Nations Advocate Multilateralism as U.N. Disarmament Committee Opens

By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire

UNITED NATIONS — The annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly’s disarmament committee opened yesterday with key non-nuclear weapons states and U.N. officials defending multilateral efforts on disarmament and security despite increasing cases of nations ignoring such instruments. Many nations also said nuclear proliferation can never be halted without progress in nuclear disarmament.

The new undersecretary general for disarmament, Nobuyasu Abe, opened the committee meeting, saying, “Given the urgent concern about the imminent spread of deadly weapons, it would not suffice merely to recite the norms of prohibition. But we need urgently to explore practical ways to strengthen international peace and security through multilateral cooperation.”

“As in any system of law, the various multilateral instruments and institutions in the fields of disarmament, nonproliferation, and arms control depend upon three essential conditions,” he said. The first condition is that instruments must be accepted as legitimate, he said, and second, “there must be compliance with the most vital norms and ways to monitor it.” The third condition is that “there must be some credible means of enforcing such norms if and when they are violated,” he added.

“If any one of these conditions has not been adequately satisfied, we will continue to face difficulties in promoting multilateral cooperation and limiting the resort to unilateralism,” Abe said.

Committee chairman Ambassador Jarmo Sareva of Finland said some of the proliferation problems include more states acquiring nuclear weapons or allegations of states trying to acquire them, the development of new weapons that do not fall under any existing international regime, such as space-based weapons, and nuclear weapons states not eliminating their stocks.

These problems have “both contributed to and been exacerbated by a crisis of confidence in multilateralism and the rule of law in international relations,” he said.

While there is no single solution, said Sareva, it is “a challenge that will require many tools.”

“We must neither turn a blind eye to the very real shortcomings in some existing multilateral approaches to international peace and security, nor — be it out of frustration or out of design — cast aside longstanding multilateral norms and security frameworks simply because a tiny minority of states has chosen to flout them,” he said.

Ambassador Sergio Queiroz Duarte of Brazil, speaking for the New Agenda Coalition, said, “To attain a nuclear weapon free world, it is vital to prevent nuclear proliferation, and at the same time it is imperative to promote nuclear disarmament.”

The New Agenda Coalition is an ad hoc group of seven states — Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden — promoting steps toward nuclear disarmament, in terms of commitment made in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Duarte said the coalition was concerned that India, Pakistan and Israel remain outside of the NPT and that North Korea has announced its withdrawl from the treaty. While not criticizing the United States by name, Duarte listed several policy concerns that were clearly directed at Washington.

He said one “disturbing development” is the trend toward creating a “broader role of nuclear weapons as part of security strategies, including the rationalizations for the use and development of new types of weapons.”

The United States is scheduled to address the committee today.

Ambassador Nugroho Wisnumurti of Indonesia said he was concerned about the “declining role” of multilateralism since it is “a guarantor of legitimacy and democracy in tackling the global problems confronting us.” He was also “concerned over a new, untenable doctrine of preemption even against non-nuclear states,” Wisnumurti added.

In contrast, Ambassador Carlo Trezza of Italy, speaking for the European Union, placed much of his emphasis on nonproliferation, especially in the context of the NPT. “The EU regards the [NPT] as the cornerstone of the global nonproliferation regime and the essential foundation for the pursuit of nuclear disarmament.”

He called on India, Pakistan and Israel to adhere to the NPT, urged North Korea to “reconsider its course of action,” and said the Iranian nuclear program “remains a matter of grave concern.”

At a forum later in the day sponsored by the Middle Powers Initiative, a coalition of nongovernmental organizations, Duarte said, “The stress on just the nonproliferation aspect of the agenda tends to unbalance the agenda.” The focus on the possibility of nuclear weapons getting into the hands of other states or terrorists is “a challenge to the future, but we also have to recognize that the lack of progress and setbacks we have experienced in the field of disarmament, especially nuclear disarmament, are no less challenging,” he said.

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Russian Authorities Block Radioactive Material Sale

Russian authorities have arrested the deputy director of Atomflot, which operates and repairs Russian nuclear-powered icebreaking ships, for possessing about 2 kilograms of radioactive material, the London Guardian reported today (see GSN, June 18).

Alexander Tyuliakov was arrested after he attempted to sell undercover police a suitcase containing the material, which is believed to have included a small amount of uranium 235, according to the Guardian.  It is still unknown if Tyuliakov obtained the material from Atomflot or through contacts in the Russian nuclear industry (Nick Walsh, London Guardian, Oct. 1).

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U.S. Energy Department Seeks Authority to Reclassify Nuclear Waste

The U.S. Energy Department is seeking permission from Congress to redefine some stockpiles of nuclear waste as low-level waste to allow it to be left in place or be sent to low-level material storage sites, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Aug. 15).

Energy officials have said they previously believed they had discretion in classifying nuclear waste as either high-level or low-level material.  A federal judge in Idaho ruled in July, however, that the department’s plan for treating waste there violated laws requiring that high-level waste be buried underground.  The department is currently building an underground repository for high-level waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

In August, the Energy Department asked congressional leaders for the authority to decide what constituted nuclear waste, according to the Times.  Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee spokeswoman Marnie Funk said yesterday that the committee’s Republican majority would not approve the department’s language.

Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the top Democrat on the committee, said that “if the DOE has the authority to change the classification of the waste at will, that pretty much undercuts any congressional control of the issue” (Matthew Wald, New York Times, Oct. 1).

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