Interview with Ambassador Peter Burian, Slovakian Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Chairman of the 1540 Committee

Interviewed by Miles Pomper and Peter Crail

Since January 2006, Slovakian Ambassador Peter Burian has chaired a U.N. Security Council committee charged with examining the implementation of Resolution 1540, which was unanimously adopted by the Security Council in April 2004. Resolution 1540 is a legally binding Security Council effort which requires all states to implement a variety of domestic measures to prevent nonstate actors from acquiring weapons of mass destruction (WMD), their means of delivery, and related materials. States are required to submit a report on the steps they have taken to carry out the resolution’s requirements and the committee, which is comprised of the 15 members of the Security Council, reviews those national reports. In April 2006, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1673, calling for intensified efforts by states to implement the resolution and extending the committee’s mandate until April 2008.[1] On September 21, Arms Control Today met with Ambassador Burian in New York to discuss the role and activities of the committee in regard to the resolution. His remarks represent the position of the Slovakian government and do not represent those of the committee as a whole.

ACT: We’ll start off with a pretty basic question. What are the responsibilities of the 1540 committee and what do you see as the committee’s primary tasks?

Burian: The Security Council Resolution 1540 defines the role of the committee in quite general terms, which is to examine the implementation of Resolution 1540. This task was specified in Resolution 1673 and also in the work program of the committee. Resolution 1673 tasks the committee with intensifying its efforts to promote the full implementation of Resolution 1540 by all states. The work program includes outreach activities, assistance, and also promotion and development of international cooperation in support of implementation of Resolution 1540, so these are the major areas of work of the committee. And of course, as I mentioned in the beginning, the committee is tasked to report to the Security Council on the implementation of Resolution 1540 by member states and also major challenges in this area.

ACT: One of the points you mentioned was outreach. What have been the results of your effort in this area?

Burian: In order to assist the full implementation of the resolution, the committee sought to have a dialogue with states and regions encouraging the sharing of national experiences and facilitating technical assistance and cooperation with international, regional, and subregional organizations. Through its various outreach activities, the committee managed to increase awareness of the importance of implementation of all aspects of Resolution 1540. This was the aim of our outreach activities in 2006, but since we are now concentrating on promoting and supporting full implementation of all aspects of Resolutions 1540 and 1673, there is a slight shift in the focus also in the outreach activities. Through these outreach activities, we are able to reach out to countries to discuss with them the challenges and problems in the implementation of Resolution 1540, and also to identify problems countries are facing in the implementation process, including lack of administrative and technical capacities and capabilities to deal with all aspects of Resolution 1540. The outreach activities also helped us to define ways to help them to cope with the requirements and also to create better channels for communication with the member countries, international organizations, and the committee in this area.

ACT: So far about 136 countries have submitted reports to the committee, but only seven have done so over the past year, is this kind of outreach effort reaching a point of diminishing returns?

Burian: We were just discussing this issue in the meeting with the committee experts [2] and we agreed that increasing the number of reporting countries is an important goal for outreach activities, but the committee’s work is not limited to that goal. That is why, now, the outreach activities are focusing on, from one side, the promotion and implementation of 1540, but also on defining the ways we can help countries to cope with the requirements of 1540. In this area I think we achieved a lot because by organizing various regional and sub-regional outreach activities, first of all, we helped the countries in different regions and subregions to develop their regional cooperation in addressing various challenges in the implementation process. Some of the issues can be only addressed through regional cooperation. This is one of the observations coming from our outreach activities. But as I mentioned previously, we also, through concrete interaction with the member states and international organizations, managed to define new challenges and divide the labor between us—the committee and international organizations—in helping countries implement Resolution 1540. So, maybe, these results are not so much visible, but they are very important for moving the process of implementation of Resolution 1540 forward.

ACT: One of the issues that seems to be a problem is that some governments simply do not have the financial resources or technical expertise to implement the resolution. How do you work in making sure that the countries get that kind of help that they need from the international community?

