenals and relying upon them in their military strategies. It is clear that the nuclear-armed states are not pursing negotiations in good faith to end the nuclear arms race and to achieve complete nuclear disarmament, as they are obligated to do under Article VI of the treaty.

You have also been advocating on the issue of climate change, a grave concern that affects not only the Pacific Islands, but has obvious global consequences. Are there linkages between nuclear disarmament and climate change? Considering that both issues climate change, as well as nuclear disarmament are political matters of tremendous significance, which one, in your opinion, has the capacity of being addressed faster by the international community?

I hit upon this somewhat in question four but clearly one cannot isolate climate change from the other most pressing issue of world security today. They go hand in hand, and must be dealt with in a coordinated and universally accepted pathway. As a country that has seen the ravages of war, suffers the lingering effects of nuclear tests, and facing the onset of a rising sea, we see all these to be threats of equal force against world peace and human life. But finger pointing and challenges of who goes first must now stop and sane and intelligent human beings must confront this insanity with firm confidence and clear peaceful intentions.

Lia Petridis Maiello, Journalist

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Raising the Stakes on Conflict Prevention Stakeholders

25 May

On Thursday, an unusually large crowd of diplomats, invited guests and NGOs gathered in the Security Council to observe the veto of a resolution on Syria (S/2014/348) that had been drafted by France and endorsed by an array of other states inside and outside the Council.

The gist of the resolution was a referral to the International Criminal Court as one measure of ending impunity or at least, in the words of the Australians, to remind abusers that there is no ‘statute of limitation’ on crimes being committed in Syria.

Such reminders are important, to be sure, though it is unclear that the ICC is well suited to conduct investigations and render judgments in the midst of a protracted civil war.   The Chief Prosecutor of the ICC speaking at a briefing on Libya earlier in the month pointed out to the Council that conducting investigations with little funding while confronting massive security threats is difficult at best.  That Syria (like Libya) features massive abuses by multiple parties only complicates jurisprudence, perhaps placing the attainment of justice in this instance well beyond the reasonable capacity of the court.

The failed resolution on Syria seemed somehow consistent with a recent pattern in the Council of trying to ‘do something’ by punting the political football to DPKO (in the form of more complex and coercive mandates) or the ICC (in the form of hastily conceived, unfunded, imprecise referrals) rather than examining the limitations of its own power and process.   The Council remains among the most politicized spaces in the UN.  It is also among the most uneven spaces from the standpoint of power and influence.   The non-permanent members (with the exception of their time as president) largely populate sub-committees and make public statements.  The Russians and Chinese would have little say on many resolutions if they could not force Council members to pay attention to them through threat of the veto.   And the rest of the UN system too often sits on its proverbial hands waiting to see if the Council will take on yet more ‘thematic concerns’ for which it then presumes to act as global legislator.

The present preoccupation with veto restraint within some parts of our policy community is a diversion that belies full recognition of the limitations of the Security Council and the under-tapped resources of the broader UN system (including the Joint Office on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect) which the Council seems largely to ignore.    As we have written previously, effective veto restraint implies the existence of depoliticized findings of impending mass atrocity violence, a sincere and robust commitment to solve violence primarily through diplomatic means, and Council members whose motives are transparent and attached to the kinds of assessments and accountabilities that have eluded that body for most of its history.  In a system where findings are politicized, where preventive measures are under financed and too often disregarded, and where there is no way to hold the Council accountable for its own mistakes, veto restraint would simply be a gift to the P-3, one which they have not necessarily merited.  Whether or not such restraint would also be a ‘gift’ to victims has to do in part with organizational assessments of the relative efficacy of diplomatic vs. militarized solutions to complex patterns of violence.

Capacity support is the lifeblood of the UN system, and this is true for atrocity crime prevention as in other areas.   But the success of such support is only enhanced when the full complement of stakeholders is acknowledged and engaged.  Regarding RtoP, for instance, it has never been clear who the relevant stakeholders are.  Is it permanent Council members?  Other member states?   The small group of NGOs that gather around the issue here in NY?  Regional or national governmental/military alliances?   What is the role for a small office like GAPW aside from routine (and often ineffective) ‘squawking’ about systemic limitations?   What is the role of media?  Business?   Education?  Development agencies?   Local civil society organizations? Is atrocity crime prevention a responsibility of the entire, extended UN ‘family’ or is it a responsibility of a few powerful states and some random national focal points?   It has often seemed as though the RtoP/atrocity crime prevention community has been more effective in shutting off hard questions than in welcoming them, of closing the gates on offers of energy and commitment rather than finding ways to put such to work.   But our own limitations notwithstanding, the stakes remain critical for the prevention of mass atrocities. We need to get this right, by which we mean to establish reliable and fair structures that are largely prevention oriented and that encourage the broadest possible stakeholder involvement.   We remain far from that goal.

