John Duncan

Faith, Foreign Policy and Disarmament (Guest Blog)

This article is written by Francis Campbell, UK Ambassador to the Holy See.

Yesterday in the Foreign Office saw the first consultation meeting with faith groups interested in disarmament.  Sixteen delegates attended representing all the major faith groups.  We split the discussion into two parts: the first on the Arms Trade Treaty and the second on the Non Proliferation Treaty.  We wrapped up the meeting with a contribution from FCO Minister Ivan Lewis.

This was the first time we had undertaken such a consultation with faith groups on the subject of disarmament. Why a consultation with faith groups?  We want to replicate the success of working with faith groups on the Cluster Munitions Treaty which was signed last year. 

At the preparatory conferences, in particular at Wellington, the Holy See played a very active role in getting a practical workable agreement and in bridging divides to allow us to get a binding Treaty banning cluster munitions.  We see a similar role for faith groups in working towards an Arms Trade Treaty.  In engaging faith groups in the discussion we see three aspects.  There is the moral dimension that faith groups bring to the work of the Arms Trade Treaty. 

As history shows, faith groups are often at the forefront of righting wrongs and in providing the impetus for change.  Then there are the global grassroots networks which allow faith groups to communicate easily across cultures, languages and nations.  In Catholic terms alone, the Holy See speaks directly to 17.5% of the world’s population.  Finally, as faith groups engage each other in inter-religious dialogue there is scope to concentrate on ethical dialogue where there is a strong shared moral foundation.  Perhaps one of those ethical issues could be the international efforts to bring transparency to the sale and transfer of conventional weapons and to stamp out the illicit sales of such weapons through a binding international Arms Trade Treaty.

 
Yesterday we were simply testing the water to see if there was interest among faith groups in having such a conversation with the FCO on the Arms Trade Treaty and the Non Proliferation Treaty.  There was – and we agreed to continue with the group as we move forward on the ambitious timetable to achieve an Arms Trade Treaty.  But there was also interest from the group in having a wider discussion with the FCO on other foreign policy considerations.  The Minister agreed to look into that request and revert.

But yesterday was also important for reasons beyond what we had on our agenda. It was also symbolic of a new approach in foreign policy.  I have spoken on faith and foreign policy before and why religion was often ignored in foreign policy considerations for much of the post Second World War period. A 2007 report from the Washington based Centre for Strategic and International Studies catalogued the reasons why religion was often ignored in foreign policy and diplomacy and why it deserved to be taken seriously.  A former US Secretary of State – Madeline Albright – made a similar case in her book ‘The Mighty and the Almighty’. 

Much of the marginalisation of religion from foreign policy considerations was based on an assumption that the world was secularising and religion was of decreasing interest across the world (such an assumption was not confined to diplomacy alone). But there was a significant mistake in such a calculation because the secularisation model really only explained the pattern in Europe and some other parts of the Western world.  It did not capture the United States or the rest of the world where societies were as religious as ever or in some cases more so.  There was no proven universally applicable law of modernisation leading to secularisation. This point is more fully expanded in a speech I gave on ‘God in a Secular World’, but the basic point is that religion is an influence in world affairs and as such needs to be taken seriously.

Today, much has changed vis a vis faith and foreign policy.  We can point to strong working relations with faith groups on climate change, international development, conflict resolution and prevention, inter-religious dialogue, migration, human rights, etc.  If we can replicate the success of working with faith groups on the Jubilee Debt Campaign, Make Poverty History and the Cluster Munitions Treaty, by achieving an Arms Trade Treaty – then we can show again that faith matters in foreign policy and that it is a real asset when trying to solve many of the world’s problems.  Yesterday was a good start.

Posted at 15:08 22 October 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[1]

Why Does UK Industry Support an Arms Trade Treaty?

This article is written by Brinley Salzman of the UK Defence Manufacturers Association. The views expressed here are the DMA’s and do not necessarily represent the views of the British Government.

An initiative that genuinely seeks to establish a global benchmark in export control compliance is to be welcomed and supported. Industry has an important role to play at this vitally important time in the development of the ATT. Defence Industry is already heavily regulated, but that regulation is not universal in scope or effect. This uneven landscape provides one of the key arguments deployed in support of an ATT.

What arms should an ATT control? It must not be limited in scope compared to the range of military systems that might be relevant to the purpose of any ATT and that many countries have already control. An ATT must not exacerbate the problem of an uneven regulatory landscape. A balance must be struck between comprehensiveness and regulatory burden.

How should arms be controlled? Responsible industry recognises that defence exports are at the heart of the foreign and security policy interests of any State. A Treaty would require states to consider their existing obligations under international law; but many nations appear to have differing views on how those obligations should be interpreted and brought to bear on export licensing decisions.
 
It is recognised that Governments have the moral and practical responsibility to implement controls responsibly, fairly and transparently. But how could this be brought together into a coherent package in a community of vastly different interests?

