NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY
2004 NPT Preparatory Committee Meeting
New York, 26 April - 7 May 2004
Business as Usual and No Progress Made
BASIC Report on the first week of the 2004 Preparatory
Committee for the 2005 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons
The first few days of the conference were taken up
with the opening statements by many of the nations and with one
afternoon devoted to the Non Governmental Organisations (NGO) presentations
to the conference. By Wednesday afternoon the conference had moved
on to the 'Clusters' whereby different areas relating to the Treaty
are discussed in groups. Normally these are closed sessions and
NGOs are denied access both to the sessions and to the papers submitted.
NGOs have argued the case for some years that these sessions should
be open to scrutiny by 'civil society' and this year, after some
discussions between delegates and NGOs, and with the intervention
by South Africa, the 'Clusters' were opened to the NGO community
on Friday.
The opening statements had common themes of congratulating the
chair Mr Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat from Indonesia as well as welcoming
Cuba and Timor Leste as new member to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT). Thus bringing the total number of states to 189, with
only Israel, India and Pakistan outside the Treaty. The case of
North Korea's declaration that it is withdrawing from the Treaty
is still in dispute. Many states also welcomed Libya's renunciation
of weapons of mass destruction.
Compliance with Treaty obligations
Many nations used their opening remarks to restate the principles
of the Treaty. The most common phrase was that used by Ireland,
on behalf of the EU, that the NPT was the "cornerstone of the global
non-proliferation regime". Most states stressed the three elements
of the treaty obligations of nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation
and the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Mexico on behalf of the
New Agenda coalition reminded the conference that, "The achievement
of nuclear disarmament is not an option, but a legal obligation
established in the NPT. Equally, the indefinite extension of the
Treaty in 1995 did not equate to indefinite ownership of nuclear
weapons."
Indeed Algeria stated, "Nuclear Disarmament is the sole way to
preserve humanity from annihilation." And Archbishop Migliore for
the Holy Sea voiced many states' concerns that the nuclear weapons
states (NWS) were failing to honour their obligations under Article
VI asking that the NWS "should be pressed to reveal under what security
conditions and assurances they could eliminate their nuclear arsenals."
Under Secretary of State, John Bolton, speaking for the US, appeared
to have a different interpretation of the Treaty from the majority
of delegates when he stated that, "The central bargain of the NPT
is that if non-nuclear weapons states renounce the pursuit of nuclear
weapons, they may gain assistance in developing civilian nuclear
power." Mr Bolton's concluded the US statement with, "After all,
the Treaty can only be as strong as our will to insist that states
comply with it."
Many nations welcomed the Moscow treaty but expressed concern that
it is neither irreversible nor verifiable and called for transparency
in nuclear weapons reductions.
Universality
There were repeated calls for India and Pakistan to accede to the
NPT, and to place all their nuclear facilities under the comprehensive
safeguards of the IAEA. This was an issue that was hotly debated
in a lunchtime session hosted by Physicians for Social Responsibility.
All agreed that India, Pakistan and also Israel needed to be brought
under effective control of the IAEA and the NPT but with proposals
that it should be in a separate agreement accepting them as NWS
disputed. It was argued that this effectively would increase the
NWS parties to the NPT to eight and therefore would be unacceptable
to the non-NWS.
Nuclear Weapon Free Zones (NWFZ)
Many nations called for implementation of the 1995 NPT resolution
on implementing a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in the Middle East.
This was taken up by Iran who reminded the conference that it was
Iran who first raised this idea and said that, with the exception
of Israel, the countries in the Middle East had spared no effort
in trying to make this come true through adherence to the NPT. Iran,
in calling for the NPT Review Conference of 2005 to address this,
said, "So long as the countries of this region face the Israeli
nuclear threat, backed by a blanket endorsement of a single nuclear
power, the issue must be addressed by the strengthened review process
of the NPT."
On a happier note the existing NWFZs created by the treaties of
Ttatelolco, Rarotonga, Bankok and Pelindaba were celebrated with
the hope that the ongoing consultations for a South East Asian NWFZ
and for a Central Asian NWFZ would bear fruit soon.
Iran
Iran was congratulated on signing the additional protocols to the
IAEA safeguards by many nations but all expressed concern about
Iran's nuclear programme, as expressed by Ireland for the EU, "-welcomes
the commitments which Iran has made in the context of this investigation
(by the IAEA) ----- At the same time, the EU notes with great concern
that a number of questions remain unanswered."
The US took this further accusing Iran of lying and of continuing
to develop a nuclear weapons programme. They alleged that there
was evidence of Iran's non-compliance as early as June of last year,
implying that the IAEA was failing in its duty, "The IAEA Board
will at some point, however, need to fulfil its responsibility under
the IAEA Statute to report the safeguards failures found in Iran
to the Security Council."
Iran refuted this stating, "Today, we are happy that over a year
of robust verification by the IAEA inspectors has shown no indication
of diversion and we are confident that this process will attest
the peaceful nature of our nuclear program." They also took the
opportunity to remind the nuclear states of their obligations to
disarm and to draw attention to Articles I, II, III and IV of the
Treaty covering the rights of nations to develop, research, produce
and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Terrorism
There was much discussion of terrorism and of ways to strengthen
surveillance and control of exports of sensitive materials, particularly
to non-state actors. Ireland on behalf of the EU gave a commitment
to, "-focus on strengthening export control policies and practices,
within the EU and beyond, in co-ordination with partners." The UK
was promoting expanding the work of the Proliferation Security Initiative
(PSI) and the UN Security Council Resolution on ways to enforce
domestic laws to criminalize proliferation. The PSI has gained the
support of over sixty countries and the UK expressed its hope that
eventually it would involve all countries with "the will and capacity
to co-operate."