The UN Charter does, indeed, confer upon the Council the primary responsibility for maintaining peace and security.    However, this does not indicate ‘sole’ responsibility nor does it imply that ‘maintenance’ is primarily a reactive matter rather than a preventive one.  Whatever the results of the parallel reform movements afoot within the UN regarding the membership and working methods of the Council, it is imperative that the current Council takes stock of itself and does more to address violence than fling accusations across the desks of political adversaries. Perhaps it could start with an examination of its own ‘franchise.’ After all, the more the Council is understood (or understands itself) as the only relevant player on atrocity violence the more unlikely it is to endorse and encourage other stakeholders.  However, such endorsements and encouragements are the key to an effective system of protection from mass violence that can both energize diverse conflict prevention capacities and help spare the international community the spectacle on Syria that we recently witnessed and which frankly was hard to watch.

Dr. Robert Zuber

 

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Five Lost Weeks

9 May

Editors Note:   Our hope is to use this space for multiple pieces of commentary motivated by the largely unsuccessful end to both the 2014 Disarmament Commission and the NPT Preparatory Committee. Additional information on both the DC and NPT can be found on the Reaching Critical Will site. 

With applause emanating from most delegates to the NPT Preparatory Committee, five weeks of disarmament commitments from diplomatic missions, Secretariat officials and others was drawn to a close.  The Disarmament Commission. The NPT Review Committee.   Hundreds of government statements.  Many more hours of deliberations.   Millions of dollars in airfare, accommodations, interpreters and more.  The opportunity costs have been staggering, the opportunities themselves largely wasted.

Welcome to spring 2014, a time when some of us anticipated a slight breath of new momentum on disarmament, at least with fingers crossed, but even those modest expectations were effectively suppressed. The Marshall Islands lawsuit in the ICJ was the one glimmer of hope among the many dim flickers of disarmament possibility.

The mood inside the NPT room mirrored some familiar dynamics. On the one hand, diplomatic reverence for the NPT persists, a bit like holding on sentimentally to an automobile that once held promise but is not beginning to show signs of rust.  As Ambassador Roman-Morey wisely noted, we are dealing now with 2014 issues.  The vehicles we employed in 2010 might need a bit of upgrading now.

On the other hand, modifying agreed treaty text within a highly imbalanced and politicized security system allows powerful states to open up pathways to consolidate their own national interests at the expense of others.   And we know that once opened, those pathways are invariably exploited.

The NPT process appears to be caught in a trap of its own making.   A highly political treaty in its own right without independent mechanisms to ensure compliance, the NPT is known by its three pillars as well as its key “essentialist” notions. Foremost among these notions is the NPT’s insistence that the designation of “nuclear weapons states” is not directly tied to the actual possession of such weapons.   This creates needless wastes of energy trying to convince some current nuclear powers to adopt a treaty which, in essence, denies the existence of weapons that everyone knows they have. According to NPT logic, if France were tomorrow to rid themselves of their weapons they would remain a “nuclear weapons state,” while Pakistan, the DPRK, etc. will forever be non-nuclear weapons states regardless of how large their arsenals become. Israel would as well, of course, which makes some modicum of sense, albeit cynical, since they do not acknowledge the existence of weapons that are widely known to exist.  Apparently, there are neither clear points of entry, nor clearly marked exit signs, within the NPT.

The Middle East WMD-Free Zone, a pillar of the 2005 Review Conference, remains a large unfulfilled promise, taking on the character of ‘suggested behavior’ rather than a fundamental, treaty-related commitment.   This is not what was intended in 2005 and is not what is needed now.  After all, we have collectively solved tougher technical and political challenges over the past nine years than getting this conference up and running.

From the outside, the NPT (and its non-outcomes) looks like nothing more than standard UN disarmament politics, disconnected from the public security longings that help inspire state connectivity to the UN in the first place.

In our experience, the good will on the floor of disarmament negotiations is surprisingly sincere, but it also masks deep levels of distrust that play out in multiple policy venues beyond the reach of weapons.  It also hides a diplomatic rotating door that leaves large gaps in institutional memory that new diplomats can only attempt to fill.

Diplomats do their best but then, with few exceptions, they quickly rotate home or to new posts overseas.   For their part, many NGOs parachute in to share their preferences and then go home as well, learning little about how UN headquarters functions including the ways in which their presence is manipulated by states to articulate plausible (but not necessarily successful) outcomes.

Still five weeks of policy attention in a dangerous world should yield more than commitments to revisit commitments.    It is getting harder and harder for those of us who have pretentions to being answerable to global constituents to explain how governments seemingly hold local security needs and aspirations in such little regard.

These constituents can’t experience for themselves the uneven power dynamics and hidden deals that characterize so much of the UN’s disarmament machinery.  They can’t fathom what it takes to create consensus from 194 state positions, all mediated by often extraordinary diplomats who can’t make many more binding policy commitments than the NGOs can.   They can’t grasp why the politics of states, over and over, take blanket precedence over the security needs of communities.

