“For 50 years, the Arms Control Association has educated citizens around the world to help create broad support for U.S.-led arms control and nonproliferation achievements.”
Conference on Disarmament Comes Up Empty Again
Despite urging from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and many participating governments, the 65-member Conference on Disarmament (CD) proved unable in 2008 to break its long-standing stalemate on negotiating priorities. It has been 12 years since the CD last produced an arms control agreement.
In March, this year’s conference presidents proposed a program of work for the 2008 session, but it failed to win consensus support from members even by the end of the session in September. The draft program included appointing Ambassador Sumio Tarui of
Since the UN General Assembly called for FMCT negotiations in 1993, differences over whether the talks should address existing stocks and require “effective verification” and how to define materials have stalled progress. Some see a treaty excluding existing stocks of fissile materials as useless and weak. In 1995, members of the conference had agreed to begin negotiations on an “effectively verifiable” FMCT under the Shannon mandate, which refers to a negotiating directive for the treaty brokered by
The Bush administration withdrew its support for the
In addition to FMCT negotiations, the proposed draft program of work for 2008 would have assigned coordinators to preside over less formal talks on issues of nuclear disarmament and the prevention of nuclear war, prevention of an arms race in outer space, and negative security assurances for non-nuclear-weapon states. (By providing negative security assurances, countries pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states.) The program of work would not have required that specific decisions regarding these issues be taken by the end of the conference, nor would it have prejudiced any future decisions at the conference on these issues.
Most of the countries welcomed and supported the proposal as a compromise basis for ending the stalemate in the conference. However, countries such as
Replying to Pakistan’s criticism and demand for a renewed program of work, New Zealand’s ambassador, Don Mackay, said that the program of work does not need to be perfect and states should be willing to put their positions to test without laying down any preconditions for the results of such negotiations. He claimed that the work program was not prejudicial.
Procedural reforms in the conference were also discussed.
Skorpen also expressed concern that if the conference did not resume substantial discussions, countries would go outside to other fora and methods of negotiations. The
The session also ended without any action on a draft proposal by
The 2009 CD session will be held in three periods: Jan. 19 to March 27, May 18 to July 3, and Aug. 3 to Sept. 18. The next six rotating presidents of the CD are slated to come from