John Duncan

RETURN TO THE ARMS TRADE TREATY (ATT)

Tomorrow I will be back in London to join 150 students from schools and universities across Britain for a workshop on the Arms Trade Treaty organised jointly with the NGO alliance Control Arms who have been lobbying for an ATT for more than a decade. Bill Rammell until recently an FCO minister, now at the MOD will join us for part of the day.

The event is part of Control Arms week of action on the ATT (15- 19 June) and promises to be a refreshing change from the diplomatic trench warfare of multilateral arms control and disarmament. Fortunately young people are generally not concerned with rules of procedure, agenda’s and mandates. They want the world to be a better place. Their impatience and clear vision is a healthy reminder to the professionals that it really is high time we moved beyond the decade of deadlock to a decade of decisions.

Most of my blog posts over the past two months have focussed on the nuclear weapons proliferation, in part because the DPRK tests and concerns about Iran have dominated the media headlines, but also because we have at long last begun to make progress in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty and on a new treaty to ban the production of Fissile Material for nuclear weapons.

Kofi Annan once remarked, that in terms of people killed and injured every day, conventional weapons are the worst Weapons of Mass Destruction.  So as someone whose job bridges both nuclear and conventional weapons proliferation, I am acutely aware that one of the key elements of making progress towards a World Free of Nuclear Weapons is to stop the uncontrolled proliferation of conventional weapons.

Next month discussions will reconvene at the United Nations in New York on a future Arms Trade Treaty to establish a legally binding framework for the effective regulation of the international arms trade. Grace Mutandwa has blogged on the impact of the current absence of such regulation in her own country. Other Foreign Office colleagues will provide their own perspectives in the coming days. Readers can also follow the event on Twitter .

Posted at 08:43 14 June 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[3]

A WORLD FREE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS: A DECISIVE MONTH

May 2009 saw the first steps to break the “Decade of Stalemate” in the International Organisations responsible for Nuclear Disarmament and Non Proliferation.  On Friday the Conference on Disarmament, after a 12 year stalemate, agreed to begin negotiating a new treaty to ban the production of radioactive material for nuclear weapons. The CD is the only international forum where all the countries with nuclear weapons sit together to decide on Arms Control and Disarmament.

My Blog of 16 May reported the breakthrough in the New York meetings of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) again after more than a decade.

But this month also saw North Korea (also a CD member) test a nuclear weapon and missile delivery systems; definitely a step backwards on the road to a World Free of Nuclear Weapons.

Are the two directly related? Probably not; although the Korean test certainly underlined the damage done by more than 10 years of interminable wrangling over procedure in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and in the NPT.

Building a new global coalition as described by David Miliband and getting decision makers (and opinion formers) to appreciate the extent of global interdependence that Gordon Brown has talked about has been a long haul in Arms Control and Disarmament.

Success in Geneva this week under Algeria’s chairmanship was the result of a such an (informal) coalition. Countries as varied as Poland and South Africa, Mexico and Nigeria, Ireland and Indonesia; all willing to speak up, determined to make progress and refusing to be put off by the many obstacles. The UK has been part of that coalition sometimes to people’s surprise. But David Miliband has been talking about “The Global Hub” for some time now.

No progress would be possible without the political vision of both the current and past generation of world leaders over the past 3 years. We will continue to need that political momentum over the next 12 months as we prepare for the 2010 NPT Review Conference.

Have we broken the mould? Well clearly not. There is real concern about nuclear proliferation. More widely several generations of decision-makers and opinion-formers have based their professional careers on concepts such as the East West or North South divide and the interplay of 20th Century power politics defined by enemies and allies. Recent events only serve to reinforce such views. If military alliances will remain part of our uncertain world for some time to come, this way of viewing the world has to evolve. Today’s Britain as an avowedly multicultural society should recognise that more than most.

Links to media comment on the CD decision are on delicious. Dominic Asquiths blog on reaction to David Miliband’s speech.

Posted at 10:01 31 May 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[7]

DPRK NUCLEAR TEST

The DPRK nuclear and missile tests have been widely condemned but also throw into sharp relief why we need to get the international Arms Control and Disarmament community back to work after a Decade of Deadlock.  Followers of the FCO and Reuters Blogs and Twitter will know the long and tortuous road we have been following to try and achieve this.