Diplomats will never get this time back again.   The global community, for its part, might never fully regain the confidence that states are truly promoting the community’s best security interests. We’ll have to wait until 2015, it seems, for a full cost accounting of the trust deficits that have only widened during these five long weeks.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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A Call for Stable and Peaceful Policies

4 May

On April 25, Global Action joined with other civil society organizations (WFUNA, FES, WILPF) in launching an initiative to support the work of the Office of the President of the UN General Assembly in promoting the cross-cutting theme, “Ensuring Stable and Peaceful Societies.”  These organizations affirm the important value of this theme as the UN seeks adoption of a new (and hopefully expanded) set of sustainable development goals.

Our event immediately followed a day and a half long Thematic Debate in the General Assembly on ‘Ensuring Stable and Peaceful Societies’ that sought to field comment outlining both state aspirations and responsibilities within this dynamic normative framework.

As one might anticipate, the range of lenses that diplomats sought to include in their analysis of ‘stable and peaceful societies,’ was quite broad.   This is as it should be.  The normative framework suggested by this Thematic Debate touches on all facets of the UN’s work as diplomats were quick to acknowledge.   Some, like Qatar and Israel, noted the need for more ‘honest and responsible governance.’ Cuba underscored the deep divides that must be overcome between rich and poor.  Switzerland called for dramatic improvements in accessible public space.  Japan called for more attention to the management of ‘disaster risk.’ Australia, Nicaragua and others highlighted the need for more efforts to empower women.  Ecuador called for restraints on over-consumption and the end of what it called ‘speculative economies.’  Argentina affirmed the need for more attention to ‘rule of law’ obligations.  Egypt called for more efforts to address ‘massive refugee flows.’  Kenya noted challenges to peace represented by both illicit weapons and shortages of precious water.  The US and others clarified and solidified the linkages between violence and impediments to the fulfillment of development priorities.  Indonesia called for internal UN reforms to better serve the interests of a ‘rebalanced’ economic system.

On and on it went for over a day: states sometimes being provocative but mostly pointing out diverse elements of the massive, multi-dimensional undertaking that is ‘stable and peaceful societies.’   The Thematic Debate in the GA underscored the degree to which challenges associate with all three pillars that delineate the UN’s primary responsibilities – peace and security, human rights and development –   must be addressed in tandem.  Indeed, our growing populations and shrinking access to available resources; our increasingly sophisticated, digitally-driven military tools; and a new set of often-gruesome human rights responsibilities from Damascus to Bangui are more than sufficient to keep the policy community engaged at multiple levels.    The bar is set high here. The expectations for action coming from beyond UN headquarters are considerable.   This is not a ball we can afford to drop.

We know from the NGO side that we need to do more to support states and UN secretariat officials in keeping linkages relevant to the promotion of ‘stable and peaceful societies’ fresh among diverse stakeholders.  This involves a deeper level of partnership commitment, more than simply telling diplomats what’s missing and what ‘they’ need to do about it.    Through our own related initiatives, we seek to take more responsibility for goal setting and implementation, to do more to redress imbalances and end violence than merely pointing out the limitations of others.

As the presidency of the General Assembly shifts from year to year, we can do our part to be both facilitator and ‘institutional memory’ when it comes to ‘stable and peaceful societies.’     This involves a commitment to work closely and effectively with the new GA president’s staff on another round of diplomatic engagements with this thematic issue.  But it also involves a commitment to take account of broader fields of inquiry and their stakeholders, to perceive wider relevance and open doors to different kinds of constituent participation. ‘Stable and peaceful societies’ represents both a compelling aspiration and a profound test of our policy commitment and maturity.   This is one test we need to study hard for.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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Disarmament Deadline: Powering Down a Three Year Cycle

20 Apr

In reviewing the most recent versions of the Disarmament Commission Working Papers submitted by the Chairs of both Working Group I (nuclear weapons) and II (conventional weapons), it would seem that we are getting close to some kind of agreement whereby recommendations will be forthcoming that can both bind the two Working Groups within a successful process and provide real guidance to a disarmament community badly in need of deliberative assistance.

Without disclosing the specific contents of these Working Papers (negotiations on text language are well under way), we would like to offer the following comments:

After three weeks and, in essence, three years of the current policy cycle, it is imperative that the Disarmament Commission renders a set of recommendations on its two policy objectives – nuclear disarmament and confidence building in the field of conventional weapons.   As we have noted in other contexts, the value of these recommendations lies as much in building confidence in the Disarmament Commission itself as in providing working ‘capital’ to inspire movement on some of the difficult disarmament challenges that we all face.

Confidence, of course, is largely in the eyes of the beholder, but Working Group II especially seems to have found the language to facilitate some movement in that direction, in part by keeping in mind the nature of the deliberative process – recommending next steps in areas such as stockpile management or ending the diverted arms trade rather than engaging in preemptive policy precedents that are the proper domain of other parts of the disarmament machinery.