Industry has an important role to play. The moral arguments for an ATT, that underpin human security, social and economic development, are not incompatible with good business practice. Corporate responsibility is a fundamental part of good business strategy. Ethical and responsible business gives competitive commercial advantage.

The concept of a ‘level playing field’ is important during global economic crisis. Pressure on Industry and Governments is growing. Driven, at least in part, by smaller slices of the cake being available to high-value manufacturers, this pressure presents the increased risk of some suppliers entering or revisiting markets that, until recently, would have been considered off limits. This would be a highly undesirable outcome.

The global supply chain supports many thousands of skilled jobs in many parts of the world. Defence Industry is, therefore, a catalyst for high-value manufacturing growth in developed and developing economies. Openness in the world trade system is essential for successful growth, but that trade must be carried out both responsibly and securely. A Treaty that clearly establishes the highest common standards and transparency of implementation can go a long way toward achieving this.

Final exports of defence materiel must be licensed, but the bureaucracy attached to the international movement of components in the supply chain must be reduced. There are countries where we would welcome the opportunity to place work for reasons both of cost and of the availability of skilled people; our ability to do so is limited at present. An ATT must give Governments confidence to trust the extension of the supply chain and reduce bureaucracy.

The potential, long-term benefits of a Treaty to regulate the trade in conventional arms extends beyond Defence Industry: spin-off benefits of good governance, transparency and stability feed into inward investment, supply-chain security and economic growth that allow for poverty reduction and respect for human rights.

There are many arguments in favour of an ATT, but a broader horizon is required, based on the way we characterise an ATT. It should not be viewed through the optic of a traditional disarmament or arms control instrument. It is a new way for the international community to address the inter-relationships between conflict, poverty, development, human rights and trade. All sectors, health, education, agriculture should be engaged in this debate and appreciate the opportunities for growth and security.

Posted at 16:42 16 July 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

MOSCOW: A FOLLOW ON TO START

There has been a wide welcome amongst governments and also by the think tank community for the announcement of a’ Joint understanding’ by Presidents Obama and Medvedev earlier this week to reduce their nuclear arsenals to below 1,700 warheads each and their commitment to co-operate more closely on non-proliferation.

With the existing START Treaty due to expire in December this year, the priority has been to get something in place before then. A tall order given the slow pace of Arms Control and Disarmament diplomacy for much of the past decade. And the fact that the US and Russian negotiating teams have been hard at work in Geneva over the past weeks involving some of their best diplomats. This week’s announcement should therefore be seen as a step in a longer process. The US’s still has to complete its own Nuclear Posture Review. These are issues go to the heart of the nation state’s responsibilities – to protect and safeguard its citizens. This is not an area for “gesture politics”. More a time to start putting the substance into the bold vision that both presidents articulated in London and Prague earlier this year.

But we can see that Russia and the US are well on track, reflecting the increasing willingness of the nuclear weapons states to co-operate on nuclear issues and in particular on disarmament. This will be particularly important as we approach the NPT Review Conference next spring.

For our part, the UK has been working hard to strengthen the consensus across all pillars of the NPT. As Gordon Brown commented in his Lancaster House speech and again in the Building Britain’s future paper , we have to confront interconnected challenges of our global society, where the nuclear question is a central issue that plays into many, if not all of them

Posted at 11:41 08 July 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 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]

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]

2009 BRINK OR CUSP

The end of the year was a time to reflect and look forward. To ask whether those of us striving to achieve a “Better World for a Better Britain” in arms control and disarmament  will continue to make progress in 2009, or will the situation  in the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, the DRC and the Global Financial crisis combine to frustrate our efforts?

Sometimes conflict can create a renewed momentum in arms control. The war in the Lebanon in 2006 led almost directly to the new treaty banning Cluster Munitions signed last month in Oslo.

But bloggers are already speculating whether Israel has used Cluster munitions in Gaza. Such rumours will continue to circulate until the world’s media are allowed inside the conflict zone. This illustrates one of the major challenges for those of us trying to establish the new international laws for the 21^st century – you can’t simply legislate for security, put another way “Saying It, don’t necessarily make It so”.

Increasingly treaties need to reflect that all those who sign up have something to gain. The core task of a diplomatic negotiator is to try to understand why people will agree with what we want to do and what will prevent them doing so; then one tries to reinforce the support and address the concerns.

The “something to gain” can be many and varied. The Kimberly Process or “Blood Diamonds” recognised that we can also reduce conflicts and the irresponsible weapons proliferation that fuels them by focussing on the underlying economics. But linking economic self interest to arms control is still not widely accepted. The US State Department website on the Arms Trade Treaty, does not explain that major companies in the arms industry increasingly support an ATT that establishes high international standards. Understanding the economic dimension is key to understanding how and why an ATT will work.

For the next few weeks, while we are certainly not sitting on our hands, the arms control community are in a holding pattern as we wait for the new Administration to take office across the Atlantic. We really don’t know how the new Administration views the arms control issues that confront us – does “Yes we can” extend to tackling both the scourge of conventional weapons proliferation and getting to grips with the problems of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Regime? 