Procedural wrangling in the Conference on Disarmament and in the meetings of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and reluctance to deal with the DPRK’s claim to have withdrawn from its treaty obligations means that the Security Council is the only international institution able to act on behalf of the world community.  

Both David Miliband in his speech last week and The Prime Minister in his Lancaster House speech in March underlined the need for broader coalitions, for a recognition of the importance of common purpose and common action in our shared global society.  Nuclear fallout as Chernobyl showed 23 years ago does not respect national boundaries. As Bloomberg reported this morning the economic effects of the DPRK test were felt almost immediately in the regions economies.

Meetings in New York and Geneva over the past two weeks give some grounds for hope that such broader coalitions are indeed emerging, but this weekend’s events serve as a reminder that a new  “Decade of Decisions” in this area of foreign policy is long overdue.

Posted at 21:15 25 May 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[1]

NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION: NEW YORK MEETING CONCLUDES

Making the Best the enemy of the Good is a trap that multilateral diplomacy often fails to avoid. But we also have to prevent that easy slide to the lowest common denominator. This is the balance we have been struggling with in New York this week.

Those of you who have been following the discussions on TWITTER and Flickr will have seen that it was something of a roller coaster ride.

At the end of last week we had already broken open the 15 year deadlock where the Preparatory meetings had failed to agree the Agenda for the five yearly Review Conference. Suddenly with next year's Agenda agreed the way was open to get into a discussion of policy.

In the end we were not able to agree the chairman’s draft policy recommendations. This was a very ambitious thing to attempt to do in just 5 days. No-one has ever managed it before and we very nearly pulled it off. With such high stakes it is hardly surprising some of the discussions became quite heated. People often confuse diplomacy with tact, which is just one way of persuading people. When time is short and the issue important, theatre is just as much an element. The skill lies in knowing which approach to deploy, with whom and when This brings me back to my oft repeat theme in these blogs – diplomacy is about trying to understand other people. Finding out what will encourage them to agree with you and what will prevent them.  Having a well reasoned argument rarely works on its own

 So has it been a worthwhile 2 weeks? Definitely yes. We are out of the foothills of endless procedural wrangling and into the open grassland of the real debate. We have 12 months in which to deepen discussion of what really matters - how to elaborate a shared vision of the steps needed to achieve a World Free of Nuclear Weapons.

Posted at 01:36 16 May 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[2]

NUCLEAR NON PROLIFERATION TREATY: APPROACHING THE ENDGAME

After the success of last week’s discussion the last 3 days have been spent on what this meeting will recommend to the major NPT Review Conference next year. We are in uncharted water here. No previous preparatory meeting has ever managed to agree policy recommendations. Over the past two years delegations rather seemed to lose their way once we moved beyond prepared statements and arguments over procedure.

On Friday the chairman tabled a bold proposal which tried to draw together the views contained in a huge number of past statements and proposals. The list of documents alone runs to 17 pages! Over the weekend and during the week delegations have been meeting in small groups behind closed doors trying to decide on the changes they want . We had one formal session where a number of nations gave general comments. Our Statement will be on our Geneva website shortly.

I always find this stage of any negotiation the most trying. It is difficult to get a sense of the feeling in the room since there are few formal meetings. Other delegations are closeted away in a wide variety of different groupings and alliances and not easy to contact. The stop/start nature of the day is wearing. Rumours abound. The constant question in our mind is “How much do others really want success” and “Will the chairman be able to accurately judge where the compromise lies?”

Tonight we received a revised text based on the chairman’s private contacts with a wide number of delegations including our own. He seems to have listened well and it is a serious rewrite. But now we have to study the whole thing afresh to see whether our points are included and what the new text actually means.

Regular updates are on twitter and pictures of the average day on Flickr

Posted at 03:51 14 May 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

ARMS TRADE TREATY: WORK CONTINUES

Guest Blogger - Jesse Clarke, Assistant Legal Adviser, Foreign & Commonwealth Office

This week I gave a presentation on the Arms Trade Treaty to a group of UK academics who specialise in international law.  

The presentation took place as part of the FCO Legal Advisers' Annual Academic Seminar and provided an opportunity to report on recent progress made towards an Arms Trade Treaty.  Of particular interest to the audience was the idea that an Arms Trade Treaty would seek to establish strong and universal standards against which states could assess arms transfers.  