The ‘bar’ regarding Working Group I is set higher of course, since the objective is the elimination of a potentially devastating weapons system rather than spreading confidence to address a range of weapons tasks, from marking and tracing to regulation of the global arms trade.   Still, as weapons of all kinds increase in destructive potential and find new pathways (i.e. unmanned aerial vehicles, outer space) for threat or use, an approach that is disarmament-focused (more than about mere regulation) and at the same time committed to greater trust building among states should be able to result in shared policy advice.

That task is hardly a modest one.  As noted by Working Group II, confidence building measures cover a broad range of mutually reinforcing activities of a political, military, economic, social, humanitarian and cultural nature.  This is important point, tying the work of disarmament to other core functions of the international community and reminding diplomats and others that all work on weapons includes confidence building dimensions.

Some delegations have taken their Working Group responsibilities quite seriously. Mexico for instance has offered its own recommendations for achieving nuclear disarmament, joining other proposals offered by the Non-Aligned Movement and the League of Arab States, as well as the significant input on Working Group I drafts offered by Iran, Egypt, China, Brazil, the UK, Morocco, South Africa and other states.

The essence of Mexico’s position takes account of the fact that, “in the past, weapons have been eliminated after they have been outlawed.  We believe that this is the path to achieving a world without nuclear weapons.”

While delegates seem united in affirming the need for the total elimination of nuclear weapons, Mexico’s strong commitment to a legally binding instrument towards that end is unlikely to be echoed in the final Working Group I document.  Indeed there are several other items of importance to us that are also unlikely to be included:  modernization comes to mind as does a stronger insistence on convening a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction-Free Zone conference with full engagement by regional states.   In addition, it would also be useful from our standpoint to reaffirm that nuclear disarmament and its conventional counterpart are best promoted through multiple lenses – humanitarian to be sure, but also legal, political and even ethical.   A combination of lenses that can reinforce commitments and inspire greater will to abide by them seems to us to be the most propitious path.

But the most important thing now is to produce a document that satisfies the basic commitment of the Disarmament Commission to the productive policy engagement by the remainder of the UN’s disarmament machinery.   While disarmament is a matter of utmost urgency, this particular deliberative body must show it can first walk before being expected to move at a more urgent pace.

Some good, sound, actionable suggestions from each Working Group that provide guidance without threatening work in other disarmament settings would be a welcome outcome of this final week of a long and winding cycle, welcome for the Commission’s future as well as for the wider world.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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Why Disarmament Matters — and the Need for Constant Reminders

15 Apr

Editor’s Note:  This piece was originally published in Huffington Post. 

Recently a group of disarmament scholars and policy experts met in New York City to honor Peter Weiss, President Emeritus of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP), for his lifelong commitment to a subject of permanent gravity that often remains in a political, legal and generational stalemate. Equally importantly, the function served as a reminder to the public that in particular, an emotionally compelling topic such as nuclear disarmament needs be at the forefront of not only continuous scholarship but policy discussion and, more importantly, civic action.

Five speakers representing legal approaches to nuclear disarmament analyzed the global status quo and portrayed a very realistic picture of urgency. They also evaluated the role of the United Nations and, in particular, the role of the UN Security Council.

Virginia Gamba, Director of the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, reiterated the importance of the five multilateral norms that the international community identified as a standard for a feasible disarmament agreement, which can be found in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Those principles are verification, transparency, irreversibility, bindingness, and universality, standards that are mutually reinforcing and essential for trust building among states, particularly keeping in mind the ongoing issue of verification in relation to nuclear haves and have-nots alike. “Disarmament commitments must be bound to the law,” Gamba summarized.

Professor Roger Clark from Rutgers School of Law in Camden referred in his remarks to the significance of the 1997 draft model Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC), resulting from the unanimous ICJ declaration from July 1996. “There exists a legal obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its respects,” he said. The draft convention underwent a review and update in 2007 and would, in its current state, supplement existing treaties such as the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies describes the model NWC as follows:

Under the 2007 model NWC, all States would be prohibited from pursuing or participating in the “development, testing, production, stockpiling, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons.” Those States that possess nuclear weapons would be obligated to destroy their nuclear arsenals in a series of phases. These five phases would progress as follows: taking nuclear weapons off alert, removing weapons from deployment, removing nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles, disabling the warheads, removing and disfiguring the “pits” and placing the fissile material under international control. Under the model convention, delivery vehicles would also have to be destroyed or converted to a non-nuclear capability. In addition, the NWC would prohibit the production of weapons-usable fissile material. The States Parties would also establish an Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that would be tasked with verification, ensuring compliance, decision-making, and providing a forum for consultation and cooperation among all State Parties. The Agency would be comprised of a Conference of State Parties, an Executive Council and a Technical Secretariat. Declarations would be required from all States Parties regarding all nuclear weapons, material, facilities, and delivery vehicles in their possession or control along with their locations.

Applying the model NWC to a current political situation, Clark wondered, “Imagine what a powerful, international inspection regime would have brought about for the situation in Syria?”

