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UN Security Council Resolution 1540: The ‘Little Engine That Could’
July/August 2024
By Thomas Wuchte
This year marks the 20th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1540, part of the global response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that transformed the international security landscape.
The adoption of Resolution 1373 some two weeks after the September 11 attacks, followed by Resolution 1540 in April 2004, established a range of unprecedented legal and operational requirements on all UN member states. This laid the foundation for international counterterrorism and nonproliferation cooperation that has expanded manyfold over the past two decades with significant tangible results.
The expansion remains a lucrative and well-resourced global priority. As one cornerstone of the post-September 11 counterterrorism architecture, Resolution 1540 is focused on preventing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from falling into the hands of nonstate actors.1 Just as there is no agreed definition for terrorism, the definition of nonstate actor has become blurred. With conflict raging in many regions, the line between ensuring effective strategic trade controls among state actors and preventing WMD-related materials from falling into the hands of nonstate actors is now in peril.
Strategic trade controls are designed to prevent dual use technology from being transferred to bad actors. Russia’s need to get the chips and military parts for its full-scale war in Ukraine and Iran’s need for supplies for its nuclear efforts and drones has destabilized the whole process. It is now more difficult to control dual-use items and determine where they end up.
Origins of Resolution 1540
The nonproliferation community jump-started Resolution 1540 by working together to ensure that it would apply universally to all UN member states. The most positive aspect of the subsequent implementation endeavor was the absence of challenges to the legitimacy of Resolution 1540 and to plans to set up the Trust Fund for Global and Regional Disarmament Activities. When the mandate for renewing the resolution came up in 2011, there was no question about whether to extend it, only about its duration and the specific guidance needed to support implementation responsibilities.
Some states, particularly those not closely involved in awareness raising in the early years, remained cautious about giving the Security Council too much leeway. They wanted to be sure that Resolution 1540 would not become a tool for enforcing compliance or naming and shaming states that perhaps lacked the capacity to fully implement its requirements, but that has never been the purpose. Advocates of the resolution repeatedly have stressed that implementation is about raising standards, not pointing fingers.
Today, work on implementing the resolution remains supported by a group of nine experts administered by the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs and under the direction of a UN Security Council entity known as the 1540 Committee, which includes the council’s five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) plus 10 others elected every two years on a rotating basis. In 2022 its charter was extended for another 10 years by a new Security Council resolution.
This committee will be almost 30 years old in 2032 and “in perpetuity” is never a useful goalpost. Should the 1540 Committee be brought to an end then, and if so, why? Much has changed since 2011, including rising global aggression, divisive populist policies, a worldwide pandemic, a growing voice from the Global South, and an increased disregard for arrangements and treaties agreed under the strategic trade control regime.2 This raises the question of how to protect the gains against the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and their means of delivery that were achieved during an era of post-September 11 goodwill.
The Appeal of Resolution 1540
Since the cataclysmic events of September 11, the resolution has helped make the world safer by reducing the chances that nuclear and other dual-use material would fall into the hands of terrorists. Toward this goal, a cadre of true believers has built awareness of international obligations under Resolution 1540 by reaching out to states and making information widely available, including at international and regional forums, workshops, meetings, and briefings. These advocates have engaged with a broadening range of international and regional organizations, whose mandates relate to the Resolution 1540 goals.
This approach has succeeded in establishing regular points of contact and useful cooperation with these organizations, which are normally closer to their members’ regional or functional needs than the Security Council. It also has facilitated assistance to states in meeting their Resolution 1540 obligations. This can include expert advice about the obligations themselves, information sharing regarding effective practices used by other countries, and acting as a clearing house to match up requests for technical assistance with offers of assistance.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the International Atomic Energy Agency are key players in implementing Resolution 1540 commitments. Yet, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) Implementation Support Unit, which has almost no staff and is woefully underrepresented in the Resolution 1540 process, oversees the potential use of the biological weapons that many experts view as most damaging in the hands of terrorists.
An often-overlooked point is that implementation is essential because the resolution establishes binding obligations for all states to prevent and deter illicit access to weapons of mass destruction and related materials. These standards benefit regions that seek to be key global economic centers for the supply of goods and services, including to and from the United States. Putting in place adequate measures that help to protect states from nonstate actors trafficking in WMD-related materials makes good business sense.3 U.S. and other global businesses are attracted to increasing trade with states that have the highest international standards. Businesses that unwittingly are used by proliferators risk economic blowback when investors lose confidence in them. The apparent absence of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of nonstate actors over the last 20 years is the best way to quantify success.4
The 1540 Committee has proven its value to the international community as a facilitator rather than an enforcer, and this approach has won the backing of many countries and international and regional organizations. For example, through Resolution 1540-related programs, states have installed radiation detection equipment at nearly all ports. It is fair to say that the resolution’s approach has achieved unparalleled recognition as an important component of the global counterterrorism and nonproliferation architecture.