Many of these standards are anchored in international law and reflect states' existing obligations, commitments or responsibilities under international law (e.g. regarding UN sanctions, human rights, humanitarian law and sustainable development).

From the lawyers’ perspective, an ATT is a modest but significant project.  Modest because it does not seek to redefine existing international law, and yet significant because it would require states to consider arms transfers through the prism of international law as it exists today.  The presentation ended with a useful discussion.  It is fair to say that the academics are supportive of an ATT and see it as a very positive development. 

They asked some probing questions about state responsibility for arms transfers, the likely scope of an ATT, and our engagement with the US and the Commonwealth, but  I am confident that the exchange of ideas between government lawyers and academics will assist the effort to negotiate a strong ATT that is fit for purpose.

As John has commented on Twitter, picking up a War Child post On the Congo: “1,400 people died needlessly today. And yesterday. And they will tomorrow”. So the humanitarian case for an ATT is being measured in human lives. The UN Secretary General has said several times that while we must deal with the threat posed by Nuclear Weapons proliferation, Conventional Weapons and their uncontrolled proliferation are currently the most destructive Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Posted at 01:12 12 May 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[2]

NUCLEAR NON PROLIFERATION TREATY NEW YORK DAY 3

A day of surprises. Has the “Decade of Deadlock” finally ended? After 15 years when the final Preparatory Committee, currently meeting in New York, has completely failed to agree the Agenda for the major Review Conference, this morning we actually did it.

Quite remarkable. Of course to anyone outside the community of Disarmament  diplomats this may seem quite a bizarre thing to get exited about. But the agenda sets out in some detail what the 5 yearly Review Conference next year is going to focus on. The fact that the last Review Conference in 2005 failed is largely due to the inability of  nations to agree what they wanted to discuss.

This year both the Nuclear Weapon States (UK, US, Russia, France and China) and the Non Nuclear Weapons states (everyone else in the NPT Regime) simply said enough is enough and refused to allow those who wanted to use procedural tricks to prevent discussion from blocking the way forward. US leadership is part of this, but one nation cannot carry the day alone. It takes those on the centre ground to rally around to defeat those on the extreme wings.

Now of course the serious work begins.

Posted at 03:57 07 May 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[3]

NUCLEAR NON PROLIFERATION TREATY, NEW YORK DAY 3

A day of surprises. Has the “Decade of Deadlock” finally ended? After 15 years when the final Preparatory Committee, currently meeting in New York, has completely failed to agree the Agenda for the major Review Conference, this morning we actually did it.

Quite remarkable. Of course to anyone outside the community of Disarmament  diplomats this may seem quite a bizarre thing to get exited about. But the agenda sets out in some detail what the 5 yearly Review Conference next year is going to focus on. The fact that the last Review Conference in 2005 failed is largely due to the inability of  nations to agree what they wanted to discuss.

This year both the Nuclear Weapon States (UK, US, Russia, France and China) and the Non Nuclear Weapons states (everyone else in the NPT Regime) simply said enough is enough and refused to allow those who wanted to use procedural tricks to prevent discussion from blocking the way forward. US leadership is part of this, but one nation cannot carry the day alone. It takes those on the centre ground to rally around to defeat those on the extreme wings.

Now of course the serious work begins.

Posted at 03:56 07 May 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

NUCLEAR NON PROLIFERATION TREATY, NEW YORK: DAY 2

Day 2 and  President Obama sends a personal message to the meeting. Civil Society have a special session to address the meeting. Unfortunately I am tied up in bilateral meetings all afternoon, but reading the transcripts their input is noticeably more focussed than in recent meetings and members of my team report on the number of younger people speaking on behalf of various NGOs. This is a very positive move. As Gordon Brown commented in his Lancaster House speech nuclear war is not something that just concerns our generation.

General Statements will continue tomorrow. Are we reaching the point where as George Robinson once remarked (about a NATO meeting) “ I think everything has been said on this subject, but not everyone has said it yet!”

We will be up late to try and ensure that when we get to the afternoon discussion on Nuclear  Disarmament we are not simply talking at the other delegations and repeating the same tired old formulas.

Surprisingly we seem to be making some progress on the procedural issues that while excruciatingly boring have managed to tie the NPT into knots on several occasions in the past – nearly two weeks to agree the agenda at our meeting in Vienna 2 years ago. The diplomatic equivalent of water torture and completely incomprehensible to the ordinary mortal.