Ambassador Hans Corell, former Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and the Legal Counsel of the United Nations from 1994 to 2004, focused in his address on nuclear disarmament and Security Council reform and did not shy away from pointing out clear obstacles and how they can be transferred to the ongoing crisis with Russia.

Corell sees the need for a “cooperative, rules-based international order” enforced through multilateral institutions, headed by the UN Security Council as the “ultimate global authority,” in order to pursue disarmament and nonproliferation effectively.

Corell refers to the problems the UN Security Council would have executing this position adequately by stating the fact that the UNSC is in need of “radical reform,” a topic that is widely discussed among international scholars. Based on former Mexican President’s Ernesto Zedillo’s comments, Corell agrees with the skepticism toward the addition of more members to the UNSC, a viewpoint shared by many involved with various Council reform proposals.

Describing Russia as a current aggressor by violating Ukraine’s sovereignty and annexing Crimea, Corell points out that the veto option of the permanent five members to the UNSC can significantly slow down if not hinder political decision making in times of crises. “Personally, I am seriously concerned at the negative effects that the Russian annexation of the Crimea peninsula will have on the political climate in the future. And we certainly do not know what President Putin may be up to next.”

Honoree Peter Weiss shared some good news before releasing the audience, saying, “During the follow-up conference to Oslo held in Nayarit, Mexico, Feb. 13 and 14, Sebastian Kurz, the foreign minister of Austria, announced that he would convene a conference in Vienna later this year because the international nuclear disarmament efforts require an urgent paradigm shift.'”

In May 2008 Dr. Hans Blix gave me an interview in which he explained:

Al Gore woke up the world with the reality of one inconvenient truth, but I think that the second inconvenient truth exists, namely the remaining nuclear weapons of mass destruction. There is something like 37,000 of them still around. And with the increasing tension in the world it is time to discover that we need to move swiftly back to the disarmament table.

Because of the subjects’ ongoing relevance, communicating this urgency to the next generation of not only policy makers but youth with political aspirations or interests should be a big part of disarmament/nonproliferation events going forward.

Lia Petridis Maiello, Journalist 

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Highlight Reel: The DC’s Work in Progress

11 Apr

As the Disarmament Commission settles into its two Working Groups for the next couple of weeks, the rest of the world hopes that a spirit of deliberation will prevail over some of the policy impediments that have hindered progress in years’ past.

We have written previously about some of these impediments, but they are worth repeating in summary fashion:

  • Confusion about the nature of the deliberative process
  • Concerns of states about setting policy precedents
  • The recent history of inertia from disarmament machinery
  • A lack of confidence regarding compliance with existing commitments
  • The expectation of resolving issues rather than contributing to their resolution
  • Unaddressed power imbalances in the UN’s security system

These impediments were exacerbated by conflicts in Ukraine, Central African Republic, Syria and elsewhere, and might well lead to assumptions about the quality and creativity of Disarmament Commission statements made by member states.

But, in fact, there were some very good reflections from delegations, reflections that were sometimes modest in their implications but were also hopeful from the standpoint of reassuring the world that the UN is, in fact, up to the challenges of reducing threats from new and existing weapons systems.

Here is some of what we heard over the first two days that piqued our interest and raised our levels of anticipation for the Working Groups:

  • Ambassador Drobnjak’s admonition to the group that we need to “prove otherwise” that the DC has lost its way.
  • DSG Eliasson’s caution that we must not allow the option of returning  to a “dark age” of mistrust.
  • Switzerland’s call for more efforts focused on DC working methods, including more access by civil society (echoed by Japan, Kazakhstan and others).
  • The African Group’s calls for complete, non-discriminatory security assurances from nuclear weapons states.
  • CELAC’s generous mention of the contributions of both OPANAL and UNLiREC to regional disarmament.
  • The NAM’s proposal for an international day for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.
  • The mention by Australia, Ecuador and others of the urgent need for universal adherence to efforts to eliminate cluster weapons and land mines.
  • South Africa’s assertion that nuclear weapons should be subject to prohibition as chemical and biological weapons now are.
  • Venezuela’s call for both “horizontal and vertical” disarmament processes.
  • China’s concrete commitments to both a ‘five point plan’ to move forward negotiations with Iran and the production of a national PoA report.
  • Algeria’s suggestion that lessons from existing nuclear-free zones be readily available to assist the Middle East zone process.
  • The European Union’s positing of dangerous linkage between illicit/diverted weapons and prospects for the commission of mass atrocities.
  • Egypt’s concern that the issue of ‘overproduction’ of small arms and conventional weapons is not sufficiently addressed by the ATT or other international instruments.

This is just a small sample of hopeful statements offered amidst the finger pointing over the failure (so far) of the ME WMD-free Zone, the DPRK’s deteriorating relationship with the US, and other tensions.  These tensions are real, they beg for resolution, but it is unclear that a Commission dedicated to deliberation is the proper forum to work out full details towards progress and reconciliation.

