John Duncan

A MOMENTOUS WEEK IN ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT

Gordon Brown described this week’s unanimous endorsement of UNSCR 1877 on Non Proliferation  and Disarmament  as a “Watershed Moment” . Yesterday events took a more ominous turn with the further revelations about Iran’s nuclear programme.

The week did in many ways provided a snapshot for the wider public of the damage done by the “Decade of Deadlock” in Multilateral Arms Control and Disarmament and the challenges we face over the next  8 months on the road to the Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.

It was certainly inspiring to see world leaders speak directly, often without notes to these important issues in The Security Council. The current fifteen members of the Security Council represent a broad span of world opinion. Their individual views on nuclear weapons are quite divergent and yet they were able to agree on an historic resolution setting out the action that needs to take place for us all to move along the path towards a world where the threat of nuclear attack is removed and where nuclear power can be used safely as part of the solution to the challenges of climate change. The sort of Coalition of Consent that David Miliband has talked about.

What a contrast with the UN General Assembly the day before where some speakers simply trotted out the tired old mantras about where the blame lay for the worlds ills and sought to reject the vision of an interconnected and interdependent world and the need for collective endeavour.

Col Gaddafi’s public views do a disservice to the leading role that other Arab countries are playing in this field, for example it was Algeria that led the way to an agreement to unblock the Conference in Disarmament earlier this year.

But more worrying than the misplaced rhetoric, is that at time when the five established Nuclear Weapons States publicly reaffirmed in the UN Security Council Resolution their commitment to progressively dismantle their nuclear armouries, others (not Libya it has to be said) seem determined to disrupt, if not overtly block, progress towards a world free of nuclear weapons and the safe development of civil nuclear power. Nor can it escape anyone’s notice, that the two countries who are at the centre stage in blocking progress, are themselves armed with nuclear weapons, or suspected of seeking to acquire them.

Extreme views, be they in the domestic or international environment, are rarely defeated by posturing from the moral high ground. The mainstream have to speak up, engage and work together as they did this week in the Security Council.

The coming weeks will show whether we are able to do so, as the international community grapples with how to respond to the latest Iranian revelations and as the UN General Assembly’s First Committee (meeting from 5 Oct-4 Nov) considers the broad spectrum of the Arms Control and Disarmament agenda.

Further links on the UK position and to follow the debate are below.

FCO Webpage on the Road to 2010 Nuclear Disarmament  & Non Proliferation

Posted at 11:13 26 September 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]