Burian: This is one of the conclusions that resulted from our better understanding of the problems which the member states are facing in implementation. On one side, it’s the lack of capacities, both administrative and technical, to cope with the requirements of Resolution 1540. But on the other hand also, it’s the lack of understanding of the resolution’s importance for national and regional security and stability of a country. Some countries are saying, “We are not producing nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, why should we pay attention or why should we be devoting our efforts to this particular problem when we have some other problems like small and light weapons trafficking or HIV/AIDS and some other problems?” This is the case especially in developing countries. But we talk to the representatives of those countries and explain to them what is at stake. Their territories might be misused for purposes of trafficking or planning attacks against some other countries or hitting targets in those countries. Tasks connected with the implementation of 1540 might help them to address also some other issues more efficiently through improved border controls and export controls such as the issue of small arms and light weapons and drug trafficking. Then their approach to the implementation of 1540 and cooperation with the 1540 committee is changing and this is also a result of our very active communication with member states.

ACT: Some people say the committee should be a little more active in matching donors with recipients.

Burian: Ah, yes, yes, yes. So, this is also a very important priority in our work because we understand that, without major assistance and effort some countries will not be able to cope with the requirements of 1540. That is why we organized in the beginning of this year quite a comprehensive debate in the committee on assistance strategy, which was followed by a discussion with donor countries on how we can better use the committee as a clearinghouse for assistance and match the requests and offers of assistance. We also discussed how to focus the attention of donors and countries providing assistance on real priorities in the area of implementation of 1540.

ACT: What are the results of that? Is there anything concrete that has come out of that at this point?

Burian: First of all, the committee now better understands the needs. This is one thing. We also took several decisions on how to better manage the role of a clearinghouse through facilitating the understanding of how to better formulate the requests for assistance. From the donor side, it’s very important that they do not only concentrate on some areas, but that they spread their activities into to a larger territory or, more precisely, they cover all the countries which need assistance. These meetings with donors helped to increase the awareness and understanding of what the donor countries are doing and in which countries. This also is the result of our discussion. We would like to better use our Web page [3] to inform the countries regarding what individual member states or international organizations are doing in order to help the countries to cope with Resolution 1540 requirements, and also identify the programs which exist in those international organizations in various areas to help countries.

ACT: Is there any kind of compiled data that says for example, “This much money is being spent on 1540 programs by these states”?

Burian: This is quite an interesting question. Some countries do not want to share with us all the details of their national assistance programs and projects. But in this area, the approaches and attitudes are changing. Countries understand that through better transparency and through the provision of information to those who are seeking the information, countries can better use their resources. But we do not have a clear idea of how much is spent on those programs because they are dispersed in various agencies and institutions. Even countries like the United States might not know, actually, how much they spend on various programs helping or supporting implementation of 1540 because they are spread through various agencies. This is the aim, nationally, to bring all of the actors together to coordinate their efforts and to divide internally their focus and labor to cover those areas which are the priority and to remove all kinds of unnecessary duplication. One of the good examples of this kind of coordinate approach on assistance is represented by the US national action plan which has been shared by the United States with the 1540 Committee recently.

Based on the invitation of the State Department, our experts recently visited Washington, D.C., to meet with various agencies involved in the implementation, or support of implementation, of 1540 in various countries. They shared with us the information on projects available in this area. They also wanted to hear from us what is the experience of the committee in the area of assistance. What are the plans? What are the priorities? And where do we see gaps which are not covered by donors’ assistance or assistance as such in helping countries to cope with 1540?

ACT: One of the legal questions is that the Security Council did not define what “appropriate” and “effective” are in terms of export control, physical security measures, and so on, that countries were supposed to adopt. How much of a problem was that in assessing the implementation of the resolutions and would it be helpful to have a specific standard in that regard?

Burian: This is quite a sensitive issue, and the committee doesn’t have a unified approach to so-called best practices because many countries are stressing that there is no unified or uniform model of implementation of 1540 and every country has a specific situation. At the same time, the members of the committee understand the importance of sharing the information on national practices which might serve as a source of inspiration for neighbors or for countries of subregions and regions to speed up the process of implementation by avoiding the mistakes which probably their neighbors might have made in the process.

Regional organizations have paid quite a lot of attention recently to the implementation of 1540. These include the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Organization of American States, or the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and so on. We are trying to facilitate the discussion in those organizations on the so-called regional practices on functioning models of implementation or on the legislation. We are even thinking, in connection with CARICOM, about a model law in areas such as export control, which might be used in environments, which are similar in nature and also share similar legal systems. What I want to stress is that we want to utilise the role of regional organizations for this purpose as they are better suited to discuss what is working and what is not in the regional context and what the best approaches are.