In the end, as with the C34 Peacekeeping Committee that recently produced a report after having failed to do so a year earlier, it is critical that the DC Working Groups produce real recommendations this year.   As Australia and others noted, the recommendations don’t have to be ‘game changing’ in order to have impact.   At this point, any recommendations – however modest – would be helpful both in advancing disarmament discussions and in sparing the reputation of the Disarmament Commission itself.

It is not necessary to fix things entirely in order to improve them substantially.   As we have done in the past, and as Reaching Critical Will and others have done over many years, we urge the DC to use every bit of its considerable technical and diplomatic expertise to point the way to the next levels of disarmament progress.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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Shock and Awe: The C34 Finishes Its Report

9 Apr

After 30 days of negotiation, re-negotiation, and a little bit more negotiation, the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations — also known by its shorter title of ‘the C34’ — produced a report for 2014. The report, which examines the ‘whole question’ of peacekeeping – from DDR to policies on procurement – is meant to offer guidance on UN peacekeeping policy. (We will have more to say about the report shortly.) Thus we trust that some of the key recommendations will now be ‘operationalised’ primarily through the UN’s Department of Field Support, and Department of Peacekeeping Operations. As far as intergovernmental processes go, completing a report does not register much surprise. However, it is quite an achievement for the assorted members of the committee to produce this report after they failed to do so during the previous year’s session.

With the success of the process this year (delegates even managed to wrap things up by 17.30 on the final day), one could easily be deceived into believing that all is fine in the land of peacekeeping governance.  However, the development of peacekeeping over the last 6-12 months has demonstrated the degree to which the C34 process is in need of stringent examination, a process which continually reminds the actors involved in peacekeeping policy of the precarious situation that such policy now often finds itself in.

The state of peacekeeping policymaking at the UN can be visualized as three concentric rings, or cogs:

1)    First, Longer term policy developments – this is the slowest of the cogs in the UN system, as it involves the widest array of actors and policy issues. This is where the C34 comes in, supplementing the development of structural changes in the DPKO/DFS and doctrinal developments (‘principles and guidelines’) such as in the new Horizons Process. The fruits of this process often have to find agreement of a wider range of member states, as well as operationalization by the Secretariat.

2)    Second are Operational demands –These refer to responses to threats taking the form of mandates for peacekeeping operations through the Security Council and Secretariat, from the surge in operations at the beginning and end of the 1990s to current developments in Mali, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and Democratic Republic of the Congo. Some of those operations have considerable ramifications for what we have traditionally come to know as ‘peacekeeping.’

3)    The final cog is comprised of ‘Shocks’ – these come in the form of often-avoidable events which shake up peacekeeping practice. For instance: The killing of US servicemen in Somalia in 1992, the Rwandan Genocide, the massacre in Srebrenica, the sexual exploitation and abuse scandals in the early 2000s, and the possible political and legal ramifications from the Cholera outbreak in Haiti. At times these shocks happen due to significant failures at a tactical level. However, sometimes they come about as a result of urgent operational demands working on a different timeline than longer term policy developments.

It can be observed that peacekeeping in the UN is currently stretched in such a policy dynamic: in particular the shorter-term operational and the longer-term policy seem to be working at dramatically different speeds. This is to be expected to a certain extent as, from time to time, urgent operational demands must overtake careful policy development. Moreover, longer-term policy cannot always spin on a dime, with the most coherent and effective policy sometimes taking a considerable time and patience to develop.

However, the past six months have seen operational demands which have significantly challenged the core principles of peacekeeping – the impartiality of a deployed peacekeeping force, the need for strategic consent from the host state, and changes regarding the minimum use of force (apart from self defence and the defence of the mandate). There is a clear and even stark contrast between operational developments – most clearly seen in the Security Council – and deliberations related to longer-term planning — seen through statements from the C34 in which member states consistently refer back to the prominence of core principles.

For instance, in his briefing to the Security Council about the UNMISS operation in South Sudan, USG for the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Herve Ladsous, failed to acknowledge the role of consent as a pillar of the UNMISS operation, while outlining his plan to withdraw capacity building for the government and opposition and focus purely on the impartial protection of civilians. As laudable as the protection of civilians is in South Sudan, the deafening silence concerning host nation consent sets the operation on a precarious path, particularly when the UN’s own reports cite the host government as a primary coordinator of attacks against UNMISS. In the larger picture of peacekeeping policy development, this is even more problematic – if a peacekeeping mission can continue to be deployed without host nation support, what does this mean for peacekeeping’s claim of impartial response?

