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Conference at the crossroads: Future prospects for the conference of the Committee on Disarmament

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Michael J. Sullivan III
Michael J. Sullivan III
Affiliation:
Michael J. Sullivan III is an Associate Professer of Political Science at Drexel University.
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Extract

The Conference of the Committee on Disarmament (CCD), a 26-member committee chaired by the US and the USSR and reporting annually to the UN General Assembly, has been stalled for three years over two issues which neither super power wishes to agree on: chemical weapons and a comprehensive nuclear testing ban. As a result, the future viability of the world's only multilateral forum for negotiating arms control is in jeopardy. In recent years a movement has been initiated by certain non-aligned states—mostly notably Mexico, Sweden, and Yugoslavia—to shake up the procedural foundations of the CCD so as to bring about substantive changes in its agenda, its manner of operation, its composition, and its results. The immediate diplomatic vehicle for this procedural revolution is the convening of a new deliberative forum, the World Disarmament Conference (WDC). The WDC has been debated in the last three General Assemblies where it has evolved in substance and built a constituency of support so that there is a distinct possibility such a body may be convened in the next few years. Its most significant achievement would be to bring France and China into world disarmament forums, and to legitimize on-going bilateral and regional arms control structures which have been created in the absence of movement at the CCD.

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Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , Spring 1975 , pp. 393 - 413
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1975

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References

1 See, respectively, Halsted, Thomas A., Executive Director of the Arms Control Association, in “SALT II, Moscow Summit Fulfills Expectations,” Arms Control Today, 07/08 1974, p. 3Google Scholar; and Scoville, Herbert, former assistant director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, in “Arms after Moscow,” New York Times, 07 11, 1974, p. 31.Google Scholar

2 The ENDC was set up by the US and USSR “to undertake negotiations with a view to reaching…agreements on general and complete disarmament under effective international control” in accordance with the Soviet–American Joint Statement of Agreed Principles of September 20, 1961. For text of these principles, see United Nations and Disarmament 1945–1970, (New York: UN Public Information Service, 1971), pp. 87–88.Google Scholar

3 For example, the US and USSR alternate in giving the opening and closing speeches each session, and approve the convening of informal meetings, the inclusion of scientific experts, or other variations from normal conference procedures. On a more mundane level, a visitor observing the formal proceedings of the CCD must request permission from the US or Soviet delegation, not through the UN Secretariat.

4 There is a distinction in disarmament diplomacy between a negotiating body, usually limited in size, where agreements are pursued among states representative of wider political forces and with a high degree of expertise in the subject matter; and a larger deliberative body such as the General Assembly which strives for minimal agreement on broad policy guidelines or principles. (This distinction should not ignore the fact that a good deal of “deliberation” can go on in small committees as well.)

5 France, however, since its first atomic test in 1961, has never formally taken its seat at Geneva, or participated in any arms control deliberations outside of the General Assembly.

6 A good account of the informal negotiations which resulted in the final mix of non-aligned states is found in Jacobson, Harold Karan and Stein, Eric, Diplomats, Scientists, and Politicans: The United States and the Nuclear Test Ban Negotiations (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966), p. 358.Google Scholar

7 “The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons” was negotiated at Geneva from 1965 to 1968, and was formally signed on July 1, 1968.

8 The NPT was seen as particularly discriminatory for preventing “horizontal proliferation” (i.e., to states beyond the initial five), but not prohibiting “vertical proliferation” (i.e., the qualitative development of, and quantitative addition to, the five existing nuclear weapons arsenals.)

9 For example, in Articles IV, V, and VI, the nuclear-weapon states promised to pursue further negotiations toward nuclear disarmament, and to provide assistance in transferring “at cost” the benefits of peaceful atomic explosive devices technology when this becomes feasible. For excellent article-by-article analyses of the NPT, see Willrich, Mason, Non-Proliferation Treaty: Framework for Nuclear Arms Control, (Charlottesville: The Michie Co., 1969)Google Scholar, and Fischer, Georges, The Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (New York: St. Martins Press, 1972).Google Scholar

10 There was also pressure to enlarge the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which had responsibility for verification of compliance with the NPT. For a complete account of this conference, see United Nations and Disarmament 1945–1970, chapter 14.

11 See, in particular, the accounts of the early ENDC by Lall, Arthur S., Negotiating Disarmament: ENDC: The First Two Years, 1962–1964, (Ithaca: Cornell University Center for International Studies, 1964)Google Scholar, and by Ahmed, M. Samir, The Neutrals and the Test Ban Negotiations (New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1967).Google Scholar

12 Burma, the twelfth state, has barely participated in the CCD since 1969. For a further elaboration of this three-fold division of the CCD's non-aligneds, see the paper by this author entitled, “Coalition Diplomacy at the CCD,” delivered at International Studies Association Convention, St. Louis, March 21, 1974.