The Times Are Changing
It was visionary how supporters of Resolution 1540 turned words into action and action into partnership. WMD terrorism and collective international efforts now fit into a broader UN counterterrorism framework. This partnership has grown but also changed, grown perhaps too large and not to the benefit of the Global South. When is knowledge transfer considered a success?
Those tasked with implementing Resolution 1540 are disappointed that there is resistance by Russia to any UN-drafted implementation guides.5 This reflects the long-standing argument by Russia and China that “implementation” is a member state responsibility and should not be encumbered by an expectation that states adopt best practices imposed by the 1540 Committee. Moreover, the resolution predates technology such as artificial intelligence, blockchains, and rapid biological advances. It would be beneficial if the 1540 Committee would consider extending strategic trade controls to these technologies, but the committee has been reluctant to discuss the issue.
As a result of tensions exacerbated by the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Resolution 1540 could face the same fate that the Security Council’s sanctions committee on North Korea, an analogous UN Security Council body, experienced this year.6 Russia vetoed and China abstained on a measure renewing the North Korea committee’s work. This has weakened an important sanctions-related UN responsibility.
Given the tensions, policymakers should consider promoting more attention within the Security Council about nontraditional security issues such as the climate crisis, pandemics, and poverty and their relationship to the current counterterrorism and nonproliferation framework. This would be an important step toward building a transformed international peace and security architecture. Increased attention multilaterally among UN member states would help to align national priorities of the Global South countries, for example, with these emerging challenges that are linked to terrorism but are underrepresented in international policymaking forums.
Twenty years after its adoption, the 1540 Resolution is a true “little engine that could,” a multilateral initiative that has achieved far more than its advocates ever imagined.7 Now there is a need to consider whether what is needed today is continued capacity building or a complete rethink of the approach. Given the daunting future challenges facing the world, the Security Council should go for option two, combining Resolution 1540-related capacity building with better-resourced efforts to address the emerging threat conditions that foster terrorism. This would involve retooling collective UN counterterrorism and nonproliferation efforts to be leaner and more geographically disbursed, while leaving the empowerment of the resolution to local governments and officials who best understand the nexus of hard and soft security.
There also is a strong argument for moving the UN’s Resolution 1540 efforts out of the Security Council to Geneva, where the Conference on Disarmament is located. This would bring the group of experts closer to the regions most at risk of proliferation by nonstate actors and to the functional work of the BWC, which is underserved despite its risk. Resolution 1540 will keep chugging along if these attempts at decentralization are encouraged by a right-sized nonproliferation and counterterrorism architecture.
ENDNOTES
1. Definitions for the purpose of this resolution only: Means of delivery: missiles, rockets and other unmanned systems capable of delivering nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, that are specially designed for such use. Non-State actor: individual or entity, not acting under the lawful authority of any State in conducting activities which come within the scope of this resolution. Related materials: materials, equipment and technology covered by relevant multilateral treaties and arrangements, or included on national control lists, which could be used for the design, development, production or use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their means of delivery. UN Security Council, S/RES/1540, April 28, 2004, p. 1 note.
2. Justyna Gudzowska, Eliza Lockhart, and Tom Keatinge, “Disabling the Enablers of Sanctions Circumvention,” Royal United Services Institute, May 7, 2024, https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/policy-briefs/disabling-enablers-sanctions-circumvention/.
3. Richard Cupitt, “Developing Indices to Measure Chemical Strategic Trade Security Controls,” Strategic Trade Review, Vol. 3, No. 5 (Autumn 2017): 47-70.
4. In 2004 many experts worried about the likelihood of a “dirty” nuclear bomb in the hands of terrorists—a so-called suitcase bomb. Fortunately, this has not happened. In 2024, nuclear saber-rattling supplants dirty bombs with a state actor, Russia, threatening nuclear Armageddon as the Ukraine war drags on.
5. Scott Spence, “The 1540 Nonproliferation Regime and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2663 (2022): What’s Been Achieved and What Lies Ahead,” Strategic Trade Review, Vol. 9, No. 10 (Winter/Spring 2023): 25-36.
6. Joel S. Wit and Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, “Insights From the UN Panel of Experts on North Korea,” 38North, May 14, 2024, https://www.38north.org/2024/05/insights-from-the-un-panel-of-experts-on-north-korea/.
7. Watty Piper, The Little Engine That Could, Platt & Munk, 1930, tells a story that in the United States is used to teach the value of optimism and hard work.