We already have very good results in this area. The OSCE, first of all, politically supported the implementation of 1540, and they moved to a concrete area by defining the best practices in the region in several areas of implementation of 1540. I think this is an example which might be followed by others. I see quite a bit of progress in this direction in the Organization of American States, and this is something which the committee wants to encourage and support. But we are not going to define the best practices for the member states to follow. We can point to some gaps, to some problems, and then it is the national responsibility of a country to define the best ways how to address the problem.

ACT: You mentioned gaps and weaknesses. Does the committee go and identify particular weaknesses in a particular country’s coverage of these various areas that are supposed to be under 1540 and, for instance, does the committee visit states to measure their implementation of the resolution as I understand the counterterrorism committee pursuant to resolution 1373 does. [4] Is there any equivalent to that?

Burian: Our approach to that is a little bit more general. Based on the information which we are receiving through national reports and based on the available information in public sources, such as Web pages of governments and so on, the committee has designed a matrix which is more or less reflecting the structure of the resolution, of various paragraphs of the resolution, and is covering information about national implementation. This matrix also identifies some existing gaps in the implementation, such as the absence of laws or practical arrangements in dealing with particular problems. So this is the approach we use in the committee. We are trying to avoid using the expression of weaknesses because this might be perceived by the member states as putting some blame on them and we would like to avoid blaming and shaming as a method of work. We want to show a cooperative approach of the committee in addressing various gaps and problems in the implementation. I think this is very well received and perceived by the member states, encouraging them to do more. So, some approaches might be more effective, but this is what the committee can agree to as a method of work and we pursue this approach.

ACT: That seems to apply primarily to whether countries have the appropriate laws, but do you have anything on whether they are actually enforcing whatever laws they have or is that out of the realm of the committee?

Burian: Again, the committee doesn’t have the ambition to judge the effectiveness of some of the mechanisms on a national level. Indirectly, however, in discussions, in our outreach activities, in the seminars, in the subregional and national workshops, we are able to direct and point out some problems which might be perceived as weaknesses. This is the way these kind of problematic areas are addressed; sometimes indirectly through informal contacts and communication of the committee with individual countries.

ACT: So it’s more informal than formal?

Burian: Yes, yes. What is quite important to stress, then, is that the committee’s work is based on observations, examinations, and experience from workshops and examination of national reports. In its final evaluation of implementation of 1540 the committee uses general terms and generalizes some conclusions, and does not point out particular countries lagging behind.

ACT: On that note, do you see the committee as having the appropriate resources or level of authority to appropriately carry out this assessment of implementation?

Burian: If I’m proceeding from the committee’s mandate which the Security Council defined in Resolutions 1540 and 1673, I would say we have sufficient resources represented by the expert group. We now have eight experts dealing with evaluation of national reports and the information which is coming to the committee. We are also preparing the reports and recommendations for the Security Council regarding how to address existing gaps and challenges in this area. I think we are doing quite fine. But, of course, maybe the expectations of some countries from the outside and maybe the expectations of some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are a little bit bigger. But again, those are not reflecting the mandate which the committee has had. I can also imagine a larger focus of the committee in the future, but we can only reach to the area and use methods of work which are agreed upon by the members.

ACT: Well, just speaking of that a little bit, obviously the current resolution expires next year. What is the expectation? Will there be another resolution extending the committee’s work? Is there talk of extending the mandate? For instance, one idea that people have talked about, is that if there were a nuclear terrorist attack, countries should be required to submit data so that there could be attribution of where the material came from. Is there talk of new directions as to where it might go, whether it’s going to keep going?

Burian: I do not want to prejudge the outcome of the discussion in the committee, which is only starting right now and which will be concentrating on the preparation of the report of the committee which will be submitted to the Security Council in April. There are various opinions about how to improve the work of the committee. I am quite sure these suggestions and ideas will be reflected in the committee’s report. At the same time, there are also some pressures, some opinions, from members of the UN which are not part of the members of the Security Council, that the resolution by itself is something which should be replaced by a comprehensive convention to be adopted by the General Assembly to receive some additional legitimacy and legal power. This is something which was not echoed only by a small group of countries but by the whole General Assembly and I do not exclude this kind of development in the future.