13 Even though the technology required to detonate India's “peaceful explosive device” is indistinguishable from that needed to trigger a nuclear weapon, India will be referred to throughout this paper as a “non-nuclear-weapon state” for it has not in fact embarked upon the manufacture of nuclear weapons for addition to its military arsenal.

14 “Treaty on the Prohibition of the Emplacement of Nuclear Weapons (and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction) on the Seabed, and the Ocean Floor, and in the Subsoil Thereof,” was negotiated at the CCD in 1969 and 1970, and formally signed on February 11, 1971.

15 The “Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction,” was negotiated at the CCD in 1970 and 1971, and formally signed on April 10, 1972.

16 See President Nixon's statement of November 25, 1969, in Department of State Bulletin, 12 15, 1969, p. 541Google Scholar. The start of the destruction of America's BW stockpile in 1970 allowed the US negotiators at Geneva to make progress on the BW Treaty in 1971.

17 Since the inception of the ENDC, a distinction has been maintained between “general and complete disarmament” and “collateral measures of disarmament.” The latter are those measures aimed at “lessening international tension, consolidating confidence among states, and facilitating general and complete disarmament.” (See Soviet—American Joint Principles of September 20, 1961, submitted to ENDC as document ENDC/5 of March 5, 1962.)

18 See General Assembly resolutions 2828 (XXVI) of December 16, 1971; 2934 (XXVII) of November 29, 1972; and 3078B(XXVIII) of December 26, 1973.

19 General Assembly resolutions 2827 (XXVI) of December 16, 1971; 2933 (XXVII) of November 29, 1972; and 3077 (XXVIII) of December 26, 1973.

20 CCD document CCD/361 of March 28, 1972.

21 See, for example, the remarks of Morocco in CCD/PV. (Verbatim Official Record), 555th Meeting, 04 11, 1972, page 17Google Scholar, and at CCD/PV.581, August 29, 1972, pp. 16–17; of Argentina at CCD/PV.578, August 17, 1972, p. 6; and of Sweden at CCD/PV.569, July 18, 1972, p. 21.

22 For example, in a technically advanced country there would be enormous problems separating chemical weapons development from peaceful research in the chemical industry, and in devising a means of verifying prohibition of the former without entailing industrial espionage of the latter. See US working papers submitted as documents CCD/365 through 369 of June 20, 1972, and CCD/360 of March 20, 1972.

23 CCD/400 of April 26, 1973. India and Pakistan did not join in sponsoring this memorandum.

24 See US speeches at CCD/PV.608 of June 28, 1973, at CCD/PV.609 of July 3, 1973, and at CCD/PV.613 of July 17, 1973.

25 The exact words of Dr. Fred Ikle were, “We need a sense of proportion in sorting out priorities. For example, we could probably all agree that the dangers from nuclear weapons far outweigh the dangers from chemical weapons. … I know that your energies and skill will not become totally absorbed by the considerable difficulty of limiting chemical weapons.” (CCD/PV.621, p. 21).

26 CCD/403 of June 28, 1973.

27 CCD/PV.612 of July 12, 1973.

28 CCD/420 of April 30, 1974.

29 See Soviet statement in CCD/PV.642 of July 11, 1974, p. 16, and American statement in CCD/PV.643 of July 16, 1974, p. 17.

30 See Robinson, Julian Perry, “Binary Nerve Gas and the Limitation of Chemical Weapons,” Arms Control Today, 07/08, 1974, p. 1Google Scholar, for an elaboration of this assessment which emphasizes problems within the American national security establishment.

31 Haistead, p. 3.

32 It says, “The interim agreement on offensive strategic weapons should be followed by a new agreement… (which) should cover the period until 1985 and deal with both quantitative and qualitative limitations.”

33 The implication is that such a forum would be more “within the framework of genuine disarmament endeavors” than either the bilateral SALT or the 25-state CCD. See French statement of November 29, 1971 in the General Assembly, and also letter to Secretary-General of August 25, 1972 (Official Records, General Assembly, document A/881 7, Annex I) where the 15-member Security Council is specifically mentioned as the optimum body.

34 See Chinese statements of October 3, 1972, ibid., PV.2951, pp. 78–90, and of November 15, 1971, ibid., PV.1989, pp. 50–68.

