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U.S.-Russian Liability Dispute Could Bode Ill for Threat Reduction Programs By Joe Fiorill Washington is refusing to renew the Nuclear Cities Initiative agreement, which expires today, because of concerns that liability language in the agreement is inadequate to protect U.S. officials or workers in case of injuries or damages arising from activities carried out under the initiative. The move follows the related expiration in July of the Plutonium Science and Technology agreement, another U.S.-Russian threat reduction measure (see GSN, July 25). NCI is a vehicle for the United States to help Russia decrease activity at nuclear weapon sites, converting some of them to other uses. The U.S. Energy Department has described the program on its Web site as “the only U.S. government program whose primary aim is to help downsize the Russian nuclear weapons complex.” Sixty-nine NCI projects will continue until completion, despite the end of the pact itself, under an agreement signed Friday in Moscow by U.S. and Russian energy officials (see GSN, Sept. 19). No new projects envisioned by the initiative will begin, though, and U.S. officials expressed concern that the liability dispute could drag on, ultimately affecting Washington’s ability to reduce the Russian proliferation threat. “It’s significant,” a U.S. official said of the liability dispute, “but you won’t see the effects in NCI. … If we don’t resolve the liability, you will begin to see the impacts at some time.” The NCI agreement and the Plutonium Science and Technology agreement, both reached in 1998, stipulate broad liability exemption for Moscow, including in cases of “premeditated” actions causing damage or injury. The United States is seeking to have a tougher approach — such as the one taken in the 1992 Cooperative Threat Reduction “umbrella agreement,” which does not protect Russia against liability for premeditated acts — accepted as a standard for threat reduction texts. The dispute is relevant not only to bilateral measures such as NCI but also to the Group of Eight’s Global Partnership for nonproliferation, an ambitious multilateral counterproliferation program launched in June of last year at a G-8 summit in Canada (see GSN, June 6). U.S. officials have said G-8 countries generally favored umbrella agreement-style liability protections when they launched the Global Partnership last year. Deeming its position to be bolstered by the G-8 agreement, Washington has been pushing for ratification this year by the Russian Duma of the CTR umbrella agreement, an event that could presage the acceptance of U.S.-sought protections as a template for liability language in threat reduction texts. A U.S. official said today that President George W. Bush’s administration expects the Duma eventually to ratify the umbrella agreement and that the NCI agreement is no longer a priority for the United States. According to another U.S. official, NCI’s demise is of relatively little significance because of Friday’s extension of ongoing projects under the initiative and the existence of various other mechanisms for advancing the same nonproliferation goals. Democratic members of Congress and nongovernmental organizations have nevertheless opposed terminating both 1998 agreements. In a statement issued in July as it became clear that the agreements would expire, Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council Executive Director Kenneth Luongo said that “allowing these agreements to expire is wrong and unnecessary at this time” and “sends a terrible signal about the importance of securing the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction on Earth as rapidly as possible.” At a PIR Center-Carnegie Endowment for International Peace nonproliferation conference over the weekend in Moscow, U.S. and Russian participants disagreed over how best to address the liability impasse. Russian Ambassador-at-large Anatoly Antonov said the United States has been unwilling to compromise, seeking simply to impose U.S.-style legal standards on the international stage. Citing the possibility of an al-Qaeda strike on a Russian nuclear facility, Antonov criticized the United States for seeking to make Russia liable for the results of premeditated acts. “Why should Russia be held liable for something somebody else did intentionally?” Antonov asked. Carnegie Endowment Senior Associate Rose Gottemoeller, a former nonproliferation official in the U.S. Energy Department, said there is “good reason to be looking at some new and innovative approaches to tackling the liability problem.” Gottemoeller added, though, that the Duma should “release the steam” that has built up over the dispute by ratifying both the CTR umbrella agreement and the Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Program for Russia, signed in May of this year by Russia, European Union countries and the United States (see GSN, May 22). A U.S. official today said the Duma has made MNEPR its priority and is unlikely to ratify the CTR umbrella agreement soon. Center for Nonproliferation Studies Washington Director Leonard Spector, a former assistant deputy administrator in the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, called for an international pooling of resources to pay any liability claims under the threat reduction agreements. Spector, who along with the Fridtjof Nansen Institute’s Douglas Brubaker has published an article in the Monterey Institute’s Nonproliferation Review supporting reform of U.S.-Russian liability arrangements, said asking Russia to accept liability is illogical, since the existence of the threat reduction agreements presupposes financial need on Moscow’s part. Both Antonov and Natalya Kalinina, an assistant to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, said that, because of stumbling blocks such as the liability dispute, the West is not making good on its Global Partnership promise of increased nonproliferation aid to Russia. “Realistically, funding has not begun for many of the projects,” Kalinina said.
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