At the same time, my view is that the committee has not fulfilled its tasks and all its goals which it is expected to achieve in the supporting implementation of 1540. Before we have something, some mechanism which might replace the committee, we need to simply, and it’s my personal opinion, extend the life of the committee for a future period. I’m not quite sure for how many years, but this will be also an issue which will be discussed and decided by the Security Council. In this regard we might also think about how to make the work of the committee more efficient and productive. This will also be a matter for discussion in the near future.

ACT: Are there particular areas or gaps that require more attention than others from governments? The resolution is broad. It covers nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and delivery systems. Are there particular areas that have received less attention or are sort of generally more of a weakness in laws than others, such as in the biological realm?

Burian: It differs from country to country and region to region. The specific situation matters, such as whether the country is producing or storing some materials which are related to weapons of mass destruction. That’s why it’s very difficult to generalize. First of all, the conclusions of the report which were presented to the Security Council in April 2006 say that no country is perfect. There is no system which will be 100 percent bulletproof and reliable. There is always space for improvement. It is different from country to country. Some countries might have problems with accounting, with physical protection. Some countries might have problems with unreliable export control systems. Some countries might have problems with laws and mechanisms covering the financing of services connected with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or related activities. So, these are the areas which are also identified in the report. Accounting, physical protection, shipment and trans-shipment, and also financing of activities and services connected with the proliferation in general terms is something to which we should pay more attention to.

You also mentioned enforcement. This is an important point because even if you have a perfect law, if you are not able to enforce it properly, if you do not have institutions which are trained to detect and also deal with this kind of substances, then, of course, all the laws are not very much helpful in dealing with the concrete problem and situation.

Finally, I agree that we should also pay more attention to the biological area. There is no specialized organization to deal with issues of implementation and verification of measures envisaged by the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. At the same time the potential of nonstate actors to misuse this kind of substances for terrorist purposes is growing.

ACT: What about the committee’s relationship to other international organizations and export control regimes such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), or the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR)? How is that working out? For instance, the OPCW directors have expressed a lot of concern about the potential for chemical weapons terrorism, but that is mainly the responsibility of this committee rather than the OPCW, per se.

Burian: One of the priorities of the committee is to identify the programs existing in various international organizations dealing with various aspects of implementation of 1540 so as not to invent something which is already existing. Also, through increased cooperation and contact with those organizations, we identified many important projects and programs which are helping countries to cope with the implementation of 1540. And we managed, through direct contacts, to improve this kind of awareness and to remove some existing suspicions about the role of the 1540 committee. We built something which now provides concrete results.

We have excellent cooperation with the OPCW. They participate in our outreach activities and we attend their outreach activities. I visited Brussels to discuss cooperation with the World Customs Organization. We identified several areas where we can work together much better and we also have improved and increased contact and cooperation with the IAEA, which is regularly participating in our activities. Slovakia, as a member of the Security Council, initiated an open debate of the Security Council in February on the role of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) in supporting implementation of 1540. There were many important ideas and proposals raised during the discussion which we are now trying to use in building a higher level of cooperation and contact with those organizations. But we do not want to limit ourselves only to those three or four. I would include also the World Health Organization, which in some areas plays quite an important role. We are expanding now the focus to some international arrangements and mechanisms, regimes, like the Nuclear Suppliers Group. We’ve established almost a regular dialogue with them. We had our first contact with the MTCR and we had a briefing by their representatives on the issues which are the focus of attention of the committee. We want to expand this cooperation and really bring together all the pieces of the programs and activities, which are quite dispersed in various organizations and institutions, into one global system for the protection and prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Step by step, we already see concrete results of this interaction and awareness of what one institution or organization is doing and what others are doing in the same area.

A very important piece of this puzzle are the activities of NGOs. On July 12, we invited several NGOs involved in various programs supporting the implementation of 1540 worldwide, such as the Stimson Center, the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre, the University of Georgia, the Monterey Center for Nonproliferation Studies, to meet with Committee. We see that there are so many activities going on in this area, but they need to be brought together, and I’m not saying under one umbrella, but at least we should be aware of who is doing what. One idea is that we might better use the committee website for sharing information on activities going on in various parts of the world organized by us, by the IGOs, or NGOs, so as not to compete with each other, not to duplicate efforts, and avoid a situation that some areas are not covered. I think this dialogue is helping us, really, to identify the ways we can better use the comparative advantages of various players involved in this exercise.