Cuba raised concerns that the UN Security Council resolution was
aimed at horizontal proliferation and not vertical proliferation.
Ambassador Gual reflected the concerns of the NGO community when
he raised the point that the adoption of the text of this resolution
could, "easily facilitate its use by some power as a pre-authorization
or justification for the unilateral and abusive use of force against
some specific States, resulting from alleged suspicions of proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction or their components." He went on
to say, "Currently the draft resolution is ambiguous enough so that
some states may proclaim that with its adoption, the so-called Proliferation
Security Initiative would be legitimised, created nearly one year
ago by a group of States, without UN mandate or any other broadly
accepted multilateral treaty."
NGO Presentations
The Tuesday afternoon of the first week was dedicated to 'Civil
Society' presentations. Representatives of the NGO community presented
a series of papers addressing issues such as vertical and horizontal
proliferation, the Middle East, the Security Council resolution
and PSI as well as terrorism and the failure by the nuclear weapons
states to implement the 'Thirteen Point Plan' from the conclusion
of 2000 Review conference. The Mayors for Peace programme was represented
by different mayors from around the world and the Citizens Weapons
Inspectors report from all NATO nuclear sites as well as nuclear
sites in the US and UK was highlighted.
US New Developments
There much disquiet expressed about the US new developments in
nuclear weapons. Ambassador Faessler of Switzerland in his opening
speech stated, "Switzerland regrets the decision by the United States'
Congress to abrogate the 1993 law blocking the allocation of scientific
research funds in the area of low-yield nuclear weapons test sites."
China's opening statement took this even further, in the context
of threats to international security, when Ambassador Xiaodi said,
"In this situation, such moves as adopting pre-emptive strike strategy,
explicitly listing other states as targets and development of new
types of easy-to-use nuclear weapons, and shortening the time of
preparation for nuclear tests not only run counter to international
trend, but also do harm to international non-proliferation efforts,
which is in the interests of no state."
The US record of compliance on Article VI paper refuted any allegations
saying, "The United States is not developing any new nuclear weapon,
and the President has not directed the Department of Defense or
Department of Energy to undertake such action. The study of new
weapons designs that will be possible under current Congressional
funding for advanced concepts will be entirely conceptual."
However in a separate paper the US stated that there was nothing
in the NPT that prohibits the US from carrying out nuclear weapons
research, developing or fielding new or modified nuclear warheads.
The paper defended the repeal of the 1993 Prohibition on Low-Yield
Warhead Development (PLYWD) by stating that this "is not blurring
the line between the use of conventional and nuclear weapons, making
nuclear use more likely" because, since the 1950's, "the US nuclear
stockpile has contained warheads capable of producing very low nuclear
yields".
Ways Forward - Security Assurances
There were many papers from states proposing the way forward for
the Review Conference of 2005. The New Agenda Coalition put forward
forty-four recommendations, many of which re-iterated the Thirteen
Point Plan of 2000. Many states concentrated on Security Assurances
and reminded delegates that the 2000 Review conference called for
the PrepCom to make recommendations on "legally binding security
assurances by the five nuclear-weapon-states" to the 2005 conference.
However the UK, in particular, spoke out against such codified assurances
stating that, in the context of NWFZ, "We believe that these commitments
already give Non-Nuclear Weapons States the assurances they seek."
The only nuclear weapon state to agree on this was China.
The UK also spoke out strongly against the proposal by Canada for
the replacement of the "Preparatory Committees with Annual General
conferences of States Parties to consider and decide on any issues
covered by the Treaty." The UK disagreed and warned against "tinkering
with core elements of the Treaty." Canada also reiterated the call
for regular reporting as called for in the Thirteen Point Plan.
More states had put forward reports this year, but still only nine.
One other area of contention for the PrepCom was calls for a subsidiary
body on nuclear disarmament at the 2005 Review Conference being
promoted by the New Agenda Coalition and the Non Aligned Movement,
as well as South Africa. This is an area likely to be contested
by the NWS.
Conclusion
In a separate Forum, held by the Middle Powers Initiative, seven
proposals to strengthen the NPT were put forward by Tariq Raul of
the IAEA. Mr Raul went on to say, "Similarly we must abandon the
traditional approach of defining security in terms of boundaries
- city walls, border patrols, racial and religious groupings. The
global community has become irreversibly interdependent, with the
constant movement of people, ideas, goods and resources. In such
a world, we must combat terrorism with a security culture that transcends
national and political borders - an inclusive approach to security
based on solidarity and the value of human life. In such a world,
nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction would have no place."
He concluded his statement by repeating the challenge laid down
by IAEA Director General Dr. ElBaradei - that, in all of human history,
no civilisation has ever voluntarily laid down its most powerful
weapons: it remains to be seen whether ours can be the first.
It is to be hoped that this PrepCom has laid the foundation for
a successful NPT Review conference in 2005 where the nuclear weapon
states begin to live up to Mr ElBaradei's challenge.
Carol Naughton, BASIC consultant, 6 May 2004.
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