Additionally, the assessment of UNMISS, and planning for deployment in the Central African Republic are both taking place at the same time as the UN is undertaking tricky negotiations over reimbursement rates for peacekeepers. Levels of financial reimbursement are being closely linked by some states to levels of preparedness of peacekeepers and the equipment that accompanies them in the field. Moreover, Troop Contributors wish to see an even higher rate of reimbursement in situations where they send soldiers into particularly hazardous environments. Linking this to debates in the Security Council where peacekeepers are being mandated to deploy in areas with high levels of insecurity, with little formalized peace processes in place, and (as in the case of MONUSCO) with part of the mission recalibrated to launch offensive combat operations against belligerents, gaps in the timing of policy formulation – including policy on reimbursement — are more pronounced.

In addition to these gaps, a trend exists which considers the Security Council as the primary anchor point in peacekeeping policy, particularly visible among advocacy groups. For instance, advocacy around the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has seen a considerable level of activity at the UN Security Council (most pertinently around operations), but nothing comparable at the C34. No statement from the joint office on R2P/genocide prevention has been made at the C34; the concept is not referred to at all in this year’s C34 report, nor does it appear in other iterations of the UN’s peacekeeping policy machinery (for instance the Principles and Guidelines). The level of ‘impact’ from advocacy at Security Council level may potentially be greater, but there is a danger in neglecting other capacities established to develop peacekeeping policy, thereby reinforcing the belief by Security Council membership (in particular Permanent Members), that they are the only drivers of such policy.

From our perspective, strengthening the role and functionality of the C34 is essential – that this year’s report was approved is no small feat. However, work towards the strengthening of the report, the level to which the report’s policy recommendations can be operationalized, is a task for the coming year. Secondly, there needs to be a bit more humility from those member states in the Security Council who too often feel that their idea of peacekeeping is the only viable way forward. Statements made regarding the CAR as being a ‘new type of operation’ seemed to ride roughshod over years of (admittedly imperfect) peacekeeping development which began at the end of the 1990s. Thirdly, contributors to the C34 need to develop and utilize their own strengths to facilitate peacekeeping research. The growth of peacekeeping training centers within a growing number of states brings with it opportunities of spreading “lessons learned” and cultivating more nuanced levels of understanding. Finally, those advocacy groups seeking policy relevance solely through tracking Security Council resolutions and debates may have to revisit their strategies, or at least examine the extent to which they can also support the longer term policy approaches represented by the C34.

The fear is that if longer term policy and shorter-term operational demands continue to move at such radically different speeds, then the UN could find itself in a similar position as the beginning of the 1990’s. As those who follow the history of peacekeeping knows, the 1990’s contained plenty of shocks.  Another generation of preventable ‘shocks’ is in the best interests of no one.

Dr. David Curran, GAPW Peacekeeping Fellow

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Making Persons ‘Reappear’ in El Salvador

27 Mar

As many readers of this blog know, the vicious civil war that raged for years in El Salvador left many victims, including the mostly unhealed scars of families seeking knowledge of the whereabouts of children (now adults) who were ‘disappeared’ during military operations in the 1980s.  The combination of the sudden loss of a loved one followed by years of silence regarding their whereabouts is a pain that only few of us can imagine.   The pain only deepens when the ‘disappeared’ are children.

GAPW just spent an important afternoon with the staff of the Pro- Búsqueda Association (www.probusqueda.org.sv/), a group of mostly younger professionals dedicated to lifting the veil of disinformation and deceit imposed by those seeking to cover up the truth of many hundreds of childhood disappearances.  Using sophisticated tracking software, Pro- Búsqueda has successfully reunited hundreds of disappeared children (now adults) and their loved ones. The organization also provides counseling services for families.  Many of these extraordinary stories can be founded on their website.

Staff at Pro- Búsqueda have noted with appreciation the cooperation they have received from many international experts as well as from the Inter-American Court for Human Rights.   Pro- Búsqueda is assisting now on what will be only the fourth case to come to the Court from El Salvador.  However, the organization believes that over 900 cases of disappearances are entitled to their day in court, with the strong potential for reparations as well.

A major violation occurred in November 2013 when three armed men entered the Pro- Búsqueda offices, stole computers and set fire to some documents and files.  The attack, which was condemned at the time by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, has thankfully not proven to be a fatal setback.  The offices we visited were filled with deep resolve, but also with the sounds of laughter.

One recommendation from Pro- Búsqueda and other groups working in this area is for El Salvador to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CED/Pages/ConventionCED.aspx) and fully abide by its provisions, including ensuring “that any individual who alleges that a person has been subjected to enforced disappearance has the right to report the facts to the competent authorities, which shall examine the allegation promptly and impartially and, where necessary, undertake without delay a thorough and impartial investigation.”

That states have not done due diligence on matters of fact finding, investigation and ending impunity is why the work of Pro- Búsqueda and others working on enforced disappearances is so important.  Disappearing children is a grave crime.   From the standpoint of promoting peaceful societies, giving the disappeared from El Salvador the opportunity to return to their families and communities is among the most hopeful work we have witnessed anywhere.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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An Open Letter to UN Permanent Representatives — Give the Disarmament Commission Another Chance

20 Mar

Editor’s note:  For many years, GAPW has lamented the decline in productivity of the UN Disarmament Commission.  Given some recent hopeful signs in disarmament and the fact that the DC is in the third year of a 3 year policy cycle, we believe that the upcoming UNDC is an opportunity for meaningful deliberations warranting the attention of diplomatic missions that might well choose to put their energies elsewhere. 