ACT: We had an article in which someone suggested that the IAEA inspectors, as well as doing safeguards inspections, might do some work in nuclear security that would come under 1540. [5] Do you think that would be a good use of this kind of cooperation?

Burian: Yes. Of course. The UN Security Council 1540 Committee does not want to step into an area which the specialized organizations like the IAEA are better equipped and have sufficient expertise to deal with. The committee also does not have a system which would enable protection of confidential information, so this is another problem. We want to better use technical and expert potential of those organizations to take care of some aspects of implementation of Resolution 1540. With better understanding of the role of the 1540 committee from the IAEA and with understanding of the potential and capacities of the IAEA, we are coming to very concrete ideas about forms of cooperation and information sharing in the areas which are important for the work and goals of the committee.

ACT: There is no one who really goes and implements physical protection of nuclear facilities and so on. There is no body that is really charged with that.

Burian: Through concrete contacts we might identify some gaps in the international systems and this might also create some kind of pressure in filling in those gaps by some new mechanisms, but I would not step into speculation on this matter.

ACT: On that note, some of the mechanisms for physical security and accounting are also borne by industry. Understanding that a Security Council resolution is focused on government responsibilities, does the committee foresee engaging in dialogue with industry and its role in carrying out the purpose of the resolution?

Burian: This was actually one of the ideas raised during our outreach activities and meetings with NGOs and donor countries. If we want to be efficient, we need to not only reach out to the governments, but also to work with private entities and the civic sector. This area should be a matter or area of responsibility of governments. We can encourage governments to pay attention to cooperation and contact with the private sector and businesses. This is also happening through the involvement of some private entities and through dialogue within the national coordination mechanisms, which is one of the ways to engage and involve the private community.

Another issue which is very important is to spread the awareness that implementation of 1540 is not creating obstacles for trade but, on the contrary, creating a better environment for trade. I will see how this might be worked into future workshops. Businesses also might be interested in this and might encourage their national parliaments to address and pay more attention to it. So really this is one of the areas for the future that the committee might want to promote.

ACT: The committee has encouraged member states to develop action plans for the implementation of the resolution, but it seems that so far that only the United States has submitted such a plan. What does the committee see as the purpose for the development of these plans and are there any efforts to encourage their submission?

Burian: Actually, we do not have a very concrete idea which countries do or do not have a national action plan or national implementation plan. We already received feedback from various countries, including some in Africa and other regions, that they have already developed national implementation plans. Ghana says that they have a plan. Some countries are in the process of developing national implementation or action plans. This is something, again, that the committee doesn’t impose but encourages as a very important planning tool. It enables a country to identify the priorities. Donors might also look how they might help in implementing those tasks that are identified in the national implementation plan.

There will be an interesting event soon in Kyrgyzstan which is connected with the national implementation of Resolution 1540. There will be a discussion regarding how to encourage and facilitate the national implementation process through the development of a national action or implementation plan. We’ll see what the concrete product of this discussion will be. We certainly see benefit if a country has this kind of systematic approach because the implementation of 1540 is a long-term process. You need to start with some basics and build on it. You cannot just jump over certain stages or certain steps. You need to build legislation, institutions, and practical enforcement measures and so on. If you do not create that basis, the whole construction will fall apart or it will not be efficient, and the resources spent simply will be wasted.

ACT: In addition to action plans, the committee has encouraged states to assign national points of contact to facilitate the dialogue. Has the committee been satisfied with that process?

Burian: The response from various countries differs. We see major benefits from the establishment of points of contact for us to communicate with if we have some questions and if we need to verify some information directly. All countries can be in almost daily contact with the committee on any issue they might require advice from the committee. Those points of contact also might be very useful for internal communication or regional communication between countries of a sub-region or a region. When we sit with representatives of governments in subregional workshops, it’s not only important that we establish the contacts and communication channels with them, but that they establish those communication channels with each other. It’s very important to have one contact for the communication with the committee, but every institution might have some contact point for dealing with their neighbors and other subjects involved in this process.

ACT: You mentioned before that the committee is now focused on the report it is going to submit next year. Under Resolution 1673, it says that the committee is going to submit a report on compliance with the implementation of the resolution. How is the committee measuring that compliance?