35 Sweden has frequently suggested this during informal meetings of the CCD states as an enticement to get China to participate. (Interview with Madame Alva Myrdal, head of Swedish delegation to the CCD, August 8, 1973.)

36 The respective Soviet and American proposals have been left virtually unattended at the CCD since their introduction. See Soviet general and complete disarmament program in ENDC/2/Rev. 1 of March 15, 1962, with amendments of July 16 and November 26, 1962, and of February 4, 1964; and American plan in ENDC/30/Adds. 1–3 of April 18, 1962, with amendments of August 6 and 8, 1962, and August 14, 1963.

37 The “general and complete disarmament” goal of the CCD envisages a final stage at the end of a long series of partial, mutual, balanced, and verified earlier measures. The “comprehensive disarmament program” includes all negotiations, steps and other acts—in the CCD or any other forum—leading to this final stage. The distinction was sharply emphasized in General Assembly Resolution 2602E (XXIV) of December 16, 1969, which declared the 1970s to be the Disarmament Decade and which asked the CCD to work out the guidelines for a comprehensive program.

38 For the Swedish proposal see CCD/PV.601, April 17, 1973; for Japan's, CCD/420 of April 30, 1974; and for the Netherlands', CCD/410 of July 31, 1973.

39 A good overview of Canadian positions in the disarmament debate is found in the memoirs of the leader of its delegation for many years, Burns, E. L. M., A Seat at the Table, (Toronto: Clarke-Irwin, 1973).Google Scholar

40 For an analysis of some early Italian objections to the NPT, see Albonetti, Achille, “The NPT Draft under Scrutiny,” Survival, (07, 1967), pp. 223–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 In addition to the end-of-session report mentioned above, there is formal caucusing of the five “as the occasion demands” in Geneva, and at least once at the start of the spring and summer sessions. It is only because they are at the CCD as NATO allies that this occurs. When these same Western states meet in other forums (e.g., at the UN, or at conferences dealing with energy or financial matters), there is not this same attentiveness to consultation.

42 There was an earlier move for a WDC in the mid-1960s following the meeting of the Heads of Non-Aligned States in Cairo in 1964 and with the purpose of bringing China into arms control talks. In 1965, both the UNDC and the General Assembly passed resolutions endorsing such an idea and urging a preparatory committee to begin work for such a conference. (See UNDC document 224 of June 11, 1965, and Assembly resolution 2030 (XX) of November 29, 1965.) All such efforts ceased, however, after the Chinese Cultural Revolution began in 1966.

43 The passage by acclamation of General Assembly resolution 2833 (XXVI) of December 16, 1971, postponing consideration of WDC for one year, was largely due to the efforts of Mexico. See Jack, Homer, “Disarmament in the 1971 General Assembly,” (New York: World Conference of Peace through Religion Pamphlet, 1972.)Google Scholar

44 See British letter to the Secretary-General of 08 29, 1972, in Official Records, General Assembly, A/8817, Annex 1, pp. 72–73Google Scholar; and French letter of August 25, 1972, ibid., pp. 23–24.

45 Assembly Resolution 2930 (XXVI) of November 29, 1972, was tabled by Zambia acting as leader of the non-aligned group because of the meeting of the Non-Aligned Foreign Ministers in its capital the previous summer. Argentina was also very instrumental in its drafting.

46 See Chinese statements of October 3, 1972, and of October 24, 1972, in Official Records, General Assembly, 2051st Meeting, pp. 78–90Google Scholar, and ibid., First Committee, 1873rd Meeting, pp. 28–37.

47 The United States, however, had been consistently opposed to the idea of a WDC in any event, and indicated its refusal to participate in its statements of August 30, 1972 and October 23, 1972. (Ibid., Document A/8817, Annex I, pp. 73–76, and First Committee, 1872nd Meeting, pp. 41–55.)

48 See Trepczynski's announcement on December 20, 1972, naming 31 members to the committee and “reserving” four places for the nuclear states which “may wish to become members of the special committee in the future.” (Ibid., Document A/8990 of December 22, 1972). The 35 members include the CCD 26 plus China, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Iran, Sri Lanka, Liberia, and Zambia.

49 For a “non-report” of this “non-committee” which held six informal “non-meetings” during the summer of 1973, see the speech of Iran, its informally elected “non-chairman,” ibid., First Committee, 1934th Meeting, October 29, 1973.

50 The Committee consists of the 30 non-nuclear states from the 1973 Special Committee, plus Peru, Venezuela, Austria, Turkey, Lebanon, Philippine Islands, Tunisia, Algeria, Burundi, and Zaire.