Excellencies:

As most of you are aware, April 7 marks the beginning of the 2014 UN Disarmament Commission, the third year of its current policy cycle.   Ambassador Drobnjak has met with delegates to brief them on his own hopes and expectations for the three-week session and will convene another preparatory meeting on March 24. As he does so, we recall Ambassador Grima’s assertion from last April that the 2013 session did much to rebuild trust among delegations as a precondition for meaningful deliberations on nuclear disarmament and confidence building in the field of conventional weapons. This assertion may be as much an aspiration as a fact, but Ambassador Grima’s words at the very least underscore the need for more trustbuilding in disarmament matters as well as to increase the resolve of the UNDC to ‘test’ strategies that can build even more trusting and policy-effective relations among delegations tasked with disarmament matters.

Excellencies, this letter is a request to all of you to consider supporting another push for effectiveness in the UNDC in April, prioritizing time and energy from your missions to help support the possibility of deliberative movement that can provide real guidance to First Committee delegates. The UNDC now stands at risk of being overtaken by events as governments and civil society increasingly look outside the UN for the means to carry forward focused and technical deliberations on critical and emerging disarmament issues. A successful UNDC, resulting in clear if modest recommendations, can help erase the frustration of many inside and outside the UN that our disarmament structures are now simply and stubbornly inflexible.  

We recognize the challenge in asking for this commitment.  Our sense while speaking with many representatives of missions is that the UNDC feels too much like a long and tedious obligation that, as we all acknowledge, has failed to produce tangible results in many years.  GAPW has noted with concern many changes in the makeup of delegations to the UNDC over the years, the smaller numbers of diplomats who make the trip from Geneva or national capitals, the reduced ranks of diplomats assigned to cover the DC and its working groups, especially after the formal statements have been concluded.

With all that delegations need to accomplish on issues ranging from disabilities and the status of women to atrocity crime prevention and post-2015 development goals — not to mention other disarmament obligations — it is understandable that many of you would choose to minimize mission involvement in such a protracted and, especially in recent years, largely unfulfilling process.  But we also recognize that disarmament structures have undergone change in the past, they can be changed again, and it is worth our while to seize current opportunities to change them further.

As you all know, the UNDC is a deliberative body not a negotiating body.  It makes political judgments regarding the best paths forward on disarmament but neither creates nor endorses binding agreements. As such, there is little pressure regarding the establishments of precedents in disarmament negotiations, important given that the UNDC will be followed this year by the precedent-laden NPT review and the 5th Biennial Meeting of States on Small Arms.   In addition, there is little pressure for the UNDC to issue comprehensive guidelines on disarmament matters.  Concrete, if modest, suggestions for how to move disarmament processes forward would be both sufficient and welcome.   As much as the global public craves solutions on disarmament matters, they can be provisionally satisfied with tangible policy movement of the sort that should by now be the UNDC’s specialized domain.

Failure to use this final year of the UNDC’s cycle to productive ends will further erode delegate interest.  It will increase the likelihood that states will no longer see the value in funding these sessions.  And, perhaps most important, failure of the UNDC might well encourage the Security Council to take up disarmament more frequently as a thematic consideration in a manner that marginalizes GA initiatives. The apparent inability of yet another GA process to live up to expectations will only embolden those who see the Council and the Council alone as the only effective body to take up these concerns.

GAPW’s clear position is that we need to keep disarmament firmly as a GA function.  But we also need to demonstrate that GA disarmament structures, especially the UNDC, can be less prone to gridlock or held hostage to an inflexible view of ‘consensus’ that belies the UNDC’s purely deliberative functions.  With all that is taking place inside and outside the UN, it is no longer clear that the UNDC will continue to have a key role in disarmament affairs if we cannot take measures now to make modest, limited recommendations to other parts of the GA which are more directly responsible for establishing and promoting disarmament obligations.

Excellencies, with all due respect for the multiple, important agendas taking up the time of you and your mission colleagues, we urge you to give ample attention to this session of the DC. We have noted with deep appreciation recent “openings” on regulating the global arms trade, fact-based discussion on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, hopeful collaborations among states as part of the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms, Iran’s still-tentative recalibration of its own nuclear ambitions, efforts to address the impact of the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, building transparency and confidence in outer space activities, and more.  With all that is now attempting to bloom, this could also be the season when we can replace structural immovability with a more flexible and collaborative tone.  This could be the year for deliberation that yields suggestions for moving forward on disarmament obligations that people worldwide are yearning to see.

Excellencies, you have assurances of our highest consideration as well as our support as the UNDC navigates its current challenges and opportunities.

Dr. Robert Zuber

zuber@globalactionpw.org

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