Posted at 03:50 06 May 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[1]

NUCLEAR NON PROLIFERATION TREATY MEETINGS IN NEW YORK: DAY 1

A reasonable start to the NPT PrepCom in New York. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon set the tone in his opening address in which he said that “The global economic crisis, climate change and the outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus are all reminders that we live in an interdependent world. We cannot afford to place disarmament and non-proliferation on a backburner”.

Most nations opening statement’s followed a similar measured and constructive tone although there was a little too much jargon and reiteration of tired old formula’s. As one senior diplomat commented to me “The last ten years have been the decade of Mantras” Africa’s voice and their tendency for straight talking was a refreshing break from some of this.

Egypt, true to form was vocal and forthright. Unfortunately in the afternoon Iran embarked on a lengthy attack on the US, UK, and France making a number of wild allegations they know perfectly well to be incorrect, as does everyone else in the room. The media was predicting worse, but still a shame to see a great nation indulging in this sort of polemics, which we then have to rebut.

I have been posting on Twitter throughout the day for those who are so inclined (also on the ATT page sidebar) and will blog as we move through the week.

Posted at 03:54 05 May 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[7]

ENGAGING CIVIL SOCIETY

I was back in London this week for meetings with UK Industry on the Arms Trade Treaty and with NGO’s and academics to discuss the next Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty meeting in New York in ten days time.Two quite different perspectives.

The UK as one of the world’s major arms manufactures has a real economic interest in making sure that the ATT project comes out the right way.  Industry has several times voiced their support for agreed international standards that the ATT would provide. The patchwork of sometimes  conflicting regulations that currently exist across the world simply makes it harder for them to do business without effectively preventing the irresponsible trade. Taking industry’s advice on how best to tackle this problem is a crucial part of our work.

My meeting with a broad range of  NGO’s, think tanks and opinion formers to discuss the nuclear issue is also a way to inform our decision making. The depth of technical expertise and experience of the issue is always impressive. While they often express dissatisfaction that the government is not going far or fast enough, it is a constructive dialogue and no bad thing for officials to be challenged to defend what we are doing.

Posted at 17:33 25 April 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

OVERCOMING NUCLEAR DANGER

Have just spent a fascinating 24 hours in Rome in the company of President Gorbachev, Secretary Shultz, Senators Nunn and Perry plus other political giants from my early career, discussing how to get to a World Free Of Nuclear Weapons.

Regular readers will know that these former political leaders have been leading a major campaign to re-energise the Nuclear Disarmament debate. Des Browne, the former UK Defence Secretary who gave last year’s major speech on this issue in Geneva (See earlier blogs) represented the British perspective.

The meeting hosted by Italy as the G8 Presidency, was organised by NTI a major US think tank. It was an extraordinary and inspiring experience. The underlying theme from these politicians who oversaw the end of the Cold War was that their work remained unfinished and that the world had seemed to lose its way in recent years. Recent statements by Gordon Brown and Barack Obama , the UK Paper on Lifting the Nuclear Shadow and the Joint US/Russian statement in London showed the tide had perhaps now turned.

My Russian colleague, Anatoly Antonov and I were among the serving diplomats present. We explained how important this campaign had been for those of us “at the negotiating coal face”. We now needed to turn their ideas into reality in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meetings. The next one being in New York in 3 weeks time.  We warned that the challenges ahead were as serious as the issues themselves. We have to overcome not only a decade of despondency, but the negative impact of events Iran and North Korea. Trust and optimism are qualities in short supply in the disarmament community.

So a week that began for me in Geneva with the deadlocked talks on Cluster Munitions in the CCW finished on a high note. These men and women helped us emerge from a dark period of world history when the risk of nuclear conflict was ever present. We can learn much from their example.

Posted at 14:51 17 April 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[1]

ARMS TRADE TREATY: SOMALIA

After a week when France and America have taken decisive military action against the Somali Pirates I am again struck by the urgent need to deal with the strategic agenda of weapons proliferation. Otherwise we will have to continually repeat the operational one. Hilary Clinton has rightly said when the house is burning the first thing to do is to put out the fire. Very true, but until we establish much better international regulation of the arms trade, weapons will continue to flow into conflict areas into the hands of terrorists, insurgents and criminals and we will keep having to put out the fires.