 For over a year now there has been an increasing groundswell of support from senior opinion formers in America on the issue of nuclear weapons (See the 2020 Vision link) But as many others have pointed out and the public witness on their TV screens, the weapons of mass destruction that kill thousands of people across the world every day are conventional weapons. We will need to take action on both issues in 2009.

Posted at 10:58 08 January 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[1]

CLUSTER MUNITIONS: Close But No Cigar

Something of a roller coaster of a week with the discussions in Geneva veering wildly between total collapse in the evening only to bounce back with renewed hope the next morning. In one way this is encouraging as it means that the majority of countries simply refuse to be put off in trying to find a solution, but it is a rather exhausting process and progress is slow. 

The countries who cannot yet join the rest of us in banning cluster munitions usually have large stocks of dumb cluster munitions and believe that it would be too expensive and too risky for their own national defence to give up these weapons. One can understand this. But some of these countries often seem  to fail to understand is that the international community is simply not prepared to accept that people should be allowed to continue to sell dumb cluster munitions, or send them to new areas of conflict. Nor is the international community willing to accept a repeat of what happened in the Lebanon in 2006.

Finding the compromise is still proving elusive.  Despite some very hard work behind the scenes over recent weeks by the US, the French and ourselves, the discussions in the  GGE are essentially stalled. However, we still have until the end of the main CCW meeting next week to find a solution, or agree to continue work next year.  

Posted at 10:37 07 November 2008 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

Week 3 at the UN: Over 100 Countries join the Arms Trade Treaty Team

Many thanks to all who have commented on my last entry. The last ten days have been pretty manic in New York as we finalised the draft resolution to take forward the ATT. Then my team joined diplomats from our core group (Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan, Kenya) to spread out amongst the other delegations to seek their support. We were joined by diplomats from countries including Indonesia, Nigeria, Jamaica, Trinidad, France, Portugal. This what David Miliband calls the Global Hub - the UK working with a range of different countries who share the same vision.

Meanwhile the NGO’s are amazingly active with intense lobbying, including of me,  to do more, go further faster, compromise less. They wait outside the committee room ready to pounce on unwary diplomats. You can follow some of what they have been doing on the Control Arms Website (link on the sidebar).

On Tuesday Argentina formally tabled the draft resolution on behalf of our core group. On Wednesday I presented the UK’s vision in a formal statement to the UN 1^st Committee. I am fairly forthright. Diplomacy is not always about being tactful. Sometimes you have to tell it like it is.

By the end of the week, over 100 countries agree to “Co-Sponsor” the resolution. This means they agree with us that we need an ATT. Our work over the coming days is to reach out to these countries who still have doubts, both here in New York, but also through British Embassies overseas to persuade them to join us. 

Posted at 23:05 24 October 2008 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

Introducing my team

Welcome, I am John Duncan the UK's ambassador for Arms Control and Disarmament. Welcome to my blog I would like to begin by introducing you to some of my team who will coming from Geneva to spend the next four weeks with me in New York negotiating the resolutions of the UN General Assembly on Arms Control and Disarmament .....

Posted at 14:42 03 October 2008 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

Welcome

Welcome to our new Blog. As the UK's roving ambassador for Arms Control and Disarmament I have been running a blog diary for the past 18 months, so it is good to be on-line with a more interactive version. I look forward to comments and views as we show you what the work of a multilateral mission involves.

The Arms Control and Disarmament team is very different from most UK overseas missions. The core team is based in Geneva at the Conference on Disarmament. The Geneva team are the hub to 10 Virtual Teams drawn from across government, civil society and academia who come together to carry out the actual negotiation that is at the heart of our work.

Making a Better World for a Better Britain is more than just a strapline for us. It actually describes what we do since our job is to negotiate the international agreements in Arms Control and Disarmament that we hope will make the world a safer place. Many of the major treaties in this area were negotiated here in Geneva; from the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty going as far back as the Geneva Conventions, which protect civilians and POWs in time of war.

Of course negotiating treaties may seem a particularly dry and legalistic area of work with hours spent discussing texts and the meaning of words. But all diplomacy is fundamentally about people and relationships. Time and again we see that our ability to build compromises and to secure deals is based on personal understanding and trust between the negotiators. Having a good argument is rarely enough to win the day.

But perhaps more important is the effect our work has on people's lives. I think few people would question that the agreement to ban Cluster Munitions in Dublin last May will have a real world benefit to ordinary people caught up in war and conflict.

Over the next 4 weeks my Geneva team will be in New York for the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly. We will be joined there by members of our Virtual Teams as the UN membership reviews the political landscape of Arms Control and Disarmament - everything from Nuclear weapons to landmines and depleted uranium. Some 60 resolutions will be put forward urging action and proposing solutions. I hope you will join us on this journey. It is a busy time for all the team, but we hope to give you a glimpse of what our work involves and will do our best to answer your questions. The links on the side bar will tell you more about the issues and our main webpage gives background and information on what we do.

Posted at 13:53 30 September 2008 by John Duncan  |  Comments[5]