Burian: Now we are in a process of defining the structure of the report, what will be included, and so on. First of all, it will be a product of the group of experts and then it will be discussed and amended through the contributions and amendments of the member states, so it is a very difficult process. It’s quite difficult to say how we’ll be approaching this issue. One of the problems here is that not all the members would like to come up with some specific conclusions about particular problems. The feeling in the committee is that we should keep it general, to identify the problems in general terms. The committee will not probably go from country to country to say, “You have these kinds of problems, these kinds of gaps.” This might be reflected in the matrices which the committee is elaborating, but these matrices will not be something which will be used for blaming or shaming this or that country for not fulfilling all its obligations and requirements under 1540 but, on the contrary, to identify the problems where the country needs some additional assistance.

ACT: As you know, the resolutions were adopted under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. Do you foresee the possibility of the committee ever recommending to the Security Council that it penalize or sanction a government for not fulfilling the resolution or willfully ignoring it?

Burian: Of course, if a country violates some international obligations adopted under Chapter VII, then the Security Council should deal with the problem. But it’s not the job or the role of the committee as it’s understood among the committee members. The committee prefers a more cooperative approach in helping countries to overcome some difficulties in fulfilling the requirements of the resolution.

I agree however that the problem of compliance is quite an important political issue. Once again this is something which is addressed more efficiently on the Security Council level, not on the committee level.It is a very important decision with concrete consequences.

ACT: Some charge, as in a recent Carnegie Endowment for International Peace assessment, [6] that implementation of the resolutions has not exactly matched the urgency of the threat they’re trying to address. Would you say that you share this assessment?

Burian: As the chairman of the committee, I cannot share this assessment (laughing). But, as a national representative of Slovakia, we feel that we need to intensify the efforts to address this very urgent and dangerous threat because in case we do not pay enough attention to it, we might wake up one day and realize that it was too late. Then it really will be too late to lament that we could have done more. That’s why our national priority and national ambition is to contribute what we can to implement Resolution of 1540. We also encourage regional cooperation within the OSCE and on the global level to find efficient mechanisms which might enable addressing this threat in a more comprehensive and more vigorous manner.

ACT: Last question. You were talking earlier about how you don’t want to wake up and have a surprise. Given that it is about three years after Resolution 1540 was adopted, is the world safer now against dealing with the possibility of terrorists using unconventional weapons?

Burian: It’s a good question. One thing which we do not know is how far the terrorists have gone in acquiring access to weapons of mass destruction and related technologies and how much we have come to a situation that we are able to cope with this threat through the implementation of 1540. So this is something which is very difficult to evaluate. I would say that, without Resolution 1540, I am almost sure that based on the experience and based on concrete observations and revelations, like the Abdul Qadeer Khan illicit nuclear black market, that terrorists would already possess weapons of mass destruction at least in those areas which are quite easy to access and build, such as a dirty bomb or chemical weapons which were left in some countries unprotected, or biological substances. This is something of which we are reminded almost every day. As it was the case of involvement of a group of doctors in the United Kingdom in plotting terrorist attacks. It is a worrying phenomenon, since it is very easy to imagine that this group of doctors might use their knowledge for acquiring and misusing the substances which might cause diseases for launching biological attack on civilians. So, really, I would say, without any exaggeration that the threat of terrorists achieving the capability of producing and using weapons of mass destruction is real and the international community should be very serious in addressing this threat and doing it on a timely basis.

ACT: Thank you


 

ENDNOTES

1. Security Council Resolution 1540 originally established a two-year mandate for the committee, which expired in April 28, 2006.

2. The 1540 committee maintains a group of eight experts to support its work. The experts provide assessments of the national reports submitted by states, engage in outreach activities, and compile information on national legislation related to 1540 for the committee’s legislative database.

3. See the Web site of the 1540 Committee, found at http://disarmament2.un.org/Committee1540

4. Security Council Resolution 1373 was adopted September 28, 2001 in response to the September 11 attacks. Just as Resolution 1540 does, it requires a series of domestic legal mechanisms to be adopted to deny funding and safe haven to terrorists and establishes a committee to examine implementation.

5. See George Bunn “Enforcing International Standards: protecting Nuclear Materials from Terrorists Post-9/11,” Arms Control Today, January/February 2007, p.17. (http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2007_01-02/Bunn.asp)

6. See Monkia Heupel, “Implementing Security Council Resolution 1540: A Division of Labor Strategy,” Carnegie Papers, No. 87, June 2007. (http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/cp87_heupel_final.pdf)