Not only that but the risk to our law enforcement and intervention forces is becoming greater as those they have to deal with are increasingly better armed. Greater risk means greater cost. So yes we do need to deal with the fire, and decisive action is welcome, but we also need to start building the firebreaks. Many of the new faces in the US team have a solid background in conflict prevention and consequently recognise the strength of this argument.

Posted at 06:31 16 April 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[2]

THE ARMS TRADE: LAW AND ECONOMICS

Stuck in Washington after the ASIL conference (see last post) before calls next week, and with the G20 dominating the news set me thinking about one of the questions the sceptics often ask – Why do we need a new treaty surely we just need nations to act more responsibly?

Well its true a new treaty is not going to solve the problems by itself – you can’t simply legislate for responsible behaviour. We can’t even manage that domestically.

Most countries have laws against speeding and despite all the law enforcement of  national police and courts, people still break the law. Why would we imagine that a new law would work at the international level where we don’t have anything comparable in terms of law enforcement.

Ah! say the sceptics then you admit the ATT won’t work.

No, It will work because the ATT is a more complex idea than that. It started out as an effort to tackle Human Rights and Humanitarian issues. And those are still at its heart and important reasons for taking action.

But there are perfectly good economic reasons for nations to behave responsibly. In one sense the ATT is the mechanism to allow us to focus those economic drivers.

Development: huge amounts of aid money have been spent dealing with the effects of our failure to properly regulate the arms trade. We simply can’t continue in the current financial climate to see our efforts to make progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals undermined like this. We are going to have to regulate the arms trade much better than we have.

Industrial co-operation: many of the major arms suppliers restructured into global companies over a decade ago. The current patchwork of controls is clearly not working. Worse because the there are no common international standards it has prevented industrial cooperation and inward investment. Putting the arms trade onto a sound regulatory footing would increase confidence and gradually allow greater cooperation where the sanction for “irresponsible” behaviour would be that companies would be unwilling to co-operate, or trade with those who do not meet the international standard.

In his speech to Britain’s ambassadors last week David Miliband said that“ Economic risk needs to be addressed by a political bargain” this is very much the heart of what an ATT process entails; understanding the link between politics and economics, achieving a synergy between the moral and the self interested approach. As we have seen with the Kimberly Process, or Blood Diamonds, it is quite possible to use economic interest to produce a result that meets a moral imperative.

Posted at 01:12 30 March 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[5]

MARCH IS CONFERENCE MONTH

The G20 summit notwithstanding this month has been fulltime “Power-Point and Lights” on my side. The range of subjects and perspectives on what we do has been fascinating.

Today I am London for the Foreign Office Leadership Conference, a chance to catch up with colleagues across the world and see how we can better work together. The event started with an awards ceremony, a celebration of the creativity and enthusiasm of our teams (rather than simply the ambassadors) in finding new ways to meet the challenges of modern diplomacy.

David Miliband talked to us about the strategic turning point that the financial crisis will mean for foreign policy. Bernard Kouchner  talked to us about the “Entente Formidable” but made some quite pointed comments about how Britain sees the world compared to our continental neighbours. This morning we held a meeting of FCO bloggers and the wider blogging community. Time was really too short, but I see that our fellow bloggers are already out onto the net with comment. You can aslo watch the clips from the meeting at this link.

I fly to Washington tomorrow to take part in  a panel on the Arms Trade Treaty at the American Society of International Law annual meeting. A complete shift of focus and that has been the theme for the month, which began with a speech to the Peoples Development Summit where I was talking to Business Schools and trainers about the crossover between modern Human Resources and diplomatic negotiations. All too often we tend think that our own work requires a special expertise and skills and yet when we start talking to people in other disciplines we realize how much we can learn from each other.

Even the weekends have not been free as The Monterrey Institute from California every March brings together a number of the ambassadors who represent their countries in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meetings, for a discussion in private  with NGO’s and Think Tanks. A very frank behind the scenes exchange.  Sometimes uncomfortable but never dull these gloves off meetings often lead to new ideas of how we might find a way through to an agreement.

Some  might well ask what is the point of  such “talk shops”. Well of course no great decisions get taken, but Diplomacy is still fundamentally about people. By bringing them together to talk through their differences, to exchange ideas, and have their assumptions challenged we begin to prepare the way for some of the very difficult public debates and decisions that need to be taken in the months ahead.

Posted at 00:04 26 March 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[2]